2015 NCAA Tournament thread

When these three guys leave, that will make what, nine one-and-dones for Saint Coach K? And his first - Corey Maggette - came before Caliparis. And more importantly, he apparently has two more on his way next year.

So, um, no the only difference is we have decided we like Coach K and Calipari is the evil and thus we discuss their teams differently.

 

The whole 1-and-done thing is done. Blah Blah.

Wisconsin is the best team this year. Pound for pound, the best. The best in the sense that the Badgers just don't crack.

I'll take mental toughness over future NBA'ers any day of the week.

 

I wonder about Wisconsin. The way the players celebrated on the court after defeating Kentucky makes me think they're in for an emotional letdown in tonight's championship game. You beat the No. 1 team in the country and the tournament -- giving them their first loss, no less -- and it's got to be tough to get prepared mentally more than physically for another game. I'd like to see a close back and forth game that Wisconsin ends up winning, but I could see a 15-point Duke victory just as easily.

 

And Ryan has the "they beat us on our own home floor this year -- payback!" speech ready to go.

 

Right, because, you know nothing about 38-0, suggests Kentucky isn't mentally tough.

I guess the Wildcats weren't mentally tough the game before against Notre Dame? How about coming back and surviving twice in overtime?

They lost a fucking basketball game, again, this line of "Wisconsin was tougher" is fucking stupid.

Wisconsin played a better game. Period.

 

It's what you like to see in a college team. It was the same when Butler made the title game in back-to-back seasons. You have a well-coached team with a lot of experienced upperclassmen.

It's kind of funny, if Kaminsky wins MOP, he'll be the third senior in a row to win it.

 

More than the mental aspect, don't overlook the fatigue aspect. They're not a deep team (only go about 7 deep), and they haven't had many cakewalks where they could rest their players. They definitely had the tougher of the two paths to the title game, and I wonder if that's left them with anything in reserve for this one.

 

With 19 clock stoppages available in 40 minutes, I think they'll be OK.

 

I think Wisconsin is going to be ready. If they play anything close to their last two games against Zona and Kentucky, I don't think Duke can beat them.

 

It sure seemed like Duke had a remarkably easy run to the Final Four.

 

The thing about Kentucky this year is we knew at the beginning of the season it had lots and lots of guys who were ready to be really good this year. With Duke we knew they had a freshman star and some other guys who might be pretty good, we didn't know for sure Jones and Winslow would be this good already. Kentucky absolutely destroyed big name teams early on, but UCLA shouldn't have even been in the tournament and this was the worst Kansas team in 13 or 14 years. Yet that's how the idea that Kentucky was untouchable was born.

It's also not as simple as a coach choosing to sign a bunch of one-and-done guys. Yeah, you know with something close to certainty that John Wall and Jabari Parker and Andrew Wiggins will be on signing day. But I can almost guarantee you that Willie Cauley-Stein thought he'd be in the NBA after a year at Kentucky and Joel Embiid wasn't thinking he was one-and-done the day he arrived at Kansas. The coaches at that level are just signing the best players they can get and dealing with the NBA stuff whenever that comes around because they don't know.

 

Heard today that Wisconsin is only 2nd team to have played the highest possible seeded team in every game through the tourney. Karma suggests they win tonight and I'm pulling for them.