"That was a shellacking"

[Brochacho]

But just keep in mind, that was just a mediocre team that got hot in March....

Sorry to ruin the narrative, but that's pretty much what is was. Going into the Big East tournament the team was 21-9, 9-9 in Big East play, lost 4 of their last 5 games, and was 5-6 against ranked teams at that point.

They then went on to win 11 in a row. They got 34.2% of their wins in the last 19% (4 weeks of ~21 weeks) of the season.

 

[HuskyBballFan]

Sorry to ruin the narrative, but that's pretty much what is was. Going into the Big East tournament the team was 21-9, 9-9 in Big East play, lost 4 of their last 5 games, and was 5-6 against ranked teams at that point.

They then went on to win 11 in a row. They got 34.2% of their wins in the last 19% (4 weeks of ~21 weeks) of the season.

I'd expect this analysis from a Syracuse fan. UConn entered the top-10 on November 30th and didn't fall out of the top-10 until February 16th.

If we want to exclude 11 game sample sizes, then what if we exclude the 11 game meltdown down the stretch of the regular season? Outside of those 11 games, that team was 28-2.

 

[Brochacho]

I'd expect this analysis from a Syracuse fan. UConn entered the top-10 on November 30th and didn't fall out of the top-10 until February 16th.

If we want to exclude 11 game sample sizes, then what if we exclude the 11 game meltdown down the stretch of the regular season? Outside of those 11 games, that team was 28-2.

Sorry for looking at things realistically. And I'm not excluding games. I pointed out where the team was at entering tournament play, and that they won 34% of their games in the back fifth of the season. It was a team with a middle of the road resume going into March that got hot, that's the fact of the matter.

 

[tykurez]

Sorry for looking at things realistically. And I'm not excluding games. I pointed out where the team was at entering tournament play, and that they won 34% of their games in the back fifth of the season. It was a team with a middle of the road resume going into March that got hot, that's the fact of the matter.

That's looking at it from a purely statistical point of view ... which is fine ... but there's other factors involved. The fact of the matter was, for a large majority of the year, that team was Kemba Walker and a few other guys every once in a while. He was almost always doubled and frequently triple-teamed while a bunch of freshman learned how to play in the best conference in the NCAAs (RIP). The team frequently got off to slow starts mostly due to the fact that Kemba was either the sole focus of the other team early on, and couldn't get anything going, or he was consciously trying to get the young guys involved.

There's no arguing the team got hot ... you don't win 11 tournament games in a row on medium heat. But that wasn't a mediocre team by any stretch of imagination. It was an extremely young team with an extremely talented leader that was just waiting to realize its potential. Thankfully they realized it at the right time.

 

[johnhuskies95]

Sorry to ruin the narrative, but that's pretty much what is was. Going into the Big East tournament the team was 21-9, 9-9 in Big East play, lost 4 of their last 5 games, and was 5-6 against ranked teams at that point.

They then went on to win 11 in a row. They got 34.2% of their wins in the last 19% (4 weeks of ~21 weeks) of the season.

They were ranked 21st before the 11 game run. By almost any standard that's not mediocre.

 

[UConnSwag11]

They were not mediocre. Their loses came in the big east which I believe set the record for most ncaa tourney teams. They were a good team, that had he best player in the country, and got hot in the tournaments. Kemba might be one of the best tournament players ever. Look at his stats

 

[Mr. Wonderful]

Sorry for looking at things realistically. And I'm not excluding games. I pointed out where the team was at entering tournament play, and that they won 34% of their games in the back fifth of the season. It was a team with a middle of the road resume going into March that got hot, that's the fact of the matter.

No.

The fact of the matter is the Huskies went through a cold stretch in late February, not a hot stretch in March. The clustering of late regular season losses is more of a representation of a statistical anomaly than the wins later on.

More importantly, why does it matter? If you win the championship, you deserve the glory, no matter how the details play out. This isn't college football, who's smaller statistical sample size and ridiculous reliance on human emotion via the polls makes the crowning of a champion arguable...

There is no equivocation. The Huskies got it done on the court. End of story.