Big East WBB Media Day Tuesday, Oct 18

[GEAinAustin]

Once again oldhuskie you are correct. The noise and cross chatter was from multiple interviews being conducted in the same proximity, at the same time. Professional media people and the Big East , should know better. Bad look.

 

[JoePgh]

Was it intentional or an oversight that you omitted Amari from your list of the "loaded" talent at the 4/5 positions? I think she has to be in the mix at this point.

I don't know what to expect from her, or from Aubrey or Lou2 for that matter. The difference is that those two have played at a high level at some point in the recent past, whereas we never saw Amari play very well in her limited minutes last year.

 

[Alydar]

I think the few that she is talking about are Pat Summitt and John Wooden. The only two with 8 or more NC's and that Geno has passed both in NC. When it comes to the number of consecutive Final Fours, I believe she was thinking of John Wooden who went to 11 consecutive, winning 10 of them and finishing in 3rd place in the other. He won 9 in a row, finished 3rd, and then won his 10th NC, then retired after the 10th. Back when Wooden was coaching the NCAA had a losers bracket in the Final Four play for 3rd place.

Wooden's 11 straight include years when the NCAA field was smaller and teams stayed in their regions. The west regional had one ranked team, UCLA.

 

[MSGRET]

Wooden's 11 straight include years when the NCAA field was smaller and teams stayed in their regions. The west regional had one ranked team, UCLA.

UCLA was not the only ranked team in the West, but they were most likely the best team in the West. Still he did something that no other men's coach did and has the longest win streak in men's basketball with 88 straight wins.

 

[Carnac]

For all the optimism being generated, Geno adds some context in a world without Paige

When the basketball Gods hand you a basket of lemons (Paige going down), you know what your next course if action has to be. Lemonaid anyone?

 

[Alydar]

UCLA was not the only ranked team in the West, but they were most likely the best team in the West. Still he did something that no other men's coach did and has the longest win streak in men's basketball with 88 straight wins.

A couple of those titles came when only one team from each conference got in. The ACC tournament would have 4 or 5 ranked teams and was more competitive.
UCLA was a great program but they got boat rides to the FF, having to play teams like Long Beach St., N Mexico or Montana while top 10 teams in the east and mid-east banged heads.

 

[sun]

Ayanna Patterson: UConn Women's Basketball Big East Media Day - 10/18/22​

 

[cgshuskie]

Expect the lady introduced by Sun above, to be a new Uconn star, beginning now!

 

[sun]

Most of the time Azzi is turned away from the mic except for near the end.

 

[Stymie]

Expect the lady introduced by Sun above, to be a new Uconn star, beginning now!

Damn straight.

 

[Alydar]

UCLA was not the only ranked team in the West, but they were most likely the best team in the West. Still he did something that no other men's coach did and has the longest win streak in men's basketball with 88 straight wins.

Would Wooden have won 11 NCAA's if UCLA had played in the ACC in those years? Only one team per conference got in the NCAA's. The ACC tournament was better entertainment than the NCAA's. Same in the B1G.

 

[Plebe]

Would Wooden have won 11 NCAA's if UCLA had played in the ACC in those years? Only one team per conference got in the NCAA's. The ACC tournament was better entertainment than the NCAA's. Same in the B1G.

I don't understand this hypothetical. The ACC did not prove itself to be a dominant conference in that era based on results in the NCAA tournament.

Out of Wooden's 10 (not 11) NCAA titles, the ACC representative only reached the Final Four on four occasions (Duke in 1964; UNC in 1967, 1968 and 1972).

Of those four years, UCLA played the ACC champ twice:
-- In 1964, they beat Duke by 15.
-- In 1968, they beat UNC by 23.

I'm not seeing the evidence to indicate that Wooden would've lost in those years if UCLA had played in the ACC, since they dominated the ACC champs on the 2 occasions they faced them in those 10 years, and in 6 of those years the ACC champ wasn't even good enough to reach the Final Four.

 

[Alydar]

I don't understand this hypothetical. The ACC did not prove itself to be a dominant conference in that era based on results in the NCAA tournament.

Out of Wooden's 10 (not 11) NCAA titles, the ACC representative only reached the Final Four on four occasions (Duke in 1964; UNC in 1967, 1968 and 1972).

Of those four years, UCLA played the ACC champ twice:
-- In 1964, they beat Duke by 15.
-- In 1968, they beat UNC by 23.

I'm not seeing the evidence to indicate that Wooden would've lost in those years if UCLA had played in the ACC, since they dominated the ACC champs on the 2 occasions they faced them in those 10 years, and in 6 of those years the ACC champ wasn't even good enough to reach the Final Four.

Let me try and be clearer. Let's make a hypothetical bracket in which the all the top teams are on one side of the bracket while the No 1 team is on the other side with teams numbered 33-64. That No. 1 team would have a much better chance of making the final than if it was on the other side. That, to a lesser degree, is the advantage UCLA had in the NCAA's when seeding kept teams in their own region.

Then imagine if only one team from a wcbb conference gets into the NCAA's. Any at-large teams would have to be independents. It would give a team like UConn an advantage. (And it would make the P-5 tournaments much more exciting to watch). And if UConn were in the ACC or the PAC12 under those conditions they likely wouldn't have been to so many FF's.

 

[Alydar]

I don't see the evidence that, generally speaking, it was that much more difficult to emerge from the East region.

• In 1964. UCLA's easiest game of the tournament was by far the final vs. Duke (won by 15 points), compared to wins over Seattle (5 points), San Francisco (4 points), and Kansas State (6 points) to get to the final.
  
  
• In 1965, UCLA's toughest game was in the regional final against (once again) San Francisco, in an 8-point win. UCLA then proceeded to trounce Wichita State by 19 and beat Michigan by 11.
  
  
• In 1967, UCLA did dominate its West Region but they still won both of its Final Four games by 15 points (over Houston and Dayton). Dayton had beaten UNC by 14 in the semifinal game. So how tough was the ACC, really, if UNC couldn't even stay close to a team that in turn couldn't even stay close to UCLA?
  
  
• In 1968, UCLA's closest contest was its first game vs. New Mexico State (58-49). In the Final Four they absolutely demolished Houston by 32 and UNC by 23.
  
  
• In 1969 their toughest game was against Drake (Midwest Regional champ) by 3 points in the semifinal. In the final they dominated Purdue by 20.
  
  
• In 1970 they were extremely dominant and beat Jacksonville by 11 in the final. ACC champ NC State lost its very first game to St. Bonaventure by 12.
  
  
• In 1971, UCLA's closest game was a 2-point win over Long Beach State in the regional final. They beat Villanova and Kansas in the Final Four by 8 and 6 points.
  
  
• 1972 was a rare year where UCLA had a struggle only against a team from the East (a 5-point win over Florida State in the final).
  
  
• In 1973 they dominated everyone by double digits.
  
  
• (1975 was the first year that at-large teams were selected, so not really germane to the topic at hand.)

== ==

So overall, based on the NCAA tournament games that UCLA played -- which ones they dominated compared to which ones were close -- there's little to indicate that the other regions were clearly more competitive. If that were true, we should see a clear consistent pattern of blowouts in the regional games and close struggles in the Final Four, and that's just not the case overall across all 10 of the title years.

I'm not suggesting that UCLA wasn't the best team in many years. My point is that the best team often gets beat in single-elimination tournaments and UCLA had a much easier path than eastern teams. Who did UCLA play for the PAC title? And Duke? Who did Duke play to get to the final?