This Florida/Butler game is SICK.
This Florida/Butler game is SICK.
So long Billy Donovan. Butler is returning to the Final Four for their second straight year.
Let's say VCU somehow wins the national championship. Is that validation for the tournament, or does it raise some questions about legitimacy?
Twitter: @3YardsandACloud
Personally I would love to see a mid-major win and shake the establishment a little bit. Cheering for the underdog is a huge deal in sport, business, culture, etc.Originally Posted by JeffHCross
Yeah, I honestly would love to see VCU, or even Butler, win the national championship. Unfortunately, not this year as I have money riding on Kansas winning it all.But if VCU does manage the upset over Kansas, God I hope they manage to win it all.
And talk about a hell of a ride for VCU so far. They've beaten teams from the Pac-10, Big East, Big Ten, ACC, and now have a chance against the Big 12. In my opinion, despite all the controversy, I'd say the committee did something right when they put in VCU over Virginia Tech and others.
They weren't even supposed to make the tourney
So are you calling for the field to expand to 128 as some have suggested to make-up for this almost omission???They weren't even supposed to make the tourney
Exactly. Which is why I wonder about what would be the view of a victory. I mean, you're talking about a team that would, all previous years, have not made the NCAA field from everything we've been told. And shouldn't have made it this year. Is that validation in the power of a tournament, or does it give detractors more ammo?They weren't even supposed to make the tourney
Twitter: @3YardsandACloud
Well, they may have a chance at winning it all if they keep playing like this! I thought they would play tough against Kansas, but I didn't think they'd be leading Kansas by as much as 17 at one point.
I'm happy, I'm pissed, and I want to cry, all at the same time right now.
I've been a VCU bandwagon fan ever since they knocked off Duke back in 2007, so I am happy as all hell to see VCU going to the Final Four. However I'm pissed and want to cry right now, because Kansas just lost me money. After Ohio State lost, that pretty much guaranteed me first place, and the money, in my office pool if Kansas won the championship. So I just lost out on a whole bunch of money.
And there goes the last 1 seed.
The way this tourny has played out just leads further to the argument that this is the WORST field of teams in the history of the tourny. VCU is NOT a good basketball team and did NOT deserve to be in the tourny. However, they were selected and have played out of their minds for 4 straight games now.
I just have a funny feeling that Butler is going to be cutting the nets when it is all finished. They have the best coach remaining and they seem to always find crazy ways to win games.
#8 Butler vs #11 VCU for a trip to the National Title Game. Wow.
Twitter: @3YardsandACloud
I'm sorry, but you're argument is retarded. That's like saying the Giants didn't deserve to win the Super Bowl a few years back because they weren't very good during the season but was good enough to get into the playoffs and then get on the roll that they got on. Or the Steelers when they went four in a row to win the Super Bowl. It's just silly. ANY team, no matter who they are, is good if they can win 5 in a row especially against teams like Georgetown, Florida State, USC, Purdue, and Kansas. How you can argue differently is ridiculous. A bad team, which you are trying to say that they are, doesn't beat those teams like VCU has. It's not like VCU has done nothing but squeak by or something. They've made teams play out of their element with solid team basketball and fundamentals. I mean, holding the best shooting team in the NCAA (Kansas at 53.8% or something ridiculous like that) to 33.8% and 2-22 from 3-point range isn't just luck; especially since Kansas killed them on the boards (+11 and 19 to 7 in offensive rebounds).
Do good teams lose to: South Florida (#133); Georgia St. (#223); Northeastern (#188) and James Madison (#110)? The answer is no they don't. VCU is just "in the zone"; "on fire"; "playing out of its mind" etc...
#s do NOT lie. Kenpom currently has VCU as the 58th best team in the country before today's game.
It's simply just a run of "luck". Could that run take them all the way to a title? Sure. However, that does not mean they DESERVED to be an at-large selection in this year's field. They clearly did not.
Nebraska is every bit as good/talented as VCU. (See Ranked 62nd in Kenpom and VCU had a similar rating prior to the tourny) If the Cornhuskers made the field they also could have made a run. However, that wouldn't magically make Nebraska one of the best 4 teams this year.
The NCAA tourny is beautiful b/c anyone can get lucky and win it all. Put VCU in a 7 game series like the NBA and they don't make it out of round 1. However, in a one and done format anything can and sometimes does happen.
Last edited by CLW; 03-27-2011 at 04:43 PM.
Do you know if there were any extenuating circumstances that prevented them from playing well earlier in the season when they lost? I mean, there are things that happen to teams as they grow during the season that prevents them from being as good as when it all comes together in the end. I mean, for god's sake, that's what Caliparri builds his teams around. Teams look for getting everything right once tournament time comes around and if they have a few speed bumps on the way during the regular season, so what?
And, bringing out outside sources for "rankings" is just silly. Every team plays poorly from time to time and losses a few games. Does them losing to Georgia State, South Florida, Northeastern, and James Madison mean absolutely anything at all now? Nope, not at all. Them beating Kansas, Georgetown, Florida State, USC and Purdue most certainly does though. I'd say beating those previous teams FAR outweighs anything that happened during the regular season or their conference tournament. Winning when it's win or go home is FAR more impressive than winning during the regular season where a loss isn't the end of the world. Especially considering they've been running teams out of the building for the most part.
But, of course, the fact that you think VCU "got lucky" to be where they are is just flat ridiculous. No team that does what they have done should EVER be considered "lucky".
Lucky is hitting a game winning shot once to upset the favorite to win it for that round and then getting trounced by the next team that they play. Lucky is most definitely not completely blowing out two teams that most people thought would win it all (Purdue and Kansas) and thoroughly handle another that a lot of people thought had a chance (Georgetown).
Your ACC snobbery is really starting to show CLW and it's not a good look for ya man.
Last edited by morsdraconis; 03-27-2011 at 05:14 PM.
I see so the facts/evidence I show you as to why VCU is on a lucky streak has no weight but any/all evidence you have saying they are the greatest team since 1991 UNLV is 100% full proof.
Seeing as Kansas is by far a more talented and has played better than anyone else remaining I presume you are predicting them to WAX Butler and UConn/Kentucky/UNC to cut down the nets?
Don't get me wrong its a "cute"/"nice" story and all but anyone who thinks VCU is one of the 4 best teams in the country needs to have his head examined. They are a 50-60th best team in the country that is on a tear. The data (including their run in the tourny) backs up my argument. If you want to ignore facts/data so be it.
Comparing the Giants, Steelers (and, don't forget, the Packers this year) to VCU is what's "retarded". If the Seahawks had won the Super Bowl this season, there'd be a better parallel. A team that shouldn't have been in. When the Steelers made that run in '05, I felt they were as good as anyone in the league (and, no, I don't always think that), but they were crippled by injury and misfortune for 3/4 of the season. When they got healthy, they started doing what they should have been doing all along (people forget they were 15-1 the previous year). I knew they'd beat Cincinnati. I knew they had a shot to beat Indy (but wasn't convinced). Before the Indy game I said (many, many times) "if they get past the Colts, look out, they will win it all". For me, Denver and Seattle were mere formalities. I would venture to say that no one with any sense whatsoever has felt that VCU was as good as anyone in the NCAA this year, but just weren't catching the breaks.
That being said, if they win it all, they absolutely deserve it. I will be rooting for the VCU/Butler winner just as I rooted for Butler last year.
As for Jeff, good question, lol. I think people on both sides of the debate will get ammo from a scenario like this.
Do I think they have the ability to win it all? Absolutely. If they keep hitting 13+ threes a game and continue to play defense FAR beyond what they did during the regular season (where they were ranked 250+ in ppg allowed and FG percentage), they have just as much of a chance to win it all as anyone else. Do I think they'll beat Butler? Probably not. Butler's defense is ridiculously good. But, so was Florida State's so who knows? That's why they play the game.
It just blows me away that you can flat out say that they are lucky to be where they are. No team, no matter how good/poor they were/are is lucky after beating the type of teams that they've beat in this tournament the way that they've won.
As for ignoring "facts" and the data that you're bringing forward. You do realize that anything like that that comes from any sense of analytical breakdown (like that of kenpom) is weighted in the idea that the Big East, ACC, and PAC 10 are the superior conferences and, therefore, playing a shitty strength of schedule like Duke did (thus really not PROVING how good of a team they were one way or another) really just made the ACC (and therefore any team that played Duke) lopsided in a lopsided direction? These websites that try to take an analytical approach to the setup (like kenpom and the various formulas and mathematical theories that he applies to his setup) fall on deaf ears in my opinion because they have the results weighted in the sense of automatically assuming that one conference or team is better than the other because of past results (whether in favor or against said team) without any real factual scores to show truth/falsehood to that statement.
For anyone that actually watches college football or basketball outside of the BCS/Power Conferences, I guarantee you that they can tell you that those teams play each other just as hard as any other conference in the country. Because of past performance, to assume that VCU is worse than 50 other schools is just ridiculous. The schools above them in Kenpom's rankings that they actually played?
How anyone can say that any one team is worse or better than the other without those teams playing one game against each other (or at least playing the same opponents) is just silly.
Kenpom itself says almost that:
And to come back to something you said before about a 7 game series: How would we actually know if they didn't do that? You might THINK that to be the case, but without actually doing it, how can you know for sure?The first thing you should know about this system is that it is designed to be purely predictive. If you’re looking for a system that rates teams on how “good” their season has been, you’ve come to the wrong place. There are enough systems out there that rank teams based on what is “good” by just about any definition you can think of. So I’d encourage you to google college basketball ratings or even try the opinion polls for something that is more your style.
I mean, I'm right there with most everyone. I didn't think they'd beat USC, much less get past Georgetown, Purdue, and Kansas, but they did and convincingly in every single one of those instances. It's nuts to say it's anything but luck and not to give them credit for what they've done and, again, just shows your biases whether you think so or not.
I mean, these rankings are so silly. How can you possibly know that Ohio State is better than Kansas, Duke, and Pittsburgh until they play one another? So why assume that Pittsburgh is better than Connecticut? Hell, they split the two games they played against one another (Connecticut winning in the Big East Tournament and Pittsburgh winning at home earlier that year). So who's better? Well, you're going to say that Pittsburgh is because you're pre-programmed to look at their schedule, assume because they won more games, they're better, but that's just not true. Yet, Connecticut is ranked 12th on this silly poll and Pittsburgh is ranked 5th.
I'm sure you're going to contend that Duke, Ohio State, Kansas, and Pittsburgh are still the best teams in the nation, right?
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