Ohio Basketball Topic
Topic: First time since...
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Kevin Finnegan
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Kevin Finnegan
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Posted: 3/24/2026 10:45 AM
Crazy to see that this is only the second time that the Round of 16 only has teams from major conferences. The only other time this happened?


Last year.


This is the new tournament. One without much excitement in terms of the little guys. Throw a bunch of money at roster and your best hope seems to be a first round win. Can't expect a second weekend for the little guys anymore.
M.D.W.S.T
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Posted: 3/24/2026 11:40 AM
Kevin Finnegan wrote:expand_more
Crazy to see that this is only the second time that the Round of 16 only has teams from major conferences. The only other time this happened?


Last year.


This is the new tournament. One without much excitement in terms of the little guys. Throw a bunch of money at roster and your best hope seems to be a first round win. Can't expect a second weekend for the little guys anymore.
I think Duke is the only team with all five starters who started their career at Duke.

I can't find the graphic now, but some of these teams have 0 players who originally committed to the school. Pretty wild. I'm not even old, but I sure feel old when I say I miss the days of rooting for players and watching them grow up through a program. Having senior laden mid-majors drop a bunch of 5-star freshman. What a time.
GoCats105
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Posted: 3/24/2026 1:02 PM
Kevin Finnegan wrote:expand_more
Crazy to see that this is only the second time that the Round of 16 only has teams from major conferences. The only other time this happened?


Last year.


This is the new tournament. One without much excitement in terms of the little guys. Throw a bunch of money at roster and your best hope seems to be a first round win. Can't expect a second weekend for the little guys anymore.
Not only that, more than half (9/16) of the teams are the exact same teams as last year. Not sure how often that happens but I thought that was strange.
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