Battle 4 Atlantis Predictions

M

MCHawk5

Member
Although Battle 4 Atlantis is still 12 days away, it technically begins tomorrow when Iowa takes on Abilene Christian at Carver Hawkeye. So it is time to start predicting how the tournament will play out now that we've seen some teams play.

First Round Predictions: Kansas over Wake Forest, Villanova over USC, Tennessee over UTEP, Iowa over Xavier

Semi-Finals: Kansas over Villanova, Iowa over Tennessee

Championship- Kansas over Iowa
 
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Nice $2 million payday for each participating team.
Duke beat Louisville for last year's title. Minney finished 5th.
 
Not as prestigious as last year but hey, I'll take it! Xavier is off to a nice start, Tenn's only loss to Xavier. Haven't seen 4 of the other teams, but UTEP has lost to New Mexico St. and USC has lost to Utah State so basically we have:
Kansas over WF
Nova over USC
Tenn over UTEP
Xavier and Iowa?? best match up of these games.

Xavier will have been tested by this point, and Iowa seems like its a bad shooting night away from loosing especially to a quality team.

Anybody know anything about Xavier?
 
Xavier, located in Cincinnati, now plays in the Big East.
They are off to a 3-0 start, with wins over Gardner-Webb, Tennessee and Morehead St. (all at home)
Big presence in the middle with 6" 10" Matt Stainbrook. Leading scorer (17.3) is Semaj Christon.

Looks like a decent matchup.
 
i know basically everyone on here is just automatically penciling in a W vs Xavier, but they are consistently a good team. can Iowa win? absolutely. but i think it will be a close game. iowa has a better shot with the new rules in place, but is going to need to make some outside shots to win this.
 
Seth53 said:
Xavier, located in Cincinnati, now plays in the Big East.
They are off to a 3-0 start, with wins over Gardner-Webb, Tennessee and Morehead St. (all at home)
Big presence in the middle with 6" 10" Matt Stainbrook. Leading scorer (17.3) is Semaj Christon.

Looks like a decent matchup.
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Stainbrook is a good presence but from watching them play Tennessee (ok, one game) he seems like their only guy who can do much underneath. We have a lot of size and we have athletic size that can give them problems. I think if we run (smartly, don't take bad shots, Tennessee took some a lot bad shots but they play similar to us though I think we're better) we beat them. Xavier doesn't seem to be a great transition team so make it a half court game and I think our length will give them trouble (it will give a lot of teams trouble.)
 
Also, I'm nervous/excited as hell for this tournament. I really, really, want to see us take a shot at Kansas (after winning two of course) just to see where we really are as a team.
 
Watching some of Tennessee's game right now. On paper, Iowa should make the finals of this.
 
MeatMan said:
i know basically everyone on here is just automatically penciling in a W vs Xavier, but they are consistently a good team. can Iowa win? absolutely. but i think it will be a close game. iowa has a better shot with the new rules in place, but is going to need to make some outside shots to win this.
Click to expand...

Until I see us play and beat real competition I'm not penciling in any win. Hoping for the best but not expecting it..yet. I just know that living in Kansas City I'd absolute LOVE to knock of Kansas.
 
HawkeyeHypnosis said:
If Iowa makes it to play Kansas, Hawks win.
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Agreed. If Iowa is going to lose I think it will be Xavier...don't think this will happen. Playing 3 games in 3 days makes depth a bigger advantage round by round...even more so this early in the season IMO. I think Iowa wins the tournament if they beat Xavier.
 
bcl20 said:
Watching some of Tennessee's game right now. On paper, Iowa should make the finals of this.
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Having watched both of Tennessee's games, Iowa would blow out Tennessee 7 times out of 10, and Xavier 6 out of 10 for that matter.
 
PalmettoHawkFan said:
semaj christian is precisely the kind of guard who could torch iowa's backcourt
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6' 3" guard. Hometown boy.
Led team in scoring as frosh.
Atlantic-10 frosh of year in 2012. 2nd team all league as frosh.
2nd in all time frosh points scored behind Byron Larkin.
 
Things are looking up but I do not think we are at the point programmatically where we can just walk in and say we're Iowa and that gets the job done. There are some solid teams and programs not including Kansas who is a power in this tourney.

We are a team full of good players but not a great player so it is paramount we play very well every night out. I am looking forward to seeing how we do and would be extremely happy if we manage to get 2 wins. I would be worried but not shocked if we lose all 3 though.
 
I agree with the posters that say depth in a three day tournament like this is going to be a factor. But the key is getting past the first game. So the question in my mind is whether or not we can get by Xavier, and I think we will. Here are my predictions:

Round 1
KU over WF
Vill over USC
Tenn over UTEP
Iowa over X

Round 2
KU over Vill
Iowa over Tenn

USC over WF
X over UTEP

Round 3
KU over Iowa in a close game. In fact it wouldn't surprise me if the aforementioned depth comes into play and Iowa pulls the upset.

Vill over Tenn
X over USC
UTEP over WF
 
SpecialKHawk said:
Things are looking up but I do not think we are at the point programmatically where we can just walk in and say we're Iowa and that gets the job done. There are some solid teams and programs not including Kansas who is a power in this tourney.

We are a team full of good players but not a great player so it is paramount we play very well every night out. I am looking forward to seeing how we do and would be extremely happy if we manage to get 2 wins. I would be worried but not shocked if we lose all 3 though.
Click to expand...

I would most definitely be beyond shocked if we lost 3. I will be very surprised if we lose 2.
 
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