(03-17-2018 11:21 PM)wiessguy Wrote:  I was pulling for UH. Had them winning in my bracket. Gotta hit your free throws!

The guy who was on the line was something like a 65% shooter for the season. On the night up to that point, I think he had made 9 out of 10.

Very bad moment to revert to form.

But they'll be fine. The Coogs are used to soul-crushing losses in the tournament.

(03-17-2018 12:40 PM)westsidewolf1989 Wrote:  

(03-17-2018 10:17 AM)Wiessman Wrote:  but that was amateurs beating pros. That was very different.

You're assuming the Virginia players aren't getting paid

Jokes aside, Tony Bennett and his time can try and move on from this in their minds, but that doesn't change the fact that he will be the coach, they will be the players and Virginia will be the school that became the first 1 seed to lose to a 16 seed - and not just a close loss either; a massive blowout. He could win five ACC championships in a row and this will never erase this stain on their resumes. What a massive embarrassment.

As JSA briefly said, you mean like Virginia wears the stain of its loss to Chaminade? It's a historical footnote at this point, usually brought up around the time of that tournament each year, or a bit of trivia on Trivia night at some sports bar. That is the all-time upset.

I could also point out that Jim Boeheim hardly wears the wears the stain of being the first coach to lose a 15/2 matchup. How many here actually remember that he's the first coach to have that "unimaginable" loss happen to him (Syracuse/Richmond 1990)?

Probably more than many places I'd ask that question, but think long and hard about it. The stain hardly stuck to him, even in the 90s. Santa Clara's upset just a few years later made it seem a bit more likely, and that probably helped perception, but it is what it is.

This will stick with him for a while, but a legacy-defining stain? (I know you didn't use the word legacy, but that seems the implication of what you write.) Not likely, except as trivia. I'll give this one 10 to 15 years of longevity, or until a 16/1 upset happens again. Then again, if Virginia keeps playing that ho-hum offense, this could happen to them again. That would be quite the stain.

The other bit of Rice-related trivia: Ryan Odom (the UMBC coach) was the interim coach for Charlotte to finish the 2015 season. (Rice went 1-1 against him.) Charlotte didn't keep him (bringing in Mark Price instead). Instead of Charlotte being worse than Rice this year, think about what things might have been like with Odom coaching in CUSA.

BTW, someone asked for the transitive property to prove Rice is better than UMBC (and by extension, the probable consensus #1 overall team in Division 1 through the conference tournaments - UVA). Here is the shortest path. (Massey has a transitive property script that will build it for you.)

https://www.masseyratings.com/path.php?s...=1&t1=umbc

1 2018-01-25 @ Rice 73 Florida Intl 64
2 2017-12-11 Florida Intl 65 @ South Florida 53
3 2018-03-04 @ South Florida 65 SMU 54
4 2017-11-10 @ SMU 78 UMBC 67

(03-18-2018 09:18 AM)gsloth Wrote:  Then again, if Virginia keeps playing that ho-hum offense, this could happen to them again. That would be quite the stain.

I thought their offense was pretty dreadful all year, but they won because their defense forced other teams out of their offenses. They could win games 55-50, but if you got the game into the 90s, you had a good chance to win. UMBC managed to keep their offense going, and Virginia simply could not score with them. Probably never could win a scoring battle, but they had a dominant regular season because nobody was able to stick with their offense against them.

(03-18-2018 09:37 AM)Owl 69/70/75 Wrote:  

(03-18-2018 09:18 AM)gsloth Wrote:  Then again, if Virginia keeps playing that ho-hum offense, this could happen to them again. That would be quite the stain.

I thought their offense was pretty dreadful all year, but they won because their defense forced other teams out of their offenses. They could win games 55-50, but if you got the game into the 90s, you had a good chance to win. UMBC managed to keep their offense going, and Virginia simply could not score with them. Probably never could win a scoring battle, but they had a dominant regular season because nobody was able to stick with their offense against them.

This is going to be interesting to see going forward. We saw human nature, in young adults, when things aren't quite going your way, in that second half. The pack line defense just wasn't anymore, preventing those later inside forays (which is what it is designed to do). Nobody stepped up, or were late, as UMBC started driving. And with their shots falling even less in second half, it mentally killed what to then had been one of the most mentally sound teams I had seen in a while (based on their regular season results).

The interesting part is that because of UVA's continuing success, they are finally starting to recruit into that 4-star/McD All-American territory. A lot of their success before now was without that level of recruit. So with those more skilled players, will the offense finally have the kind of player (or 3 - what it would probably need for these kinds of situations) who can take over when things get tough? I have a feeling the defense will always be there, given how Bennett runs things, but should be interesting if his career becomes more like Boeheim's (eventually getting that championship) or derails like so many others.

Bennett is a great coach, one of the best in the country. And he isn't a weasel. Virginia's consistent winning (in the ACC, no less) is a better indicator of Bennett's actual quality than a single loss to UMBC is.

Bennett comes from a "do more with less" basketball background. Against all odds, his dad turned both UW-Green Bay and Wisconsin into winners, and he did it without blue-chip recruits of any kind. Tony Bennett was a part of the former effort as a player, and he is DEFINITELY his dad's kid. The apple didn't fall very far from the tree in this case.

The fact that Virginia was even in a position to get upset like this says it all. Bennett and his team will be fine.

Maybe, this will "tarnish" him so much we would have a chance to hire him.

(03-18-2018 09:48 AM)gsloth Wrote:  

(03-18-2018 09:37 AM)Owl 69/70/75 Wrote:  

(03-18-2018 09:18 AM)gsloth Wrote:  Then again, if Virginia keeps playing that ho-hum offense, this could happen to them again. That would be quite the stain.

I thought their offense was pretty dreadful all year, but they won because their defense forced other teams out of their offenses. They could win games 55-50, but if you got the game into the 90s, you had a good chance to win. UMBC managed to keep their offense going, and Virginia simply could not score with them. Probably never could win a scoring battle, but they had a dominant regular season because nobody was able to stick with their offense against them.

This is going to be interesting to see going forward. We saw human nature, in young adults, when things aren't quite going your way, in that second half. The pack line defense just wasn't anymore, preventing those later inside forays (which is what it is designed to do). Nobody stepped up, or were late, as UMBC started driving. And with their shots falling even less in second half, it mentally killed what to then had been one of the most mentally sound teams I had seen in a while (based on their regular season results).

The interesting part is that because of UVA's continuing success, they are finally starting to recruit into that 4-star/McD All-American territory. A lot of their success before now was without that level of recruit. So with those more skilled players, will the offense finally have the kind of player (or 3 - what it would probably need for these kinds of situations) who can take over when things get tough? I have a feeling the defense will always be there, given how Bennett runs things, but should be interesting if his career becomes more like Boeheim's (eventually getting that championship) or derails like so many others.

This was a nicely prescient bit of pre-tournament analysis from Dr. Bob:

Quote:Virginia is the consensus #1 team in the nation and the Cavaliers have played better overall than any other team in the nation. However, my issue with Virginia over the years is that they have no room for improvement because their defense can’t get any better than it already is by simply giving more effort. The Cavaliers already give full effort of every defensive possession while other elite teams that aren’t as good defensively can improve on that side of the court by bearing down more. That may be the reason why Tony Bennett’s teams have never made it as far as they’ve been seeded the other three times they were a #1 or #2 seed (and they lost in the second round last season by 26 points as a #5 seed).

It does kind of suck that a great academic school and one that as far as we know does things the right way now has the ignominious distinction of having the two most embarrassing losses in college basketball history (and probably all of basketball history). I can't take much schadenfreude in that!

(03-18-2018 02:59 PM)illiniowl Wrote:  This was a nicely prescient bit of pre-tournament analysis from Dr. Bob:

Quote:Virginia is the consensus #1 team in the nation and the Cavaliers have played better overall than any other team in the nation. However, my issue with Virginia over the years is that they have no room for improvement because their defense can’t get any better than it already is by simply giving more effort. The Cavaliers already give full effort of every defensive possession while other elite teams that aren’t as good defensively can improve on that side of the court by bearing down more. That may be the reason why Tony Bennett’s teams have never made it as far as they’ve been seeded the other three times they were a #1 or #2 seed (and they lost in the second round last season by 26 points as a #5 seed).

It does kind of suck that a great academic school and one that as far as we know does things the right way now has the ignominious distinction of having the two most embarrassing losses in college basketball history (and probably all of basketball history). I can't take much schadenfreude in that!

Coming from someone who watches a lot of ACC games:

The fact that Virginia always wins in such a grind-it-out fashion has bothered me before. It's not because the style bores me; rather, it is because they rely solely on imposing that style. There were a few times this year in conference games when I thought, "Gosh, (team x) isn't that far off here. Maybe if they could get a few more shots to go..."

But see, when a team like Virginia wins again, and again, and again, you begin to believe that their discipline can't really be overcome. I was aware that Virginia was getting things done more with method than with talent, but usually the method is the most important component (assuming a baseline quantity of P5-caliber players on a given team). You can't consistently beat strong competition on talent alone.

However, it also appears that a team needs more than nigh-unfailing discipline come March. You can be sure that Bennett is now going to be trying to get those one or two dynamic stars that can get the team over the hump when their defense can't. It's really his only way forward if he wants to actually get to a Final Four.

Dick Bennett got Wisconsin to the Final Four with a very pedestrian team that could play stifling defense and patiently create open shots. That all came together very nicely for them in that run. But that doesn't happen but once in a blue moon. Even Wisconsin began to recruit better talent when Bo Ryan took over.

aTm throttled UNC. wow.

Cincinnati was up 22 in second half. And the Bearcats lost. Congrats to Nevada. The AAC is done.

Clemson is obliterating Auburn. But Nevada came back, so who knows...?

(Clemson lost its best player almost two months ago. So this is a bit of a surprise.)

(03-18-2018 07:14 PM)Wiessman Wrote:  Cincinnati was up 22 in second half. And the Bearcats lost. Congrats to Nevada. The AAC is done.

Clemson is obliterating Auburn. But Nevada came back, so who knows...?

(Clemson lost its best player almost two months ago. So this is a bit of a surprise.)

Auburn also lost their best player I believe (before the SEC tourney). The former Rice commit won the game for Nevada.

If Marshall wins tonight, two teams that Rice lost to this year are in the Sweet 16 (also Texas Tech). And a third one that played at Tudor this season (Texas A&M played UT in an exhibition game in November) is already in the sweet 16.

This has been a wild tournament. I'd say the ACC is also tanking but obviously Clemson is doing quite well tonight, and Duke-Syracuse ensures that the ACC has at least 1 final 8 squad.

West Virginia's going to win. I don't think Marshall has it in 'em to make a comeback.

Here is something interesting: Oklahoma State had wins away from home against three of the final sixteen (Kansas, West Virginia, and Florida State in Miami), as well as three home wins against the same group (Kansas again, Kansas State, and Texas Tech). Yet Oklahoma State did not make the tournament.

I know it is primarily the mid-major schools that got screwed (again), but Oklahoma State got jobbed pretty hard as well.

(03-18-2018 10:24 PM)Wiessman Wrote:  West Virginia's going to win. I don't think Marshall has it in 'em to make a comeback.

Here is something interesting: Oklahoma State had wins away from home against three of the final sixteen (Kansas, West Virginia, and Florida State in Miami), as well as three home wins against the same group (Kansas again, Kansas State, and Texas Tech). Yet Oklahoma State did not make the tournament.

I know it is primarily the mid-major schools that got screwed (again), but Oklahoma State got jobbed pretty hard as well.

No one who finished 8-10 in their conference can complain about missing the tournament.

(03-18-2018 10:36 PM)cr11owl Wrote:  

(03-18-2018 10:24 PM)Wiessman Wrote:  West Virginia's going to win. I don't think Marshall has it in 'em to make a comeback.

Here is something interesting: Oklahoma State had wins away from home against three of the final sixteen (Kansas, West Virginia, and Florida State in Miami), as well as three home wins against the same group (Kansas again, Kansas State, and Texas Tech). Yet Oklahoma State did not make the tournament.

I know it is primarily the mid-major schools that got screwed (again), but Oklahoma State got jobbed pretty hard as well.

No one who finished 8-10 in their conference can complain about missing the tournament.

If other teams got in that were 8-10, then yes, they can and should.

I don't think teams that have losing records in conference should get in as a rule, but I also don't think there should be 68 teams in the tournament to begin with. With things as they are, Oklahoma State has a good case.