March Madness thread

[IU Scott]

10 hours ago, ArchieBall13 said:

Was always skeptical that UVA wasn’t “built” for the tourney. The program churns out wins at a very high clip. I think the early exits were more a function of just how unpredictable the tourney is every year.

That is why I rather have a great regular season over a great run to the elite 8.  If we are talking final four then I would be all for it but to me as a fan it is way more entertaining to have a great 4 months over a great two weeks.

[FW_Hoosier]

16 minutes ago, IU Scott said:

Guess some of you spoke to soon because that was a great final.  Yes I am just going through this thread right now so I have not read any post after this post I an responding to.

 

[IU Scott]

2 hours ago, Seeking6 said:

I'm tired of bad calls and really tired of discussing them. Virginia received multiple again. Regarding game. End of regulation 3. Can't believe he was A) that wide open and B) Beard didn't foul. What happened to Purdue is the exception but the %'s back up fouling there....of course that's if the officials would have called. 

It is funny that this place is the only place I have really seen complaining about the refs.  Turned it to ESPN after the game and all for of them including Bilas gave great praise to the refs.  they said that there were no calls where they thought was a bad  call that had anything to do with the outcome of the game.  Greenburg a former coach who usually rips the refs sang the praises of the refs last night talking about he did not see one bad call last night.  I did not see anyone on CBS complaining about the refs as well.  I thought it was the right call to give UVA the ball because it went off Morrettis finger.

[Hoosierhoopster]

9 hours ago, KoB2011 said:

Props to UVA. No team has ever won a title without breaks. 

I hope we can all see the benefits of dedication to a disciplined system and having veteran players who understand that system. Not just in Virginia, but all four teams in the Final Four. 

Agreed.

UVA's team was built over time to win. They had regular high level regular season success. The knock was they couldn't win the NCAA tourney / get to and through the Final Four. But this is such a good reflection of how regular season success with team building can develop the program for tourney success.

Regular, regular season success is a better barometer of a quality program built to win. You can catch lightning in a bottle, you can be the team that every now and then gets hot in the tourney, but if you're a team built for sustained winning over time, that leads to higher seeding, it leads to depth, it leads to confidence / experience in winning the big games, it gets you there, eventually. That's where I think our program is and should be headed.

[13th&Jackson]

22 minutes ago, IU Scott said:

It is funny that this place is the only place I have really seen complaining about the refs.  Turned it to ESPN after the game and all for of them including Bilas gave great praise to the refs.  they said that there were no calls where they thought was a bad  call that had anything to do with the outcome of the game.  Greenburg a former coach who usually rips the refs sang the praises of the refs last night talking about he did not see one bad call last night.  I did not see anyone on CBS complaining about the refs as well.  I thought it was the right call to give UVA the ball because it went off Morrettis finger.

I thought that was a replay failure. Example of how replay analysis has become way too granular, looking frame by frame. Same has happened in football. 

When a player is dribbling and a defender slaps the ball away, there’s a good chance part of the dribbling hand will still contact the ball. Moretti didn’t reach for it, it didn’t go off his foot, etc. Defender clearly slapped ball out of bounds. 

Replay should be there for obvious missed calls but not overturn  ones like that

[dbmhoosier]

18 minutes ago, Hoosierhoopster said:

Agreed.

UVA's team was built over time to win. They had regular high level regular season success. The knock was they couldn't win the NCAA tourney / get to and through the Final Four. But this is such a good reflection of how regular season success with team building can develop the program for tourney success.

Regular, regular season success is a better barometer of a quality program built to win. You can catch lightning in a bottle, you can be the team that every now and then gets hot in the tourney, but if you're a team built for sustained winning over time, that leads to higher seeding, it leads to depth, it leads to confidence / experience in winning the big games, it gets you there, eventually. That's where I think our program is and should be headed.

The counter argument is that they needed 3 miracle wins in a row to get this far.  They should've lost to Purdue easily.

[IU Scott]

4 minutes ago, dbmhoosier said:

The counter argument is that they needed 3 miracle wins in a row to get this far.  They should've lost to Purdue easily.

Better to be lucky than good sometimes and I bet most champions had a game or two that they won luckily.

[5fouls]

4 minutes ago, dbmhoosier said:

The counter argument is that they needed 3 miracle wins in a row to get this far.  They should've lost to Purdue easily.

IU in 1987 comes to mind.  Both the LSU win in the Elite 8 and the Championship Game against Syracuse required some divine intervention for IU to pull out.

[13th&Jackson]

11 minutes ago, dbmhoosier said:

The counter argument is that they needed 3 miracle wins in a row to get this far.  They should've lost to Purdue easily.

And the Duke OAD factory needed two miracles to get to the E8. They should have lost to UCF and VT

Nature of the NCAAT

[Hoosierhoopster]

58 minutes ago, 13th&Jackson said:

And the Duke OAD factory needed two miracles to get to the E8. They should have lost to UCF and VT

Nature of the NCAAT

That's really the point, the tourney is a one-and-done tourney, it always has hot-shooting teams knocking out "better" teams, officiating that turns a game, etc. 

If you win regularly you get good seeding, and with a strong team your chances are improved in the tourney. 

[IU878176]

5 hours ago, 5fouls said:

So, was that Virginia team better than 4 out of 5 of IU's Championship teams?

ESPN seems to think so.

http://www.espn.com/mens-college-basketball/story/_/id/26448643/where-does-virginia-rank-all-national-championship-teams

Debate.

 

 

 

 

They have the ‘87 team rated above the ‘81 team. From mid-season through the final game I would take the ‘81 team over the ‘87 team in a heartbeat. The ‘81 team started slowly but once Landon got more “serious” we were hard to stop.

[IU Scott]

5 minutes ago, IU878176 said:

They have the ‘87 team rated above the ‘81 team. From mid-season through the final game I would take the ‘81 team over the ‘87 team in a heartbeat. The ‘81 team started slowly but once Landon got more “serious” we were hard to stop.

There are very few champions from the last 15 years that I would take over the championship teams of the 80's and 90's.  The UCLA teams of the 60's and our teams from the 75 and 76 are so far superior to what we see today.

[IUFLA]

12 minutes ago, IU Scott said:

There are very few champions from the last 15 years that I would take over the championship teams of the 80's and 90's.  The UCLA teams of the 60's and our teams from the 75 and 76 are so far superior to what we see today.

Well I'll agree that the execution of the older teams was better, but the athleticism isn't even close.

[IU Scott]

9 minutes ago, IUFLA said:

Well I'll agree that the execution of the older teams was better, but the athleticism isn't even close.

Athleticism has nothing to do with being a good basketball player.  Also teams back then kept most of their top players for 4 years so it would be like Duke having Zion and company playing as junior and seniors.

[NotIThatLives]

Jerome may have been the least athletic player in the final four... just saying.  

I'll take that skill set all day long.  He's a savy throw back player.  

[IUFLA]

1 minute ago, IU Scott said:

Athleticism has nothing to do with being a good basketball player. 

Not totally, no. But imagine Michael Jordan or Will Chamberlain without their superior athletic skills. 

They would still be good, but not considered with the greatest ever.

Take Bobby Wilkerson for example. In 1976 he was an anomaly...a 6'7" kid with athleticism that could guard any position on the floor. Now the NBA and college hoops are filled with guys like that.

[BGleas]

3 hours ago, Hoosierhoopster said:

Agreed.

UVA's team was built over time to win. They had regular high level regular season success. The knock was they couldn't win the NCAA tourney / get to and through the Final Four. But this is such a good reflection of how regular season success with team building can develop the program for tourney success.

Regular, regular season success is a better barometer of a quality program built to win. You can catch lightning in a bottle, you can be the team that every now and then gets hot in the tourney, but if you're a team built for sustained winning over time, that leads to higher seeding, it leads to depth, it leads to confidence / experience in winning the big games, it gets you there, eventually. That's where I think our program is and should be headed.

You and I have discussed this numerous times, even going back to the old scout site, but the tournament is about quality at-bats (meaning consistently being a high seed). It's a fluky thing where any team can win any given game, but the way I measure the health of a program is by regular season success and conference titles. Consistently compete for your conference title, winning it often and you're going to consistently get high seeds in the tournament and will eventually break through.

Not to turn this into a Crean thing, but his problem wasn't so much that IU lost in the Sweet Sixteen in 2013, it was that he followed it up with two sort of 'dud' years. That's the difference between the Crean's of the world and the Wright's and Bennett's. Bennett and Wright have also had some bad tournament losses when ranked highly, but Bennett's finished 1st or 2nd in the ACC 4 out of the last six years which got him consistent tournament at-bats, and Wright has finished 1st or 2nd in the Big East for 6 straight season. It's about at-bats and then both eventually broke through. 

Again not to make this a Crean thing, it's just the easy example, but if Crean had followed up the 2013 team with 3-4 straight seasons of finishing top 2 in the conference, then I'm sure IU eventually would have broken through. The point is that it's not about the tournament disappointments (2013 for IU or last year for UVA), those are going to happen to every coach competing at a high level, it's about being able to maintain that high level of regular season play so that you get yourself more quality at-bats at the tournament following the disappointments. 

[Zlinedavid]

17 minutes ago, BGleas said:

Again not to make this a Crean thing, it's just the easy example, but if Crean had followed up the 2013 team with 3-4 straight seasons of finishing top 2 in the conference, then I'm sure IU eventually would have broken through. The point is that it's not about the tournament disappointments (2013 for IU or last year for UVA), those are going to happen to every coach competing at a high level, it's about being able to maintain that high level of regular season play so that you get yourself more quality at-bats at the tournament following the disappointments.  

Hell, I'd have been even more lenient and said top 4 in the conference.  Everyone knew 13-14 was going to be a rebuilding year.  But, we had 3 losses that year to the 3 teams we finished above.  Tack on just one more win (say the OT game vs Illinois) and now our "rebuilding" year is 21-11, 11-7 and tied for 4th in the B10 and at least a tournament appearance. 

Same with the year after.  Win the home game vs Purdue, Northwestern and (ugh...) Eastern Washington, and now we're again 11-7, tied for 4th, and 23-11 and wind up with a better "at bat" than a 10 seed in Omaha against Wichita.  After that, who knows what could happen.  If any of the shooters on that team were to get hot, a run could have started. 

Can't complain much about the year after, but the better finish may have positively impacted recruiting. 

Same story in 16-17.  Turn around 2 bad losses to Nebraska and scratch out one more win (OT vs Iowa?) (and of course, the loss to Fort Wayne), we're 10-8, tied for 4th and 22-11, and get an "at bat" instead of (double ugh...) a road NIT loss.