Worst Team to Win a Championship

'dexter, it appears you have trouble reading. Stoney was saying just that, that NC State did have a lot of talent.

 

I don't have any trouble reading. I was piggybacking what he said.

 

Dean Garrett had the oddest career of those on the '87 IU team. Was drafted in the second round in 1987, but didn't play a NBA game until 1996. But he then became a five-year, mostly part-time starter, primarily with Minnesota.

But to the original point, I don't think you can base a college team's lack of greatness on how many NBA players a team produced. It's a different game. As much as I can't stand IU, that '87 team was pretty good.

And think of it this way ... Iowa, Illinois and Michigan all had more NBA talent than Indiana had at the time. Iowa had something like seven future pros on its team. Illinois had peak-form Ken Norman and Kendall Gill. Michigan had the early version of its 1989 championship team.

Not only could none of those teams beat Indiana for the Big Ten title, they also finished behind Purdue in both 1987 and 1988. A Purdue team had far less talent than IU did at the time, unless Mel McCants somehow tips the scales in the Boilers' favor.

 

Ah, okay. My fault. As you were responding to him, it seemed like you were disagreeing with him.

 

I agree with all that. For the record, I didn't necessarily mean that they were one of the worst champs, that would indeed be a fairly foolish argument for a team that was 31-4, Big 10 champs and a No. 1 seed. And I agree with you that, despite the shortage of NBA talent, they did have damn good college players.

The reason that team popped in my head was as a reverse corollary to the NC State/Villanova type examples where people now remember those teams as being less talented than they actually were. I find it kinda ironic the way teams like NC State now get remembered as great overachievers in part because of how they underachieved in the regular season. I think logically you could say a team like 87 IU was the bigger overachiever because they maximized their talent the entire season--instead of waiting to turn it on late in the year--yet nobody perceives it that way.

 

Tangent:

Speaking of which, the 1997 Indians were Jose Mesa getting two outs away from being the worst championship team in modern baseball history. The Indians won 86 games in an awful A.L. Central that year.

I'd say 2010 Giants and 2005 White Sox are up there for teams that actually won it all.

 

The 2005 White Sox were the best team in the majors all season, and they put together one of the best postseasons in recent memory.

 

The 1997 Indians were the weakest of their teams in that era. If NY had gotten past them in the divisional series, they would have won the World Series. That would have made it five straight rings ans probably a sixth in 2001.

 

It's not a dynasty if they are four years apart.

 

That's fair. I probably should've qualified that by saying the Sox were the team that in hindsight had the fewest stars and didn't pass the eye test of a championship team. But they played fantastic baseball.

At least personally, I was waiting for the other shoe to drop on that team the entire season. It never did, to their credit.

Contreras suddenly finding it. Dustin Hermanson putting up an outlier season with 34 saves. Unnecessary bunting in the early innings. Jurassic Carl at DH. Juan Uribe's windmill swing. Podsednik making a 40-point jump in on-base percentage. Cliff Pollitte turning into the best set-up man in baseball. Ozzie Guillen always ready to implode.

It just didn't seem like the duct tape was going to hold, but it did.

Honestly, that 2006 team was the one on paper that looked like a champion to me.

 

paging Chris Webber, paging Chris Webber

 

MLB - The 1988 LA Dodgers. They were clearly inferior to the Mets and Oakland. Their best position player, Kirk Gibson, had one at-bat in the World Series. After Hersheiser, there were good but not great pitchers and a fairly week offense. Give them credit for pulling it out, but they didn't have the look of a great team - that might be what made them special to Dodgers fans.

NFL - The 1971 Colts. In one of the most inept Super Bowl games ever played, Jim O'Brien kicks a 32-yard field goal (the goal posts were still on the goal line instead of 10 yards behind the goal). Don McCafferty becomes a Super Bowl winning coach - think of the names of Super Bowl winning coaches and who is the "One of these coaches doesn't belong here".

NBA - 1999 San Antonio Spurs. I know the Spurs won more championships and were a great franchise in the 2000s. But this team won in a shortened season and won against a very weak New York Knicks team, who were considerably better earlier in the 1990s. It was a shortened season I know, but the Knicks were weak and it just doesn't seem like much of an accomplishment for San Antonio, which got much better as the decade went on. It seems like an odd choice perhaps, but that sticks in my mind.

NHL - 2010 Chicago Blackhawks. Maybe it was the fact that they couldn't keep the team together afterward. Maybe it was that Philadelphia didn't seem like that great of an opponent. Maybe it is that the team seemed to be undistinguished. Maybe it is my outlook that this was a good team but didn't seem in any way like a great team. Somebody could probably show some numbers or evidence that I am wrong, and I would be interested in seeing it.

College Football - 1984 Brigham Young. They played a weak schedule, but maybe that might not be completely their fault because big conference teams might not be interested in scheduling the Cougars.
What makes BYU completely absurd as a national champion is the fact that they barely defeated a 6-5 Michigan team in a second-tier bowl game.

College Basketball - 1987 Indiana. Give them credit because the beat a Syracuse team which should have dominated them - or at least win without an overwhelming about of trouble. This isn't even like the phantom call against Greg Anthony in the 1991 tournament - Duck was a real good team who just happened to not be as good as UNLV. Give the Hoosiers credit - but how many NCAA championship teams could the 1987 Hoosiers solidly defeat?