Selection Sunday-NCAA tournament thread

No, you aren't.

 

I perfectly understand that. A lot of times (Kentucky last year notwithstanding), winning titles and making Final Fours happen after escaping near death in earlier rounds. I'm not sure if I trust Buzz, though.

His tourney resume:

2009- lost to Mizzou in second round as a 6-seed. Mizzou was third.
2010 - 6-seed, lost to 11th-seeded Washington in first round.
2011 - 11 seed, got utterly destroyed by UNC in Sweet 16.
2012 - 3 seed, got blown out by 7th-seeded Florida in Sweet 16.

So he's never made it past the Sweet 16, and with possibly his best team this year he's struggled mightily to beat a SoCon team and a Butler squad that isn't close to the best team Stevens has had.

 

As has been noted of other sports, the tournament is match play, not medal. The idea that a higher seeded team, or any team for that matter, in the tournament did not "play well" because it won a close game is dubious at best. Whatever happened to "tough games" or even "really good games" in which both teams perform well or at least at an equal level? Florida's looked pretty damn good to me. Marquette's comeback against Davidson speaks very well of it as a team to me.

 

Because he's a lot better.

 

OK, no I'm not.

But the sting of the inevitable loss (wow, they looked unprepared yesterday; Boeheim is licking his chops at the Crean matchup) will be lessened by the Twitter meltdown among the types who have acted like the Final Four is our birthright.

 

So Marquette, which has never been higher than a 3 seed under Williams, has now made three Sweet 16s and has only lost once to a team seeded worse. Yes, that's awful. Good post.

 

They've lost twice to teams seeded worse. One in the first round, one in the Sweet 16.

 

Let's not get ahead of ourselves. FGCU lost to Lipscomb (twice), ETSU and Stetson, all of whom had losing records, and Mercer won the regular-season title. They may well be the A-Sun's next Belmont, presuming they don't move to another conference at some point, but it's far from a certainty.

Plus who's to say the A-Sun will be around much longer? ETSU is reinstating football and has eyes for the SoCon -- which are in the process of losing their two signature football programs -- and the OVC. Kennesaw State is starting football and seems destined for the SoCon themselves. Northern Kentucky is a decent bet to find itself in the OVC. And again, a 26,000-student school with ambitious plans like FGCU probably doesn't have much interest in having playdates with Stetson and USC Upstate for long.

But two really fun wins against bigger programs doesn't necessarily translate into longtime success either. Who's to say they don't lose their coach and become mediocre in short order? Enjoy the run now, but keep perspective too.

 

I thought he meant this one:

 

Provided that Arizona beats Ohio State.

 

I'll be disappointed after they lose on Thursday, but I won't be devastated the way I would have been with a loss yesterday or a year ago to VCU. There is something legitimitizing about getting out of the first weekend. Once you start playing 4 seeds and better, essentially, anything can happen. I get that this is Indiana, and I won't set a low bar forever, but a Big Ten championship, a No. 1 ranking for multiple weeks, and two Sweet Sixteens the last two years is a really, really nice start.

 

Tubby got tired of dealing with Kentucky racists and went to Minnesota, which is supposedly not so racist. Kentucky will get tired of Calipari if they tank next season.