Bracket of Doom- First Four Thread

[EvilMonkeyInTheCloset]

Gonna try to condense the voting threads on this site to reduce posting traffic. We'll see how it goes.

Basically, I'll post the matchups, and some game notes (all in good, hypothetical fun, of course), but will have to list every team in the poll question. There will be multiple votes allowed, so simply make 4 picks, one for whichever team you think would win the game, if those teams faced off in the NCAA Tournament.

Write-in votes will also be counted.

The teams with the most votes, compared against their respective opponent, wins and advances.

First Four matchups:

16) Boston U. vs 16 ) NC Central
16) Prairie View A&M vs 16) Robert Morris
12) North Carolina State vs 12) Texas
11) Richmond vs 11) UCLA

 

[EvilMonkeyInTheCloset]

#16 Boston University Terriers (20-13, 12-6)

Patriot League (t2nd)
Conf. Tourney champs
Off- 70.9 ppg / Def- 66.7 ppg
NCAA Appearances- 7 (Last: 2011)


#16 North Carolina Central Eagles (18-13, 13-3)

MEAC (1st)
Conf. Tourney champs
Off- 69.7 ppg / Def- 66.0 ppg
NCAA Appearances- 4 (Last: 2019)


Top Scorers-
Boston:
Max Mahoney 15.5 ppg
Walter Whyte 13.0 ppg
Javante McCoy 12.2 ppg
Jonas Harper 7.2 ppg
Alex Vilarino 6.2 ppg

NC Central:
Jibri Blount 19.1 ppg
Randy Miller Jr. 14.3 ppg
C.J. Keyser 11.6 ppg
Deven Palmer 7.0 ppg
Jordan Perkins 6.8 ppg


Boston stunned top seed Colgate in the Patriot League finals, which would have sent them to their first NCAA tournament appearance since 2011.

NC Central is no stranger to Dayton, as this would've made it their fourth straight appearance in the First Four round, having lost the last 3. After a slow start to the 2019-20 season, the Eagles caught fire in conference play, and led by solid junior Forward Jibri Blount, this would be NCCU's best chance to pick up their first-ever tournament win.

 

[EvilMonkeyInTheCloset]

#16 Prairie View A&M Panthers (19-13, 14-4)

SWAC (1st)
Off- 71.9 ppg / Def- 68.3 ppg
NCAA Appearances- 2 (Last: 2019)


#16 Robert Morris Colonials (20-14, 13-5)

Northeast (t2nd)
Conf. tourney champs
Off- 69.8 ppg / Def- 67.1 ppg
NCAA Appearances- 8 (Last: 2015)


Top scorers:
Prairie View A&M-
Devonte Patterson 15.8 ppg
Gerard Andrus 15.4 ppg
Darius Williams 11.0 ppg
Antione Lister 7.3 ppg
Chancellor Ellis 7.3 ppg

Robert Morris-
Josh Williams13.6 ppg
A.J. Bramah 13.0 ppg
Dante Treacy 8.7 ppg
Yannis Mendy 8.6 ppg
Jalen Hawkins 7.3 ppg


Making what would be just their 3rd NCAA tournament appearance in program history, the Panthers are hoping to avenge last year's 6-pt loss in the First Four while picking up their first win as well. Winners of 9 of their last 11 games, A&M looks poised to do just that.

Robert Morris is the classic team that "caught fire at the right time". After knocking off top-seed St. Francis in their conference tournament finals, the Colonials would have earned their first trip to the Dance since 2015. An interesting clash awaits between one team that is clearly more offensive oriented, and one team that is more defensive-minded.

 

[EvilMonkeyInTheCloset]

#12 North Carolina State Wolfpack (20-12, 10-10)

ACC (t6th)
Off- 74.6 ppg / Def- 69.7 ppg
NCAA Appearances- 27 (Last: 2018)


#12 Texas Longhorns (19-12, 9-9)

Big 12 (t3rd)
Off- 64.2 ppg / Def- 63.3 ppg
NCAA Appearances- 34 (Last: 2018)


Top scorers:
NC State-
C.J. Bryce 13.3 ppg
Markell Johnson 12.8 ppg
D.J. Funderburk 12.7 ppg
Devon Daniels 12.7 ppg
Jericole Hellems 9.5 ppg

Texas-
Matt Coleman III 12.7 ppg
Andrew Jones 11.5 ppg
Courtney Ramey 10.9 ppg
Jericho Sims 9.7 ppg
Jase Febres 9.3 ppg


One of the Last Four teams in the field, this NC State team is exactly what you'd expect from a team in their position. That is to say, you're not sure who you're gonna get. Is it the Wolfpack team that handed Wisconsin, Virginia, and Duke losses? Or is it the team that was blown out by Duke in the rematch just a couple weeks later, and dropped the season series to rival North Carolina? On the flip side, opposing teams also have to guess which player will step up for NC State as they boast a balanced attack with four players in double figures, separated by less than a point per game.

The Longhorns made the field over other bubble teams despite their less-than-stellar 19-12 mark and .500 record in the very top-heavy Big 12, because they just had very few bad losses, to go along with their quality wins. Blemishes against Iowa State, and then, embarrassingly, against Oklahoma State on Senior Day were not enough to keep them out of this hypothetical tournament. Texas was a bubble team that probably benefited from the tournament cancellations as it kept other potential bubble teams from building a better case to keep the Longhorns on the outside after what many thought was a devastating loss to the Cowboys. But with a chip on their shoulder, Texas has a chance to hypothetically right the ship in Dayton, and prove they belong in the field of 64

 

[EvilMonkeyInTheCloset]

#11 Richmond Spiders (24-7, 14-4)

Atlantic 10 (2nd)
Off- 75.3 ppg / Def- 66.8 ppg
NCAA Appearances- 9 (Last: 2011)


#11 UCLA Bruins (19-12, 12-6)

Pac-12 (2nd)
Off- 69.5 ppg / Def- 67.1 ppg
NCAA Appearances- 47 (Last: 2018)


Top scorers:
Richmond-
Blake Francis 17.7 ppg
Grant Golden 13.4 ppg
Nick Sherod 12.7 ppg
Jacob Gilyard 12.7 ppg
Nathan Cayo 8.9 ppg

UCLA-
Chris Smith 13.1 ppg
Jalen Hill 9.0 ppg
Jaime Jaquez 8.9 ppg
Cody Riley 8.8 ppg
Tyger Campbell 8.3 ppg


One of the many unfortunate stories around the cancellation of the NCAA Tournament included a Richmond team that had been flying under the radar for most of the season, yet was all but set to make their first NCAA Tournament appearance since 2011, with one of their better teams in recent memory. The Spiders were winners of 9 of their last 10, and sport a highly-balanced scoring offense led by guard Blake Francis.

UCLA seemed like an afterthought for most of the early portions of the 2019-20 season, but caught fire following a February 8th win over Arizona and reeled off 7 straight wins to get them a 2nd place finish, just a game behind Oregon, and squarely into at-large tournament consideration. A 54-52 season finale loss at USC would've made things more interesting for the Bruins, but how interesting they could've gotten, we will never know. The Bruins definitely would need a lot of heroics from top scorer Chris Smith if they were to make any kind of tournament run.

 

[EvilMonkeyInTheCloset]

The final results for the First Four are in.

NC Central 11 (advances to face Kansas)
Boston 10

Robert Morris 17 (advances to face Gonzaga)
Prairie View A&M 6

Texas 15 (advances to face Seton Hall)
NC State 12

UCLA 13 (advances to face Butler)
Richmond 8


South Regional First Round matchups will be posted soon!

 

[KuwaitHawk]

Any of those a surprise winner?

 

[EvilMonkeyInTheCloset]

Any of those a surprise winner?

Not particularly, though, I would've liked to see Richmond go through. I think they were underrated.

 

[ROCKY MOUNTAIN HAWK]

This awesome! Please continue a full bracket (I know it would be a ton of work).

I voted late, so it doesn’t matter, but I had NCC, RM, NC St, & Rich.

 

[EvilMonkeyInTheCloset]

This awesome! Please continue a full bracket (I know it would be a ton of work).

I voted late, so it doesn’t matter, but I had NCC, RM, NC St, & Rich.

South Region is coming soon. I was tinkering with making an easy online bracket for people to keep track of.

Turns out nothing can ever be just the way you want it.......


Btw, depending on what you guys think before I start posting everything, for this site only I might stick with this option of letting you vote for all the teams that you think would win, and condense everything into a couple polls, as opposed to one per game, which would be 32 total threads(but over the course of a week).....just for the 1st Round.

I will have to do two separate poll threads for a while anyway for each region, because there can only be up to 10 options to vote on.

Again, I'll list the matchups and you just vote for those specific teams that you think would win the matchup (see ex. below). Then, I'll add those votes along with the ones from the other sites.

Spoiler

1 Kansas*
16 NC Central
8 Utah State*
9 Saint Mary's
etc
etc