Louisville has yet to even make the ACC tournament final let alone win the ACC. And now they're the best challenge to UConn?
I think Lousiville should be worrying about FSU, Syracuse, and Notre Dame before they turn their sights on UConn.
Totally get the impulse to check hyperbole. So let me first just say: I ain't coming for anyone. Coming for someone would be contradictory to my ultimate point. No T no shade.
But unless speaking strictly chronologically (during a season a team will, as a calendrical fact, meet its conference opponents
before meeting UCONN in the NCAAs), it's also hyperbolic to suggest a team "should be worrying" about winning conference titles before challenging for an NCAA title.
Since we're talking about Louisville, let's take Walz's 9 completed years as head coach as a sample for the following:
During those 9 years, 4 of the 9 NCAA runners-up won neither their conference regular season title nor their conference tournament title. We might say these teams "turn[ed] their sights on UCONN"--if by that phrase we mean they had the audacity to run with the big dog at the Final Four even though they were bereft of conference titles:
2016 Syracuse
2013 Louisville
2011 Notre Dame
2009 Louisville
As far as odds of challenging for the NCAA title while coming up empty in conference, 44% is not prohibitive.
In addition, during Walz's 9 completed years at Louisville, 3 of the 9 NCAA champions did not win their conference regular season title:
2013 UCONN (also didn't win its conference tournament)
2011 Texas A&M (also didn't win its conference tournament)
2008 Tenn (did win its conference tournament)
As far as odds of winning the NCAA title while coming up empty in conference (or only half full), 33% ain't the best but it's also not prohibitive. Interestingly, a shining example of the possibility of not just turning one's sights on the big prize but winning it without any conference titles is...UCONN (2013). Of course, for better or worse, UCONN doesn't put much stock on conference titles even when they win them.
I imagine most teams do worry about their conference opponents before worrying about challenging in the NCAAs. But perhaps only in terms of the calendar rather than as a logical prerequisite. I doubt for them winning conference titles feels necessary to challenging in the NCAAs. Or that it "should."
As we all know Walz was also part of the 2006 Maryland team that won neither its conference regular season nor its tournament titles. For Walz that would mean 3 out of the last 11 years he's made it to the NCAA championship game without a single conference title. Not shabby. Since Walz first broke through to the NCAA final as an assistant in 2006, only UCONN (6 wins) and Notre Dame (4 runners-up) have made it to more NCAA championship games than one of his teams (1 win as assistant, 2 runners-up).
UCONN is in a class of its own.
I think Notre Dame during this stretch has been in its own class too.
And I hardly intend to rank Walz's accomplishments as better than titles won by Tenn, Baylor, and Texas A&M during the same 11 year stretch. But I also hardly intend to diminish his or his team's accomplishments by suggesting their attention should be properly elsewhere before thinking they could run with the big dog.
To shift my own attention to others' remarks on Walz:
Walz often gets a hard time on this board. So it's nice to read in this thread some pushback on the criticism of his recruiting. This pushback doesn't simply acknowledge the (gasp!) possible legitimacy of his style but also grants the players who have begun flocking to him a level of (the horror!) intelligence, consciousness, and responsibility for their decisions. Intelligence, consciousness and responsibility that aren't granted in the infantilizing suggestions that players and their families who walk eyes wide open into his system are, in fact, bamboozled by him.
I would think it's actually MORE of a credit to Walz that increasingly higher caliber players have begun flocking to him DESPITE the fullness of his roster, the apparent fullness at their position, and the consequent possibility of a later transfer. I imagine they know him, Louisville, and the rewards of competing not just alongside other Louisville players but against them (e.g. for playing time) better than I could from my couch or keyboard. For most those rewards last 4 years, and for some those rewards last only 1 or 2. This is the case with many competitive teams.
I didn't think I'd write an apology for Walz today. And again: No T no shade. But fandom isn't mutually exclusive with generous recognition of what other teams are doing and have done.
