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Preserving madness
Mark Norris/Houston Public Media One of the many joys of the NCAA tournament is that it can be savored as two distinct events. There is of course the desire to see the strongest teams with the best...
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Reduce the number of timeouts
Anyone with the effrontery to suggest improvements for Division I men’s college basketball in 2024 should begin with the welcome elephant in the room. The game is flourishing. Arguably it’s never been...
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This is the golden age of shot volume
Scoring efficiency is up significantly in Division I men’s hoops in 2024 even as shooting accuracy remains more or less the same as it was last year. Teams are simply attempting more shots. Giving...
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Bid thieves and March vocabulary
In 2021 Georgetown was a bid thief’s bid thief. (Georgetown Athletics) Every March we’re awash in college basketball terms where bottom-up usage has filled a vacuum or triumphed over official top-down...
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Why “selection”?
The first selection committee: Ned Irish, pictured in 1943. (Associated Press) I said this: It is extraordinary that in 2024 we still do this with a committee.https://t.co/elOQdVlxO5— John Gasaway...
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The best games of tournament offense “ever”
Historically great tournament offense has a rich tradition stretching from 2003 to last Sunday. (AP/Mary Altaffer) This past weekend in the round of 32, teams kept putting up ridiculously good numbers...
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Sudden death and narratives
(Greg Fiume/Getty) We tell ourselves NCAA tournament stories in order to love. March Madness is a treasure, surprises always occur, and each turn of events demands immediate explanation. We all have...
View ArticlePerformance against seed expectations
One measurement of performance in the NCAA tournament is wins above or below what every other team with the same seed has done. The difference between expected wins and your actual victories is...
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Leaderboard for modern tournament wins
Tyler Schank/NCAA Photos via Getty The men’s NCAA tournament field expanded to 64 teams in 1985 only after years of opposition. Then Villanova upset Georgetown in an iconic final and pretty much...
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Basketball’s most important factor feels eclipsed
Brynn Anderson/AP During the men’s national championship game this week, TBS showed a graphic stating that UConn was shooting 48 percent and Purdue was connecting at a 46 percent rate. I winced as I...
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