NCAA tournament 2011 — running thread

[Stoney]

Holy lord what a historically epic meltdown by the overhyped Big East.

You realize NONE of the 11 Big East teams reached the Sweet 16 by beating a non conference team in the second round. The only 2 BE teams still alive (Marquette and UConn) remain only because they got a fellow Big East team as their 2d round opponent.

Could this tournament possibly have delivered a more emphatic and prompt NO answer to that "did the Big East really deserve 11" question?

It'll be interesting to see how soon everybody forgets all this next season when it comes time to hype the Big East as the indomitable force again.

I'll be really surprised if this meltdown doesn't leave a longer lasting mark than that. As a guy who was skeptical all along about the Big East ravings, even I never ever imagined they'd crash and burn this bad.

And this is a case where I think the ESPN crew deserves some scrutiny. As I recall, at the beginning of the year the widespread view was that the Big 10 was the best conference on average, with the Big East closely behind, and that remained the prevailing view until the end of the non-conference season. But somewhere around mid-January the ESPN folks went on a Big East frenzy, starting pimping the conference constantly, endlessy arguing the talking point about why they deserved an unprecedented 11 bids to the NCAA tournament, and it was just a matter of time before the rest of the world began buying into the hype.

But gawdamn was that emperor ever exposed as a naked forking biscuit these last four days.

 

[LongTimeListener]

Harvard and Alabama certainly would have put up a better showing than Villanova and Georgetown.

You mean the same Harvard that lost by 17 points to Oklahoma State (which went 6-10 in the Big 12) in the NIT? Or an Alabama team that lost to Seton Hall, one of the worst teams in the Big East?

Did the Big East lay a turd in the NCAA tournament? Of course it did. But which one of those 11 teams didn't deserve a spot?

There is a strong case to be made against Marquette, whose best OOC win came against Green Bay and who lost by 25 in the conference tourney. But then Marquette can give the same neener-neener that VCU can.

What a team did in the tournament and whether it belonged there are really two separate arguments that should come together only in the coach's pregame pep talk.

 

[Armchair_QB]

Holy lord what a historically epic meltdown by the overhyped Big East.

You realize NONE of the 11 Big East teams reached the Sweet 16 by beating a non conference team in the second round. The only 2 BE teams still alive (Marquette and UConn) remain only because they got a fellow Big East team as their 2d round opponent.

Could this tournament possibly have delivered a more emphatic and prompt NO answer to that "did the Big East really deserve 11" question?

It'll be interesting to see how soon everybody forgets all this next season when it comes time to hype the Big East as the indomitable force again.

I'll be really surprised if this meltdown doesn't leave a longer lasting mark than that. As a guy who was skeptical all along about the Big East ravings, even I never ever imagined they'd crash and burn this bad.

And this is a case where I think the ESPN crew deserves some scrutiny. As I recall, at the beginning of the year the widespread view was that the Big 10 was the best conference on average, with the Big East closely behind, and that remained the prevailing view until the end of the non-conference season. But somewhere around mid-January the ESPN folks went on a Big East frenzy, starting pimping the conference constantly, endlessy arguing the talking point about why they deserved an unprecedented 11 bids to the NCAA tournament, and it was just a matter of time before the rest of the world began buying into the hype.

But gawdamn was that emperor ever exposed as a naked forking biscuit these last four days.

Wait, ESPN shamelessly pimped an East Coast-based conference? Unpossible!

 

[BrianGriffin]

Harvard and Alabama certainly would have put up a better showing than Villanova and Georgetown.

You mean the same Harvard that lost by 17 points to Oklahoma State (which went 6-10 in the Big 12) in the NIT? Or an Alabama team that lost to Seton Hall, one of the worst teams in the Big East?

Did the Big East lay a turd in the NCAA tournament? Of course it did. But which one of those 11 teams didn't deserve a spot?

Under the current rules, I'd say all had an argument to be in, but they should not have raised a fuss if Marquette, Nova or Georgetown were left out.

I think Alabama gets a bad rap for being in the SEC West. I think they were 5-3 against the SEC East, which sent five of its six members to the tournament and has two teams in the Sweet 16. So it's not like Bama built up SEC wins against the West, which was awful.

Having said all that, I think they should emphasize conference play a bit more to increase the urgency of conference games late in seasons. Add drama.

 

[KP]

Just watched the replay of the Arizona-Texas game, interesting that the ref who called the 5-second call felt it was necessary to hold up his hand with the 5 and point in Arizona's direction three times. Looks like someone decided he wanted to be the show.

I didn't see it that way at all.
The guy is like 5-8. When he made the call and signal, players on both teams started walking toward the benches because everyone thought it was a timeout. His job is to make sure his signal is seen by everyone, including the official timer, who's keeping track of timeouts - and i believe Arizona was out of them by then and Texas had one.
So he's not seen and when he sees players walking to the benches, he has to make his signal clear. He did.
But you just go along with your theory, because logic isn't as fun.

How many times do you really need to pump your hand into the air? I'm willing to bet it's not the first time he's called a five-second violation and that his mechanic has never been what he used today.

 

[BillySixty]

Harvard and Alabama certainly would have put up a better showing than Villanova and Georgetown.

You mean the same Harvard that lost by 17 points to Oklahoma State (which went 6-10 in the Big 12) in the NIT? Or an Alabama team that lost to Seton Hall, one of the worst teams in the Big East?

Did the Big East lay a turd in the NCAA tournament? Of course it did. But which one of those 11 teams didn't deserve a spot?

There is a strong case to be made against Marquette, whose best OOC win came against Green Bay and who lost by 25 in the conference tourney. But then Marquette can give the same neener-neener that VCU can.

Actually, Marquette beat two mid-major conference champions (Bucknell and UW-Milwaukee, the latter of which was technically a road game) in the OOC. Not great wins, but they also took Duke, Gonzaga, Vanderbilt and Wisconsin to the final possessions.

Marquette's worst loss all season was at Seton Hall, which finished around the 100 line on the RPI.

They deserved to get in regardless of what they did this past week.

And saying that a team has to be above .500 in conference play in order to get an at-large spot is also a little ridiculous. The Big East probably wasn't as good as people made it out to be during the regular season, but it still was a tougher grind than any other conference.

The conference's problem is that it had no dominant team. They had some very good teams (Pitt, Louisville, Notre Dame, Syracuse), some good teams that hit their stride at certain times (Connecticut, Marquette, St. John's, Cincinnati, West Virginia) and some teams that just hit a wall at the end of the season (Villanova, Georgetown).

There's no Ohio State, Kansas or even a Duke in the bunch. But it was deeper than any conference in the nation. And I don't think that can be argued.

 

[BrianGriffin]

Harvard and Alabama certainly would have put up a better showing than Villanova and Georgetown.

And saying that a team has to be above .500 in conference play in order to get an at-large spot is also a little ridiculous. The Big East probably wasn't as good as people made it out to be during the regular season, but it still was a tougher grind than any other conference.

I don't see what the second sentence has to do with the first. Sure you can be in a tough conference. If you went 9-7 in the Big East this year, would that have been a great season?

It's one thing to be battle tested by your conference, it's another to win a fare share of those battles.

 

[BillySixty]

And saying that a team has to be above .500 in conference play in order to get an at-large spot is also a little ridiculous. The Big East probably wasn't as good as people made it out to be during the regular season, but it still was a tougher grind than any other conference.

I don't see what the second sentence has to do with the first. Sure you can be in a tough conference. If you went 9-7 in the Big East this year, would that have been a great season?

It's one thing to be battle tested by your conference, it's another to win a fare share of those battles.

This year, I think a 9-9 record in the Big East is the same as a 10-6 record in the Big 12 or Big Ten. Next year that may be different if the Big Ten has a whole bunch of good teams and the Big East has one dominant team, two really good teams, and a bunch of mediocre teams.

There were only two teams in the Big East that had less than six conference losses. To just arbitrarily point at a .500 record as the cutoff for being worthy of the postseason is doing the tournament an injustice.

 

[BrianGriffin]

And saying that a team has to be above .500 in conference play in order to get an at-large spot is also a little ridiculous. The Big East probably wasn't as good as people made it out to be during the regular season, but it still was a tougher grind than any other conference.

I don't see what the second sentence has to do with the first. Sure you can be in a tough conference. If you went 9-7 in the Big East this year, would that have been a great season?

It's one thing to be battle tested by your conference, it's another to win a fare share of those battles.

This year, I think a 9-9 record in the Big East is the same as a 10-6 record in the Big 12 or Big Ten. Next year that may be different if the Big Ten has a whole bunch of good teams and the Big East has one dominant team, two really good teams, and a bunch of mediocre teams.

There were only two teams in the Big East that had less than six conference losses. To just arbitrarily point at a .500 record as the cutoff for being worthy of the postseason is doing the tournament an injustice.

I see no downside to placing more emphasis on various parts of the regular season, particularly the conference season. As it is, so long as you win the right games in November and December, you can enter late February with a mediocre conference record and with little drama outside of seeding for a lot of teams (and the drama of whether your team will finally start playing decent basketball in the tournament).

I do think there is a difference between 9-9 in the Big East and, say, 11-5 in the SEC West. Alabama, which I thought should have been in (but am not outraged that they did not get in) had far different levels of success achieving their conference goal.

 

[Piotr Rasputin]

You know, Kansas has more wins in the NCAA tournament since 2000 than any other school. So KU chokes every year, except for when it doesn't.

Over the last 20 years or so, KU has been a feast-or-famine NCAA team. For the most part as a high seed, they either reach the Final Four, or lose a game that seeding dictates they never should have lost.

Four times in this period, they have had a top seed and failed to reach even the Elite Eight. But they also have five Final Fours and one national title.

 

[Stoney]

The Big East probably wasn't as good as people made it out to be during the regular season, but it still was a tougher grind than any other conference.


There's no Ohio State, Kansas or even a Duke in the bunch. But it was deeper than any conference in the nation. And I don't think that can be argued.

Nonsense. I completely disagree with these statements.

The Big 10 was a tougher grind overall and is deeper on average, in large part because it doesn't have the weak links the Big East suffers from (which go conspicously unmentioned when Bilas and the rest of the ESPN crew are spouting their Big East talking points).

Rarely mentioned about the Big East is that the bottom tier of that conference--Depaul, South Florida, Providence, Seton Hall, Rutgers--is pretty damn PATHETIC by major conference standards. Meanwhile, let's compare that pitiful fivesome to the four bottom-rung Big 10 teams that failed to make the tournament:

When the non-conference season ended, Minnesota was 13-1 and a TOP 10 TEAM that had convincingly beaten the likes of North Carolina and Big East power West Virginia. It was only when the Big 10 conference season began and Minny had to begin playing fellow Big 10 teams night in night out that Minnesota started losing.

When the non-conference season ended, Northwestern was 11-1, a TOP 25 TEAM, that clearly appeared destined for the NCAA tournament, it wasn't until they had to play fellow Big 10 teams night in night out that Northwestern began losing.

heck, even Big 10 doormat IU was 11-4 and looking vastly improved until the conference season began. And Iowa improved dramatically and was knocking off the likes of Purdue by season's end.

The fact is the Big 10 was CLEARLY better on average from top to bottom. The Big 10's top (Ohio State, Wisconsin, Purdue) was plainly better than the Big East's top (Pitt, Syracuse, ND), and the Big 10's bottom (Minnesota, Northwestern, Indiana, Iowa) was CLEARLY and by far better than the Big East's bottom (Depaul, South Florida, Providence, Seton Hall, Rutgers).

The reason you didn't hear about this? Hmm, well I'm thinking the collective ESPN hard-on for pimping all things Big East that seemed to begin mid-january and accelerate exponentially each week thereafter might have had something to do with it. Unfortunately for ESPN, there's this thing called a post-season tournament where their anointed ones have to face actual non-conference opponents and back up the hype .... and good gawd have they ever failed miserably the past four days.

 

[Piotr Rasputin]

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