I swear that I had to have been watching something different than what the talking heads were watching that year. We did beat Michigan St pretty easily and had as good of a regular season as Duke (possibly better, our two losses were without a full team), but for some reason, once the brackets came out there were complaints that the alleged top two teams (Duke & MSU) were going to meet in the semi-finals. The tournament hadn't even started and we somehow became an also ran.
We were the best team. We beat a top ten team (Stanford) in their house, without our best player (don't remember of Jake also missed that one). Everyone was in such a hurry to annoint Duke that they overlooked a team that was actually better. I don't know how they missed what we were shoeing them all season long.