FBCB: Zeroed Out/All 1 Prestige Conferences/All Auto-Bids except Independents (2024)

Izulde

Join Date: Sep 2004

My pick, Middle Tennessee gets upset in the first round. 14 seed Valpo and 11 seed San Francisco also provide upsets. It's now looking like Maryland-Eastern Shore's cakewalk to the Final Four.

Second round sees Maryland-Eastern Shore advance, Indiana continue its Cinderella run by surprising 5 seed Southern Illinois, Oklahoma ensuring a chalk Elite 1-2 is still in play, and San Francisco manhandling Valpo in an all-Cinderella game.

Big school bias as 13 seed Indiana throws out Maryland-Eastern Shore and 11 seed San Francisco (the only actual Western team in the West region) ejects 2 seed Oklahoma. Our only shot at chalk is pissed away. Disgusting.

First season, first 16 over 1 as Creighton goes down at the hands of the Lobos. Didn't see that coming at all. Only five players total scored double-digits, and three of them were Blue Jays! Weird game. UAB's offense disappears in a 43-53 loss, and my only pick to advance was Akron. Michigan State lost to to Texas, which I figured. Boston College is the only other upset other than 16/1, the 11 seed stunning Wyoming.

A degree of order was restored as South Alabama sent New Mexico home and will face Akron. Hofstra upsets Texas A&M, while Illinois restores the state's pride by advancing to the Sweet 16. Somewhere between a 3 and 8 seed will represent the region and go in as sizable underdogs most likely.

Akron and Illinois restore geographical purity and ensure a Midwestern team will represent the Midwest, as well as an actual damn single digit seed.

16 seed Quinnipiac takes down top seed James Madison, which doesn't shock me. What does is Richmond losing by 10 points to 14 seed Montana State. Not pulling off the upset: UNC-Charlotte.

The South continues to prove my point about weakest region: 8 seed Northern Iowa, 5 seed Hawaii, 7 seed Kennesaw State, and 14 seed Montana State make up the regional semi-finals, as the Owls barely beat back the 2 seed Hurricanes 57-55, and the Bobcats are just going buck wild in besting 6 seed Northeastern.

Hawaii you're our only hope as the Rainbow Warriors advance to face the 14 seed Bobcats after Montana State massacres those lone remaining Owls in another upset win.

Lafayette upsets Boston University by 20 (not a surprise to be honest), and Austin Peay continues their hot streak in their own upsetl. And of course George Mason is knocked out by 15 seed UNC-Asheville. At least my called Elon upset came in, and Pennsylvania's squash of Florida A&M was as expected.

Remember how I said Pennsylvania was a dangerous matchup? They stun everyone but me in knocking out tournament favorite Temple 58-50. Lafayette leapfrogs Austin Peay in their All-Cinderella matchup, 15 seed UNC-Asheville shocks Elon and me, while 3 seed Georgia Tech ends the country's best-scoring offense in sending out Savannah State.

Did Graham Sims start coaching Lafayette early? Because the 13 seed Leopards just stunned Pennsylvania, while 15 seed UNC-Asheville guarantees at least two double-digit teams in the Final Four in taking the sting out of the Yellow Jackets.

Final Four
West: San Francisco (11)
Midwest: Akron (4)
South: Hawaii (5)
East: Lafayette (13)

Honestly, the best result the committee could have hoped for. Montana State lost by just 2 points to the Rainbow Warriors.

It's Hawaii vs San Francisco and Akron vs Lafayette. A Best Coast team is going to be in the championship, while the committee is praying for an Akron/Hawaii championship.

They get it, and neither game was all that much in doubt.

Championship Game

You look at the Rainbow Warriors' roster and you're just like, "...How did the team make it this far?" Frankly, a lot of luck. Upsets galore happening along the way Sure they won their conference on tiebreakers but the Big West was awful. The next-highest RPI to Hawaii's (#1 somehow) was 70th, and only one other team in the conference had an RPI in the Top 100.

Digging deeper into the data:

#16 AKRON ZIPS TEAM INFOCurrent Performance--------------------------------------------------------------------------------Team Prestige: 0 Record Vs 1-50: 7-0 Poll Rank: #16 Season Record: 29-10 Record Vs 51-100: 5-3 RPI Rank: #2 Conference Record: 11-5 Record Vs 101-200: 7-5 Home Record: 7-5 Record Vs 200+: 10-2 Team Stats CR NR Opp. Stats CR NR Margin CR NR --------------------------------------------------------------------------------Points 64.4 1 2 Points 57.7 11 297 Points 6.7 1 8 O.Reb 7.5 9 306 O.Reb 11.5 12 334 O.Reb -4.0 12 342 D.Reb 21.9 2 91 D.Reb 19.8 3 59 D.Reb 2.1 1 36 Rebounds 29.4 7 215 Rebounds 31.3 8 247 Rebounds -1.9 8 245 Assists 14.8 1 1 Assists 9.9 8 272 Assists 4.9 1 1 Steals 4.6 4 94 Steals 4.0 4 104 Steals 0.6 4 71 Blocks 1.8 3 66 Blocks 1.4 5 128 Blocks 0.4 2 60 Turnovers 11.1 1 13 Turnovers 13.2 4 83 Turnovers -2.1 1 19 Fouls 20.2 10 248 Fouls 19.5 7 174 Fouls 0.7 9 228 FG% .500 1 1 FG% .415 3 96 FG% .085 1 1 FT% .727 2 13 FT% .649 1 57 FT% .078 1 6 3P% .268 7 138 3P% .264 6 173 3P% .004 7 146 PPS 1.35 1 7 PPS 1.19 3 119 PPS .154 1 10 Adj. FG% .516 1 1 Adj. FG% .443 2 115 Adj. FG% .073 1 3 

HAWAII RAINBOW WAHINE TEAM INFOCurrent Performance--------------------------------------------------------------------------------Team Prestige: 0 Record Vs 1-50: 5-2 Poll Rank: NR Season Record: 25-10 Record Vs 51-100: 6-3 RPI Rank: #1 Conference Record: 13-5 Record Vs 101-200: 8-3 Home Record: 15-1 Record Vs 200+: 6-2 Team Stats CR NR Opp. Stats CR NR Margin CR NR --------------------------------------------------------------------------------Points 56.8 3 78 Points 53.2 5 112 Points 3.6 1 45 O.Reb 8.4 8 239 O.Reb 8.2 3 84 O.Reb 0.2 5 153 D.Reb 22.3 4 65 D.Reb 20.2 1 85 D.Reb 2.0 1 39 Rebounds 30.7 7 129 Rebounds 28.5 1 74 Rebounds 2.2 3 75 Assists 9.7 5 119 Assists 9.6 5 214 Assists 0.1 6 152 Steals 4.1 7 204 Steals 4.1 3 117 Steals 0.0 4 168 Blocks 1.3 8 199 Blocks 1.7 5 264 Blocks -0.3 7 266 Turnovers 12.6 5 169 Turnovers 13.1 4 101 Turnovers -0.5 4 137 Fouls 19.9 6 225 Fouls 20.9 2 32 Fouls -1.0 2 81 FG% .448 1 25 FG% .413 5 77 FG% .035 2 25 FT% .691 2 79 FT% .654 2 79 FT% .037 2 55 3P% .235 5 236 3P% .261 8 150 3P% -.026 5 212 PPS 1.30 1 21 PPS 1.19 5 114 PPS .111 2 34 Adj. FG% .463 1 82 Adj. FG% .441 6 101 Adj. FG% .022 3 76 

Yeah, there's just no reasonable way Hawaii should even be here. Of course that means they'll probably win by like 20 or something stupid like that.

Akron wins 62-61 to claim the first championship! Hawaii's junior C Jarvis Okelley should have won PotG (10 points, 11 rebounds, 5 assists, and a steal), but they award it to Akron's redshirt freshman reserve Jerry Lodge who only had 7 points, 6 rebounds, and a steal. Makes absolutely no sense unless it's a clutch plays factor.

On to Year 2.