Running 2018 college rings postseason thread

I’m flabbergasted that 95 percent put them in the Sweet 16. They can’t score.

 

I read I read that Stanford lost its 2 best players to injury between the seeding and the game.

 

Couged it.

 

Yep. And Harvard had a legit big who could have played high-DI hoops but whose family valued the degree above all that. She was a real player. They shouldn’t have been a 16.

 

They were 31-2 playing in clearly the best conference in the nation--a conference with NINE teams in this tournament--and they easily won both the ACC regular season and tourney titles for that best conference in the country. And their only losses were a 1 point overtime thriller against their archrival, and another extremely difficult non-con road game against a top ranked WVU team. I mean, seriously, just look at their body of work against one of the five most difficult schedules in the nation this year. Who wouldn't have thought that was a Sweet 16 team?

That said, as a Virgina watcher this year, I always thought there was smoke and mirrors over-achievement going on (they simply did not have the same talent as the teams they kept beating), and that a big letdown was eventually coming, but I just never imagined that inevitable letdown would come against a friggin 16 seed UMBC team.

 

I guess. You know a million times more than I do about them. (As I’ve said, I’m essentially only a tournament watcher at this point.)

I suppose Sweet 16 is a low bar as well, it means they only would beat a 16 and an 8/9, so maybe that 95 percent number tracks. I do remember i bounced them in favor of Kentucky without a lot of thought — I just can’t trust a team that could put up 42 on any given night.

 

Historically, No. 1 seeds make the Sweet 16 86.4 percent of the time.

https://www.betfirm.com/seeds-national-championship-odds/

 

They also gave up 53 points in the second half, but guess everyone should've expected that also.

 

The story in the fourth graf: Priceless.

No. 16 Harvard over No. 1 Stanford still resonates 10 years later

 

More. The Chaminade loss was not televised. It happened at an inconsequential time on the college hoops calendar, December. This is nothing less than the largest embarrassment in the history of college basketball. It is not simply an issue of No. 1 losing to No. 16; it is No. 1 overall getting flogged by No. 16.
I always thought that a 16-vs-1 win would unfold like this: Underdog leads by 10 at the half, builds it to 18 and withstands a frenzied late run by the top dog. This one was tied at the half. I guessed this would constitute sufficient fear to compel the No. 1 overall seed to step up its game and put away the little guy over time if not immediately.
I wasn't appreciably moved when it became a seven-point game early in the second half. But it got to 14, and it didn't get any closer in the next few minutes. And that's when it was over. UMBC only had to get to the eight-minute mark. That was it. Once Virginia had to emerge from its defensive shell to take chances in the name of forcing turnovers or bad shots, it was out of its element and vulnerable. The rout was on.

This now becomes the team with the oddest legacy in history. Dominating the ACC as few teams ever have, yet getting executed by a team from a conference nobody can name? Wacky combo.

They'll always have Brooklyn. And they'll always have Charlotte. The latter will dog them forever. As well it should.

How do you convince a fan base to make any emotional investment again? You can't. Bennett is a great coach who has brought Virginia unprecedented stretches of national relevance. He is the best representative for your university that anybody can reasonably envision. But until they break through and make a Final Four, nobody will take them seriously. And they can't.

 

This one constitutes a lifetime of 12 v 5 games.