The Colorado Buffaloes and the 2016 NCAA Tournament

There's no two ways about it, in terms of tournament seeding, this year's Pac-12 is a complete mess. After last night's drubbing by Arizona, the 12^th place Washington State Cougars have a 9-8 record. Their lone conference win came against a ranked UCLA team. UCLA beat #1 Kentucky earlier this season. Jacob Poeltl’s 12-5 Utah squad is 10th  in the division, with paltry a 1-3 conference record. This is a team that scored an upset victory over #7 Duke last month.

Joe Lunardi is predicting that 8 Pac 12 teams will take a trip to the big dance this spring. With all respect due to Mr. Lunardi, that seems like more of a hard cap than a prediction. 8 Pac-12 teams COULD go to the show, if a preseason sleeper like USC or Washington scored a narrow conference victory – a first place finish with a 10-8 record, AND 10 other teams split conference play at 9-9, meaning the last place team would finish with a 8-10 record.

RPI wise, that’s the only scenario where all ships rise with the tide. The problem with that situation is it might not give Arizona a high enough seed in the tournament. We’ve got to 7 other Pac-12 teams to seed behind them.

For the sake of argument, let’s say that all of the previously mentioned pieces fall into place. Then, in a best-case scenario, an unranked Arizona team wins the Pac-12 Tournament, and is issued a 4 seed. Are there enough slots in the bracket for 7 other Pac-12 teams? What if Arizona gets a 6 seed? I don’t see the selection committee allowing Pac-12 teams to play their way in on both sides of the bracket.

Of course there’s a less favorable side to a photo finish in the conference. If the last place team wins the Pac-12 tournament, then two teams are dancing instead of 8. The team that won the conference tournament gets an 11 seed, and Arizona gets a play in game. We hoist that situation upon the Pac-12 in the 2011-2012 season.

Just last year, Wyoming, a bubble team with a strong-ish tournament resume shut the door to a handful of highly touted mediocre basketball teams by winning the Mountain West Tournament. I didn’t lose too much sleep over Colorado State’s first round NIT loss, but I can’t imagine how upset I would be if something like that happened to the Buffs.

What all of this speculation amounts to is that the dream situation for the Pac-12, eight teams in the show, will leave three teams mumbling shucks as they toe the dirt of the NIT. I think a more realistic scenario is 7 invitations, or god forbid, a fifty-fifty split. Our confernce champion is going to have a record to the tune of 13-5.

What does that mean? That means our mighty Golden Buffaloes have their work cut out for them if they want to say on the plus side of my arithmetic, and in my mind, it all starts with Josh Fortune.  

Not pictured in his Buff's Jersey. He hasn't earned it.

Can someone give me a PER, or a plus minus on Fortune? The only time that he scores is when there’s a complete breakdown of the defense. Those wild layups he’s always missing in transition are coming after a perceived defensive breakdown, but Pac-12 defenses don’t break down the same way that Big East defenses do. Same for the threes, which always seem to come on switches, or against the zone, but haven’t been falling lately, because teams in the Pac-12 are stepping out his treys.

To put it mildly, the discrepancy between his conference play and his non-conference play is alarming. Let’s look Oregon State, by far his best performance of the conference season, where he scored 12 points, coughed the ball up four times, and defended like someone poured mustard into his eyeball before the game.

Think of Gary Peyton II as a tire. On Wednesday, George King came out, and knocked that tire on its side. When it was Fortune’s turn to guard GP II he picked the tire up, and started rolling it down a hill. We can’t expect anyone to completely shut down one of the best players in college hoops, but even in his best conference game of the season, Fortune’s efficiency was deplorable. Get him out of there.

Tad Boyle was toying with a lineup of Collier, Akyazili, King, Gordon, and Scott in the final minutes of our rout of Oregon State. He played Akyazili, Collier, Fletcher, Talton, and Scott as time wound down against Oregon. When teams have to double Scott, those lineups absolutely our best options. Gordon's a terrific shot blocker, and can score on the block in man coverage, Scott has been abusing anyone and everyone who comes near him in the paint, Collier can distribute, and hit the occasional 3, Akyazili can distribute, and doesn’t cough up the ball, Fletcher has great hands, and  Talton is our best free throw shooter. He decisively proved that he deserved Fortune's minutes by willing us to victory against Oregon.

Talton, pictured in a buffs jersey.

Especially when Fortune was doing EVERYTHING in his power to hand the Ducks a W tonight. 3/7, three boards, no assists, 7 points and six hundred turnovers. He turned the ball over after every made basket, and coughed it up a few more times trying to create a play. He sucks. Can we all agree that he sucks? There's no question that Tad Boyle needs to give all of his minutes to Talton.

Speaking of Boyle, our coach was correct to contribute the Utah loss to coaching. In a tie ball game, with 46 seconds left, you have to HAVE TO set up the one and one. You can’t win a rock fight if you don’t hurl the last stone. I’m not saying that Fortune did us a favor by lobbing the ball to Poeltl as the seconds wound down, but if Collier takes it coast to coast, then Fortune isn’t left on the baseline with his dick in his hands.

Even more damning was the decision not to foul, in a switch situation, when we were nowhere near the bonus. Utah got the ball with 16 seconds left. It took them 14.9 seconds to tear the still beating hearts out of the chests of the fifty or so fans who bothered to attend that game. I would have loved to seem them try to reset, and run that play with 3 seconds on the clock. Or with, 5, 7, or even 10 seconds to go. This isn’t one of my wild hypotheticals, we could have made Utah run that play four times, because the Buffs had committed a grand total of two fouls in the second half. TWO FOULS. Somebody’s gotta grab somebody, ESPECIALLY ON A SWITCH. Are you kidding me?

Enough of that. I’m not going to dwell on the past, because personally, at this juncture, I like our chances of getting our NCAA Tournament ticket punched. But the bottom line is we absolutely, positively, cannot lose another home game this season. Not because of Fortune, not because of coaching, not even if there’s a fire…

Go Buffs.