Very subjective, I'd have to start with some of the most dominant teams in NCAA history. Hard to prove but I would think the '09-10 UCONN team could have used some kind of adversity before the championship game against Stanford. If not for Maya going into phone booth and putting on her cape in second half we might have had 1 less championship. The final margin +6 for UCONN is not biggest stat I would point to because UCONN was only +12 against Stanford in a game played CT earlier in the year. UCONN only put 53 points on the board that game-the lowest output of the season by far. Outside of UCONN I say the same thing about Baylor in '13. Some type of adversity might have prepared Baylor better for the Louisville mugging in the NCAA Tournament.
I would say that in 2010 it would have been good if UConn could have experienced a game earlier on where the balls were just not going down in the first half even if Tina had stood on a small stool and dropped the ball through the rim. The Huskies had plenty of good looks but the shots were just rattling out, and it was not really that Stanford was suddenly the greatest team or playing defense like no one had ever seen. Just like against that 2002 mediocre VTech team, the shots just weren't dropping, really for either team, as the Cards didn't shoot well either. In the second half, UConn returned to normal self and outscored Stanford 32-9 before the score narrowed at the end. Would the Huskies have done better if any team except Stanford in the regular season had given them a better game? Doubt it. Two pretty well matched teams in the NC game, both shooting coldly on tight rims, and UConn just finds its game later.
And Baylor played a terrific OOC in 2012-13 that included top 10 teams UConn, Stanford, ND, UTenn, and KY, plus other ranked teams. I mean, they played just about everybody. And their conference play had four ranked teams in it, so not great but decent. What would have helped Baylor that year was to have played a team that shot 60% for a lot of threes during a game, and to have a coach that would tell them to go guard those three-point shooters before they build an 18 point lead on you 3/4 through the game. A little common strategy making might have saved them from a tough hole to dig out of, though Sims shot them into the lead before they went down. And yes, Griner got hacked up all year, so that was nothing new, but Louisville just did it more effectively and played with more heart.
