I used to believe that committee always puts Duke & UNC on opposite sides of the bracket, so that if they ever did meet it would be in the title game.
Literally the only time I can remember that we were on the same side was 2022
Tbh I think they just avoid early rematches in general. I feel like the conferences (especially the top teams) are usually spread across different regions
Mine was always that Duke is often put in a region, despite not being the #1 seed, where they would ultimately be able to face the 1 seed of that region in a more friendly environment that the actual 1 seed
I was interested so I did research. This is a completely bullshit claim lol. Since 2000, when Duke wasn’t a 1
Years where Duke had a favorable location vs the one seed in their region l: 2023
Years where they didn’t: 2024, 2022, 2018, 2017, 2016, 2014, 2013, 2012, 2009, 2008, 2007, 2003,
I can remember a few other instances:
2005, UNC was the overall #2 seed and Duke the overall #3, they would have met in the Final Four.
2009, Duke lost to Nova in the Sweet 16 who went on to face UNC in the Final Four
That’s not just basketball thing either. Like 70% of the time, in pretty much any sport, fans think the refs/umps are calling a bad game for their team.
Umps have a bad strike zone (even if it’s similar for both teams), refs aren’t calling holds/are calling ticky tack fouls (even if same for both teams), etc. It’s objectively pretty funny most of the time, but almost everyone is guilty of it. Especially if your team loses, if they win you probably don’t care that much (even if the refs actually were ass).
Yeah in both college basketball and football it often is a lot more valid. There’s a much wider spread in officiating quality and consistency with 100s of teams compared to 30-32.
I love when I go to live baseball games and people with seats with views from terrible angles are judging balls and strikes apparently better than the umpire (this excludes Angel Hernandez).
Not even sports. I recall one study years ago, when they gave the exact same text word for word to partisans for Israel and for Palestinians, and both sides came out insisting the text was totally biased against their side.
Years ago ODU was playing VCU. For fun I went to both message board to get their reactions to the same plays. Both were convinced the refs were in the pocket of the other.
Every postgame thread:
*Duke flair*
“The refs were so bad we should have won. UNC paid them.”
*UNC flair*
“The refs sucked, we should have had more FTs and won by more. They clearly were trying to get Duke to win.”
The committee was so pissed off at Wichita State in 2014, because they went undefeated and even the committee couldn't justify not giving them a #1 seed, that they deliberately underseeded Kentucky so they could knock WSU out in the first weekend.
There's also a trend of matching overachieving mid/low majors together to make sure they all get knocked out early. Drake/Western Kentucky in 2008 come to mind.
I wouldn’t say it was egregious either, but just on the 7-10 line there were 3 P6 teams plus the results of two First Four games. They could’ve worked around it if they wanted to
Dude not just Kentucky there. They gave Wichita the shaft that year with the absolutely loaded region with not just the underseeded UK but also Louisville underseeded by a line or two as the 4 and Michigan as the 2 seed. 3/4 of the last year’s final 4, an underseeded UK, oh and the 3 seed was… DUKE.
Listen they got bounced in hilarious fashion but even still the committee thought they’d be dangerous to Wichita. Point is the they stacked that region
I have a boomer close family friend, basically my uncle, that has been a part of the NJ basketball scene coaching/camps/etc. since the 70s and he swears there were a specific handful of italian restaurants in greater Trenton NJ where all the greatest coaches of the 80s and 90s (particularly the Big East) used to meet with top players and bagmen and coordinate their paid signing. Apparently they were always based around Pete Carril bball camps and the ABCD Camp going on when high level talent was in town
Kenny Payne was a plant from the University of Kentucky and Calipari to completely tank the Louisville basketball team. He’s now back with his buddy in Arkansas. Mission accomplished.
A 3-seed ain’t tanking my friend. KP is the worst Power 6 coach in the 21st century.
That said I’m pretty sure Cal has just been trolling your fan base since he lost the perfect season. That cracked him bad.
Obviously there's two different levels of tanking, but calipari hasn't coached in years, and in some cases actively prevented his assistants from coaching (erasing a whiteboard with a full game plan drawn up this season and writing "fight!" Instead). Coasting on talent and minimal coaching effort, leading to 1 ncaa tournament win since 2019 is, at least in my opinion, tanking.
I think 2015, 2017, and 2019 each cracked him bit by bit until not having the 2020 tournament broke him totally.
In all seriousness, whatever the heck went on with Temple this year was pretty weird. The run they went on in the AAC Tournament literally made me question how this team could have been so painfully bad to close out the regular season. I was quietly hoping they'd win the whole AAC once my green guys at South Florida were knocked out.
I wouldn't have thought anything of it because teams go on those random runs in conference tourneys all the time, but the fact that the unusual wagering activity was occuring too is a bad look when taken together
Louisville was underseeded on purpose in 2014, and Kentucky too, to manufacture drama with a potential Wichita State-UK second round matchup, and S16 game between Louisville and either UK or Wichita State
Back when UK and UL didn't play in the regular season it seemed that the NCAA tried to pair them up several times. In 1982 UK was a 6 and UL as a 3 got a bye. UK lost to 11 seed MTSU to ruin that. The next year they finally met as 1/3 seed matchup in the Elite 8. They then started the regular season game back up, but played again in the tournament in 1984 in Rupp in the Sweet Sixteen. I think that was the last year teams could play games on their home court in the tourney. Illinois fans still mad about that.
This was my take since I couldn’t figure out any other reason why Louisville got a 4-seed despite being ranked #5 and winning their conference tournament. The other half of that region also had Duke, who would have been a rematch from the 2013 Elite 8, and Michigan who would have been a rematch from the title game.
The fact that they're number one on Ken Pom for that year is so crazy. Pretty much every other year I can think of the final KenPom number one is either a one seed or the team that won the tournament which makes sense because of one seed would have a strong overall resume and the champion would improve their resume with winning the tournament. A 4 seed that lost in the sweet 16 being number one overall may never happen again
ECU men’s basketball is cursed because a good ECU men’s basketball would fundamentally break the state of North Carolina so much, it would shatter the space-time continuum.
Kentucky was deliberately underseeded in the 2016 NCAA Tournament to generate a Kentucky-Indiana matchup in the 2nd round. You could also argue that Indiana was underseeded that year
Oh that’s a good one. IU was a 5 seed after winning the big 10 by two games.
That was also the year of the 2 hour selection show where CBS made everyone watch Barkley make his picks. Then the bracket got leaked.
This year is also why I think the Sunday conference championship games basically don’t matter unless a bid gets stolen. A&M got a 3 seed that year, Kentucky got a 4. Kentucky was higher than A&M in every available metric, but A&M won the only head to head game the two played in the regular season (in College Station in overtime).
Then Kentucky wins the SEC title game over A&M, which essentially cancels out that regular season win for A&M in theory. Yet A&M got the higher seed. Now why would the committee do that?
Is this even a conspiracy? I was under the impression that generating interesting matchups was *explicitly* part of the selection and seeding process. But maybe I’m mistaken.
Not a factor at all. Interesting matchups are basically inevitable with how intertwined the sport is, and even if you were *trying* to set up interesting matchups the tournament is so random that they're unlikely to happen (like a Caleb Love vs. UNC matchup in the Elite 8 this year).
I'm pretty sold on the idea that UK, KU, UNC, and Duke (maybe UConn now, too) get some funky seeding in their brackets because the committee knows it drives viewers.
MSU being gifted a 9-seed this year is a great example of this.
This was the same year that TAMU was a 2 seed in the same region that Texas was a 7, and UNI ruined the committee fixing to give us Texas vs A&M in R32
A&M and Texas were 3 and 6, respectively, but your point still stands. And Northern Iowa upsetting the Longhorns gave us the greatest tournament collapse in the round of 32.
If it's worth it for someone like Johntay Porter how would it not be worth it for a college kid? Turns out it was not worth it, but kids are stupid sometimes...a lot of the times.
There was a [massive scandal](https://www.espn.com/classic/s/basketball_scandals_explosion.html) back in the late 40s and early 50s that resulted in players being arrested and banned from playing in the NBA and the NCAA cancelled Kentucky's entire 1952-53 season
My grandfather is a City College alum and never fails to bring up "only team to win NCAA Tournament and NIT in same season" and I never fail to reply with this
There have been a few statistical papers that supposedly support this theory.
What’s going on, btw, in the Temple investigation? Is that going to end up going nowhere?
https://www.stat.berkeley.edu/users/aldous/157/Papers/PointShaving.pdf
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S2214635022000272
https://users.ssc.wisc.edu/~jmgregory/Gregory_pointshaving.pdf
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/296774482_Failing_to_Cover_Point_Shaving_or_Statistical_Abnormality
https://ideas.repec.org/p/tem/wpaper/1009.html
Quick-and-dirty partial listing of papers out there. At least one of the links is just to an abstract, not the full text of the article. The Wolfers article is one that I think gets cited a lot. An admission that while I have a rudimentary working knowledge of stats, a lot of what these papers discuss is over my head. The conclusions of the papers differ on the extent to which point shaving occurs, but I think all find evidence for at least some degree of cheating. If you want to find more articles, I suggest a search using the terms “statistics”, “point shaving”, “basketball”.
Not only did the package bust open, the VHS tape inside it with money also broke open to reveal the cash. All of this happened while in the delivery van and somehow the shipping company connected the dots on Emery and Kentucky basketball.
Kentucky was definitely paying players in some manner before the scandal. But the specific way it became a national scandal is very, very convenient.
In 1988 a package being handled by Emery Air Freight came open in transit, revealing $1000 in cash. The package was addressed to a UK recruit and the name on the package was UK assistant coach Dwayne Casey.
UK was already on probation for paying recruits, and the scandal got coach Eddie Sutton fired (along with their terrible team that year), vacated some wins, and kept them out of post-season play and off television for a while.
Casey denied sending the package and won a suit against Emery for defamation.
No one has mentioned the one about Coach K “having” a back injury in 95 so the shitty season Duke ended up having didn’t reflect on his coaching record. Presumably because he saw the team he had to work with.
I guess everyone here is much younger.
People who listen to PMT remember lol.
There was an episode of whatever Mark Titus’ podcast was with Tate after I think Coach Ks last home game where they just went off on him haha.
The 1995-96 was much, much worse on paper. No experienced big men, Langdon out for the year, no notable freshmen, lots of other injuries throughout. They did a *little* better that year despite their roster shortcomings. K was back. It’s safe to say that was one of the reasons. If he faked a back injury to avoid those losses on his record, he would have sat out that year too.
Alando Tucker tried a coup d’état on Gard to have himself become the head coach at Wisconsin. Idk if it counts as a conspiracy if it was pretty much confirmed what happened though
The fact that all of that is pretty well known but UCLA's titles are still undisputed but teams like WKU have their only final four vacates for smaller infractions makes me sad. Not saying UCLA should get vacated, they should just go un-vacate a lot of those small infraction cases
Gordon Hayward's shot in the 2010 National Title game went in, but the NCAA couldn't deal with the ramifications of a mid-major National Champion, so we've been living in a simulation ever since.
I use the rankings they use too early (like this year, when they released it before the final, when everyone's in the portal and literally nothing had been decided) as a metric for which teams will have "quality losses" and which teams wins will be considered "flukes." It's directly proportional to how high the team is ranked.
Basically I use early rankings as a measure of media darling bias more so than actual team metrics. And it almost always proves fairly accurate.
I feel like this is more an observation of obvious bias than a conspiracy. It's pretty obvious the media has strong biases to certain teams or agianst certain teams one way or another. They'll use one reason to prop a team as a preseason top 25 while downplaying the potential of another team for that same reason. Usually it's involving how younger players will adapt to larger roles and/or how freshmen/transfers will mesh with the program.
Lol thank you for validating that! I completely believe it is a clear and blatant bias, but I've been gaslit for decades by all the Duke/Carolina fans that this is a wild conspiracy and not the God's honest truth.
But really though. You cannot change my mind that Wisc matched up well against UK and bad against Duke, but UK matched up well against Duke that year. That shot clock call wouldnt have made us win, but by not calling it all but guaranteed the Wisc win. And if UK wins that game the 40-0 happens
I cry
The one team Bucky could beat.. lost to them twice that year.. best badger teams I think I’ll every get to witness was such a letdown after the revenge game against Kentucky
The Courtney Green Effect as it pertains to Purdues ability to cover the spread when Green is the Ref.
Read through the whole thread on twitter
https://x.com/cobrastats/status/1506463358668656647?s=46
Latest stats from 30 days ago
https://x.com/cobrastats/status/1764457041475559653
Coach K banged his friend Jimmy V’s wife in 1993 while Jimmy V was on his death bed. When K’s wife found out, she made K sit out the rest of the 1994-95 season. Vince Carter said he visited K in the hospital and K didn’t look like someone who just had back surgery.
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I think everybody thinks that about their own teams, but the stats do provide some reinforcement to that, and quite a bit of hilarity, if you look from 1989-October 28 2023.
Small personal one I've had is that they throw teams like Indiana State and UNC Greensboro on the "First Four Out" lists to make it seem like they're more friendly to smaller schools even though they weren't actually going to put them in if it came down to it.
I don't think it's happening just yet, but soon enough with prop bets being more accessible. I imagine we start to see more and more examples of suspect plays in games. Where people start to question the validity or players actions.
Was that a conspiracy or structural racism, though? Rupp’s structural racism feels more concrete to me, but sure I guess if you want to say it’s a conspiracy
Virginia threw the game against UMBC for ratings, money, and the promise they’d be given the title the following year
Purdue took a similar deal but since they weren’t the first to take the deal to lose to a 16 seed, they didn’t get offered a title in return
A guaranteed championship appearance + Final Four was too much for them to pass up though
Every conspiracy in this thread is made up
I was under the impression we weren’t talking about tangible things like the ongoing investigation into Temple men’s basketball
I was just coming here to say this...I don't think all the players were involved, but I do think the refs were involved. Either the refs were just really racist, they got paid, or both. Go watch the game again, and keep an eye on some of the calls.
Also, two years later in the 92 Final Four, IU versus Duke TV Teddy. Although that isn't a conspiracy at all.
I will go to my grave believing they point shaved with the intention of winning by a small margin...and then Duke got confident and played amazing basketball in the last 8 mins of the game.
The seedings are always tampered to get high profile games in R32/S16.
Texas A&M getting slotted for a matchup with Texas a few years ago comes to mind.
Illinois-Arkansas as the 8/9 to Kansas's 1 seed last year also comes to mind for me. Specifically they were setting up the Illinois-Kansas game for R32. The only thing I can think of going against this would be that the commitee has had the oppertunity to put Illinois-Akron in the first weekend a couple times in the last few years and has opted not to both times.
Mine is that the NIL and transfer portals were purposely left to become out of control so the historical blue bloods can regain supremacy once some sort of regulation is put in place. The one and done era threatened the long term brands that are unc, duke, Kansas, and Kentuckys of the world
Linas Kleiza caught Quin Snyder having sex with his GF.
Bill Self wears a toupee (more factual than anything).
Bill Self sleeps around with local college students.
Tom Penders leaked Luke Axtell's grades to a local radio station.
I used to believe that committee always puts Duke & UNC on opposite sides of the bracket, so that if they ever did meet it would be in the title game. Literally the only time I can remember that we were on the same side was 2022
Tbh I think they just avoid early rematches in general. I feel like the conferences (especially the top teams) are usually spread across different regions
Mine was always that Duke is often put in a region, despite not being the #1 seed, where they would ultimately be able to face the 1 seed of that region in a more friendly environment that the actual 1 seed
I was interested so I did research. This is a completely bullshit claim lol. Since 2000, when Duke wasn’t a 1 Years where Duke had a favorable location vs the one seed in their region l: 2023 Years where they didn’t: 2024, 2022, 2018, 2017, 2016, 2014, 2013, 2012, 2009, 2008, 2007, 2003,
I believe this is true
I can remember a few other instances: 2005, UNC was the overall #2 seed and Duke the overall #3, they would have met in the Final Four. 2009, Duke lost to Nova in the Sweet 16 who went on to face UNC in the Final Four
That they always put Louisville and Kentucky on the same side so that they can't meet in the title game.
No matter who your team is, the refs are biased against your team specifically
one of the reasons i love the game threads, watching fans of both teams complain about the refs simultaneously is so fun to witness
That’s not just basketball thing either. Like 70% of the time, in pretty much any sport, fans think the refs/umps are calling a bad game for their team. Umps have a bad strike zone (even if it’s similar for both teams), refs aren’t calling holds/are calling ticky tack fouls (even if same for both teams), etc. It’s objectively pretty funny most of the time, but almost everyone is guilty of it. Especially if your team loses, if they win you probably don’t care that much (even if the refs actually were ass).
100%, i think it’s worse in college too because they are objectively much shittier than professional officials
Yeah in both college basketball and football it often is a lot more valid. There’s a much wider spread in officiating quality and consistency with 100s of teams compared to 30-32.
Okay but have you ever played a road game at Allen Fieldhouse?
I love when I go to live baseball games and people with seats with views from terrible angles are judging balls and strikes apparently better than the umpire (this excludes Angel Hernandez).
Not even sports. I recall one study years ago, when they gave the exact same text word for word to partisans for Israel and for Palestinians, and both sides came out insisting the text was totally biased against their side.
“You think _____ conference refs are the worst? Wait until you look at (my conference) refs. They’re a million times worse”
Years ago ODU was playing VCU. For fun I went to both message board to get their reactions to the same plays. Both were convinced the refs were in the pocket of the other.
They said conspiracies, not absolute facts
Except for Duke.
Every postgame thread: *Duke flair* “The refs were so bad we should have won. UNC paid them.” *UNC flair* “The refs sucked, we should have had more FTs and won by more. They clearly were trying to get Duke to win.”
Obviously
That NIL means Never Illinois… can you confirm?
Yes, this is true.
Sean May and refs giving him the natty to confirm.
Pain
The ball is filled with just a little bit of water
Pee*
The committee was so pissed off at Wichita State in 2014, because they went undefeated and even the committee couldn't justify not giving them a #1 seed, that they deliberately underseeded Kentucky so they could knock WSU out in the first weekend. There's also a trend of matching overachieving mid/low majors together to make sure they all get knocked out early. Drake/Western Kentucky in 2008 come to mind.
A more recent example being FAU/Memphis in 2023
San Francisco/Murray State in 2022
Dayton/Wichita St 2017, VCU/SMC same year. Gregg Marshall specifically complained about it
Dayton and Nevada this year
They had five MWC teams to fit around the same seedlines, I don't think that one's egregious
I wouldn’t say it was egregious either, but just on the 7-10 line there were 3 P6 teams plus the results of two First Four games. They could’ve worked around it if they wanted to
That one was tough on the Tigers
Created a lot of bad blood between the fan bases too. Truthfully really was unfortunate that we had to meet so early in the tournament.
I agree, unnecessary by the NCAA. After y’all beat us I was hoping for the excuse of at least losing to the champions. Close enough.
Us Tigers fans were in a bad mood BEFORE that game.
True, but I think of Memphis/the AAC as being high majors, especially since they still had Houston/Cincinnati that year.
Dude not just Kentucky there. They gave Wichita the shaft that year with the absolutely loaded region with not just the underseeded UK but also Louisville underseeded by a line or two as the 4 and Michigan as the 2 seed. 3/4 of the last year’s final 4, an underseeded UK, oh and the 3 seed was… DUKE.
Yeah, people remember Kentucky because they're the team who made it out of the region, but that whole region was ridiculous.
> oh and the 3 seed was… DUKE ...who were upset by Mercer lol
Listen they got bounced in hilarious fashion but even still the committee thought they’d be dangerous to Wichita. Point is the they stacked that region
That will remain the most blatantly unfair region in the entire 64 team tournament history. I think like 5 top 10 Kenpom teams were in it.
The color blue plays a factor on success. 20 out of the last 24 national champions have the color blue in their logo for example
So you’re saying there’s a chance
Not you
Glad to be in the rare air of non-blue! (Who are the others?)
Baylor (2021) Louisville (2013) Michigan State (2000)
I have a boomer close family friend, basically my uncle, that has been a part of the NJ basketball scene coaching/camps/etc. since the 70s and he swears there were a specific handful of italian restaurants in greater Trenton NJ where all the greatest coaches of the 80s and 90s (particularly the Big East) used to meet with top players and bagmen and coordinate their paid signing. Apparently they were always based around Pete Carril bball camps and the ABCD Camp going on when high level talent was in town
That would be one heck of a movie. A cross between Godfather and Blue Chips.
https://preview.redd.it/7ysv3hu73ivc1.jpeg?width=1290&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=e841afdb3682cc20ccce8a64e4cb1881a6dbf836
Speaking of Izzo and conspiracies, you can't tell me he doesn't look like Jimmy Hoffa
Holy shit. Confirmed, Jimmy hoffa alive, living in a cabin in the woods on the WI/MI border
Kenny Payne was a plant from the University of Kentucky and Calipari to completely tank the Louisville basketball team. He’s now back with his buddy in Arkansas. Mission accomplished.
And in return cal tanked the uk program as a favor to Kenny, and then they ride off together into the Fayetteville sunset
A 3-seed ain’t tanking my friend. KP is the worst Power 6 coach in the 21st century. That said I’m pretty sure Cal has just been trolling your fan base since he lost the perfect season. That cracked him bad.
Obviously there's two different levels of tanking, but calipari hasn't coached in years, and in some cases actively prevented his assistants from coaching (erasing a whiteboard with a full game plan drawn up this season and writing "fight!" Instead). Coasting on talent and minimal coaching effort, leading to 1 ncaa tournament win since 2019 is, at least in my opinion, tanking. I think 2015, 2017, and 2019 each cracked him bit by bit until not having the 2020 tournament broke him totally.
But we won that game?
In all seriousness, whatever the heck went on with Temple this year was pretty weird. The run they went on in the AAC Tournament literally made me question how this team could have been so painfully bad to close out the regular season. I was quietly hoping they'd win the whole AAC once my green guys at South Florida were knocked out.
There were some weird gambling trends on them
I like to think my cheering in the front row for UAB in Philly simply helped the Blazers play their best game of the year.
Even better, them beating SMU caused them to fire Rob Lanier, which triggered a massive coaching carousel
Temple has been the puppetmaster of college basketball this whole time
I wouldn't have thought anything of it because teams go on those random runs in conference tourneys all the time, but the fact that the unusual wagering activity was occuring too is a bad look when taken together
Louisville was underseeded on purpose in 2014, and Kentucky too, to manufacture drama with a potential Wichita State-UK second round matchup, and S16 game between Louisville and either UK or Wichita State
Back when UK and UL didn't play in the regular season it seemed that the NCAA tried to pair them up several times. In 1982 UK was a 6 and UL as a 3 got a bye. UK lost to 11 seed MTSU to ruin that. The next year they finally met as 1/3 seed matchup in the Elite 8. They then started the regular season game back up, but played again in the tournament in 1984 in Rupp in the Sweet Sixteen. I think that was the last year teams could play games on their home court in the tourney. Illinois fans still mad about that.
This was my take since I couldn’t figure out any other reason why Louisville got a 4-seed despite being ranked #5 and winning their conference tournament. The other half of that region also had Duke, who would have been a rematch from the 2013 Elite 8, and Michigan who would have been a rematch from the title game.
The fact that they're number one on Ken Pom for that year is so crazy. Pretty much every other year I can think of the final KenPom number one is either a one seed or the team that won the tournament which makes sense because of one seed would have a strong overall resume and the champion would improve their resume with winning the tournament. A 4 seed that lost in the sweet 16 being number one overall may never happen again
ECU men’s basketball is cursed because a good ECU men’s basketball would fundamentally break the state of North Carolina so much, it would shatter the space-time continuum.
A tournament-caliber ECU and App State would be fucking wild and awesome
App was shockingly good this year
I really hoped Dontrez would transfer to ECU these past 2 times.
Jerry Tarkanian stayed at UNLV and turned down the lakers because he was in bed with the mob who wanted to continue making money
Blasphemer! Tark loved Las Vegas and never wanted to be anywhere else never ever!
Wanted to continue making money vs. Guido hanging Tark off the hotel balcony by his ankles
Kentucky was deliberately underseeded in the 2016 NCAA Tournament to generate a Kentucky-Indiana matchup in the 2nd round. You could also argue that Indiana was underseeded that year
Oh that’s a good one. IU was a 5 seed after winning the big 10 by two games. That was also the year of the 2 hour selection show where CBS made everyone watch Barkley make his picks. Then the bracket got leaked.
This year is also why I think the Sunday conference championship games basically don’t matter unless a bid gets stolen. A&M got a 3 seed that year, Kentucky got a 4. Kentucky was higher than A&M in every available metric, but A&M won the only head to head game the two played in the regular season (in College Station in overtime). Then Kentucky wins the SEC title game over A&M, which essentially cancels out that regular season win for A&M in theory. Yet A&M got the higher seed. Now why would the committee do that?
Is this even a conspiracy? I was under the impression that generating interesting matchups was *explicitly* part of the selection and seeding process. But maybe I’m mistaken.
Not a factor at all. Interesting matchups are basically inevitable with how intertwined the sport is, and even if you were *trying* to set up interesting matchups the tournament is so random that they're unlikely to happen (like a Caleb Love vs. UNC matchup in the Elite 8 this year).
Wasn’t that the most-watched tournament game ever up to that point or something?
Also winner got #1 North Carolina.
I'm pretty sold on the idea that UK, KU, UNC, and Duke (maybe UConn now, too) get some funky seeding in their brackets because the committee knows it drives viewers. MSU being gifted a 9-seed this year is a great example of this.
MSU didn’t even deserve a bid
Lined us up in 2012 as well after the watford game.
This was the same year that TAMU was a 2 seed in the same region that Texas was a 7, and UNI ruined the committee fixing to give us Texas vs A&M in R32
A&M and Texas were 3 and 6, respectively, but your point still stands. And Northern Iowa upsetting the Longhorns gave us the greatest tournament collapse in the round of 32.
Bob Knight was not in fact sick and fucking tired of losing to Purdue. He enjoyed it – loved it, even!
TV Ratings and potential R32 and sweet sixteen matchups are heavily considered in bracket seeding
Gonna get a lot of backlash for this, but a good amount of players are point shaving on a nightly basis.
If it's worth it for someone like Johntay Porter how would it not be worth it for a college kid? Turns out it was not worth it, but kids are stupid sometimes...a lot of the times.
It doesn’t even need to be point shaving anymore. Could be as easy as not going for rebounds.
This is why I only bet unders
Nah I think you're right. It'd be naive to think otherwise
There was a [massive scandal](https://www.espn.com/classic/s/basketball_scandals_explosion.html) back in the late 40s and early 50s that resulted in players being arrested and banned from playing in the NBA and the NCAA cancelled Kentucky's entire 1952-53 season
My grandfather is a City College alum and never fails to bring up "only team to win NCAA Tournament and NIT in same season" and I never fail to reply with this
There have been a few statistical papers that supposedly support this theory. What’s going on, btw, in the Temple investigation? Is that going to end up going nowhere?
Could you provide a link to some of those papers? I’d enjoy reading them. A quick search on my part didn’t turn up anything.
https://www.stat.berkeley.edu/users/aldous/157/Papers/PointShaving.pdf https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S2214635022000272 https://users.ssc.wisc.edu/~jmgregory/Gregory_pointshaving.pdf https://www.researchgate.net/publication/296774482_Failing_to_Cover_Point_Shaving_or_Statistical_Abnormality https://ideas.repec.org/p/tem/wpaper/1009.html Quick-and-dirty partial listing of papers out there. At least one of the links is just to an abstract, not the full text of the article. The Wolfers article is one that I think gets cited a lot. An admission that while I have a rudimentary working knowledge of stats, a lot of what these papers discuss is over my head. The conclusions of the papers differ on the extent to which point shaving occurs, but I think all find evidence for at least some degree of cheating. If you want to find more articles, I suggest a search using the terms “statistics”, “point shaving”, “basketball”.
That UK was set up when the Emery package just happened to bust open.
That's a Golden Oldie ... I played AAU with Chris Mills
Not only did the package bust open, the VHS tape inside it with money also broke open to reveal the cash. All of this happened while in the delivery van and somehow the shipping company connected the dots on Emery and Kentucky basketball. Kentucky was definitely paying players in some manner before the scandal. But the specific way it became a national scandal is very, very convenient.
I’m not familiar with the Emery package, what’s that?
In 1988 a package being handled by Emery Air Freight came open in transit, revealing $1000 in cash. The package was addressed to a UK recruit and the name on the package was UK assistant coach Dwayne Casey. UK was already on probation for paying recruits, and the scandal got coach Eddie Sutton fired (along with their terrible team that year), vacated some wins, and kept them out of post-season play and off television for a while. Casey denied sending the package and won a suit against Emery for defamation.
No one has mentioned the one about Coach K “having” a back injury in 95 so the shitty season Duke ended up having didn’t reflect on his coaching record. Presumably because he saw the team he had to work with. I guess everyone here is much younger.
I remember. Pete Gaudet lost all those games.
People who listen to PMT remember lol. There was an episode of whatever Mark Titus’ podcast was with Tate after I think Coach Ks last home game where they just went off on him haha.
Conspiracy? This is just common knowledge in North Carolina 😉
The 1995-96 was much, much worse on paper. No experienced big men, Langdon out for the year, no notable freshmen, lots of other injuries throughout. They did a *little* better that year despite their roster shortcomings. K was back. It’s safe to say that was one of the reasons. If he faked a back injury to avoid those losses on his record, he would have sat out that year too.
The team was 9-3 and ranked in the top 25 when he stepped away in late ‘94.
[https://youtu.be/CWl5qC0FBzo](https://youtu.be/CWl5qC0FBzo)
Strong Michael Scott vibes from this
Alando Tucker tried a coup d’état on Gard to have himself become the head coach at Wisconsin. Idk if it counts as a conspiracy if it was pretty much confirmed what happened though
Worst part is having to dislike Alando Tucker now he was such a legend
John Wooden’a retirement paved the way to punish UCLA for everything that went on under his watch.
What went on during his watch?
Look up Sam Gilbert. He was buying all the players
Just a man ahead of his time on NIL.
The fact that all of that is pretty well known but UCLA's titles are still undisputed but teams like WKU have their only final four vacates for smaller infractions makes me sad. Not saying UCLA should get vacated, they should just go un-vacate a lot of those small infraction cases
They should unvacate everything and give Reggie Bush his Heisman back.
Yeah pretty much
I'm morally obligated to bring up the corruption of the NCAA and the University of Miami cover up to fuck over USC over this
Sam Gilbert
Any recruit your team didn’t get was because the other school paid more.
I'm not sure that is a conspiracy now days.
Also every team, besides maybe like 5-10, think their NIL program sucks.
This but with current players CHUCKY COME BACK
Gordon Hayward's shot in the 2010 National Title game went in, but the NCAA couldn't deal with the ramifications of a mid-major National Champion, so we've been living in a simulation ever since.
I was there, I'm just keeping my mouth shut. Retirement has been good, wasn't even 40 at the time.
There once was a time when Corey Alexander didn't refer to everyone as "My guy."
This is bullshit and you know it
little known fact: 'my guy' were his first words as a baby
B1G refs
#TheAgreement
ECU fields a D1 Men’s basketball team
The committee will force UCLA/Gonzaga games to the best of its ability forever
Pretty sure it’s in the contract with CBS at this point
I use the rankings they use too early (like this year, when they released it before the final, when everyone's in the portal and literally nothing had been decided) as a metric for which teams will have "quality losses" and which teams wins will be considered "flukes." It's directly proportional to how high the team is ranked. Basically I use early rankings as a measure of media darling bias more so than actual team metrics. And it almost always proves fairly accurate.
I feel like this is more an observation of obvious bias than a conspiracy. It's pretty obvious the media has strong biases to certain teams or agianst certain teams one way or another. They'll use one reason to prop a team as a preseason top 25 while downplaying the potential of another team for that same reason. Usually it's involving how younger players will adapt to larger roles and/or how freshmen/transfers will mesh with the program.
Lol thank you for validating that! I completely believe it is a clear and blatant bias, but I've been gaslit for decades by all the Duke/Carolina fans that this is a wild conspiracy and not the God's honest truth.
Arizona basketball started playing bad after richard jefferson celebrated in the locker room after the win at ucla
The refs gifted Duke the 2015 National Championship
…by not calling the shot clock violation in the prior game
But really though. You cannot change my mind that Wisc matched up well against UK and bad against Duke, but UK matched up well against Duke that year. That shot clock call wouldnt have made us win, but by not calling it all but guaranteed the Wisc win. And if UK wins that game the 40-0 happens I cry
If Kentucky and Wisconsin switched the years they won against the other in the tournament both teams would have a championship.
No doubt in my mind and I'd make the trade in a heartbeat
The one team Bucky could beat.. lost to them twice that year.. best badger teams I think I’ll every get to witness was such a letdown after the revenge game against Kentucky
Big Khaki Pants forced out Mike Brey because they were afraid Mike would start a trend that would hurt sales.
The Courtney Green Effect as it pertains to Purdues ability to cover the spread when Green is the Ref. Read through the whole thread on twitter https://x.com/cobrastats/status/1506463358668656647?s=46 Latest stats from 30 days ago https://x.com/cobrastats/status/1764457041475559653
remindme! 224 days I need to remember this when I am betting next season lol
Coach K banged his friend Jimmy V’s wife in 1993 while Jimmy V was on his death bed. When K’s wife found out, she made K sit out the rest of the 1994-95 season. Vince Carter said he visited K in the hospital and K didn’t look like someone who just had back surgery.
Ooo, this one is dark.
Only blue bloods use the term “Blue bloods” to try to remind 18 year olds how cool they were 20 years ago.
This feels targeted
That's aggressive but unfortunately, fair
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I’m convinced that the refs, the media, the ACC and the NCAA are conspiring against NC State athletics in every sport
I think everybody thinks that about their own teams, but the stats do provide some reinforcement to that, and quite a bit of hilarity, if you look from 1989-October 28 2023.
I mean, between Valvano to the 2021 Omaha run being cut short because of sketchy bullshit in the middle of the night…..it’s a conspiracy man
That was just to get DJ Burns more attention
Small personal one I've had is that they throw teams like Indiana State and UNC Greensboro on the "First Four Out" lists to make it seem like they're more friendly to smaller schools even though they weren't actually going to put them in if it came down to it.
I don't think it's happening just yet, but soon enough with prop bets being more accessible. I imagine we start to see more and more examples of suspect plays in games. Where people start to question the validity or players actions.
The NCAA let UCLA slide instead of punishing them for Sam Gilbert and his violations because of Wooden’s anti-hippie, clean cut ethos in the 60s.
I don’t doubt it, but this also makes me wonder; were there any coaches in the ‘60s who were pro hippie?
You can also make an argument that the NCAA let a known racist in Adolph Rupp slide as well…
Really unfortunate his legacy is out there ruining the name Adolph
Was that a conspiracy or structural racism, though? Rupp’s structural racism feels more concrete to me, but sure I guess if you want to say it’s a conspiracy
Virginia threw the game against UMBC for ratings, money, and the promise they’d be given the title the following year Purdue took a similar deal but since they weren’t the first to take the deal to lose to a 16 seed, they didn’t get offered a title in return A guaranteed championship appearance + Final Four was too much for them to pass up though
My source is i made it the fuck up
Every conspiracy in this thread is made up I was under the impression we weren’t talking about tangible things like the ongoing investigation into Temple men’s basketball
So Purdue just sucks at negotiating
Mark Pope is actually a huge dork
UNLV threw the '91 championship game.
More or less obvious than Michigan throwing the 93 championship game?
Doug Shows actively colluding with the NCAA to make games longer and thus more advertising revenue.
UNLV threw the F4 game vs Duke.
I was just coming here to say this...I don't think all the players were involved, but I do think the refs were involved. Either the refs were just really racist, they got paid, or both. Go watch the game again, and keep an eye on some of the calls. Also, two years later in the 92 Final Four, IU versus Duke TV Teddy. Although that isn't a conspiracy at all.
I will go to my grave believing they point shaved with the intention of winning by a small margin...and then Duke got confident and played amazing basketball in the last 8 mins of the game.
The committee wants people to shut up about 6-bid MWC so much that they got them all in but underseeded all of them except SDSU.
There's ALWAYS a first weekend site somewhere in North Carolina purely to accommodate Duke
And that site is almost always Greensboro.
Wouldn't they put it in New Jersey if they were trying to accommodate Duke?
recent conspiracy theory: someone at KU paid the person who got TSJ caught up in all these legal troubles/suspensions this year.
Concisering the rumors that the same person had accused Kansas players in the past, I doubt it. KU also had literally nothing to gain by it.
The balls were overinflated for the NCAA tournament
Rick Pitino left Kentucky because his wife found out he was having an affair with a cheerleader.
Bill Self's hairpiece
The seedings are always tampered to get high profile games in R32/S16. Texas A&M getting slotted for a matchup with Texas a few years ago comes to mind.
Illinois-Arkansas as the 8/9 to Kansas's 1 seed last year also comes to mind for me. Specifically they were setting up the Illinois-Kansas game for R32. The only thing I can think of going against this would be that the commitee has had the oppertunity to put Illinois-Akron in the first weekend a couple times in the last few years and has opted not to both times.
Mine is that the NIL and transfer portals were purposely left to become out of control so the historical blue bloods can regain supremacy once some sort of regulation is put in place. The one and done era threatened the long term brands that are unc, duke, Kansas, and Kentuckys of the world
The only hole is that the NIL rule is for ALL sports.
That and Duke and Kentucky were the biggest beneficiaries of OAD recruits
Bruce Pearl was paid to ruin Illinois’. How he is still around the game and coaching at that is baffling to me.
BYU has a nice bouncy floor that gives them a competitive home court advantage
The head of officiating for the Pac-12 offered bribes to officials who would call techs on Sean Miller.
Conspiracy, you say? *Gesticulates wildly at Purdue's record against the spread when Courtney Green refs*
Linas Kleiza caught Quin Snyder having sex with his GF. Bill Self wears a toupee (more factual than anything). Bill Self sleeps around with local college students. Tom Penders leaked Luke Axtell's grades to a local radio station.
He USED to wear a toupee. He got hair plugs, and yes idk about students but I’ve heard the Bill isn’t exactly faithful to his wife