NCAA tournament 2011 — running thread

If you're in an NBA town, then you should enjoy college basketball more. The NBA sucks, and the season is way too long.

 

Wow. In before I even added the second paragraph. Like moths to a flame.

 

Tell that to the team that wins it. Or to most of the talking heads on TV/radio.

All too often I hear/read folk who think "champion" and "best team" are interchangeable.

 

Do you really care about identifying "the best team"? That's just a fallback for when your team loses.

The criteria set down from the start of the year is, the best team is the team that wins the NCAA tournament. That's how you are judged, that's how history judges you. Otherwise, you can say the Fab Five was the best team even though it did not win the tournament.

 

Does any sport's championship round succeed in finding its "best" team? The Packers were 10-6. The Giants barely made the playoffs and were underdogs in every series. Hockey is particularly notorious for low seeds making the Stanley Cup finals.

The NBA is really the only sport out there that seems to send its "best" teams to the final round.

 

Except for all the teams out West that stay home while sub-.500 teams in the East are cannon fodder for the Celtics, Bulls and Heat ... but that's another thread.But aside from the obvious talent differences, its the one-and-done aspect that separates the NCAA tourney from the NBA playoffs. There's always some exceptions, like Golden State beating Dallas a couple of years ago, but over a best-of-seven series, superior talent wins out.

 

Yes...

I would say six to seven went on to be good pro players and one was a great pro player. So Big 10 Player of the Year, to me, does not mean too much.

2010–11 Johnson, JaJuan
2009–10 Turner, Evan
2008–09 Lucas, Kalin
2007–08 White, D. J.
2006–07 Tucker, Alando
2005–06 Dials, Terence
2004–05 Brown, Dee
2003–04 Harris, Devin
2002–03 Cook, Brian
2001–02 Jeffries, Jared
2000–01 Williams, Frank
1999–00† Guyton, A. J.
1999–00† Peterson, Morris
1998–99† Cleaves, Mateen
1998–99† Penn, Scoonie
1997–98 Cleaves, Mateen
1996–97 Jackson, Bobby
1995–96 Evans, Brian
1994–95 Respert, Shawn
1993–94 Robinson, Glenn
1992–93 Cheaney, Calbert
1991–92 Jackson, Jim
1990–91 Jackson, Jim
1989–90 Scheffler, Steve
1988–89† Edwards, Jay
1988–89† Rice, Glen
1987–88 Grant, Gary
1986–87 Hopson, Dennis
1985–86 Skiles, Scott
1984–85 Tarpley, Roy

 

If you want a "real" championship, have something like soccer in England, where the team that finishes on top of the standings at the end of the year wins a championship. You can have secondary knockout tournaments which are a lot of fun, but aren't considered to crown a "champion." NCAA tournaments are FA Cups which use past season results to determine eligibility/seeding.

 

Superb. Let's take remove the outstanding part of college basketball, the NCAA tournament.

 

Why are people trying to fix something that isn't broken?

 

Either they think it is, or they think it could be better.

 

I really don't think any of us want a world where a 33-1 Georgetown is a National Champion over a 32-2 UCLA even though they never had a chance to play each other.