Gary Blair says....

[snowkot]

Those are part of my reasons for thinking the pointing out of one poor shooting performance is unreasonable.

Fair enough. Your clarification that your previous post was more pointed toward the draft picks was well taken.

 

[Forty_four]

Do you have any statistics that show it's happening more and more?

In this years tourney alone, lower seeds beating higher seeds:

BYU over NC State
BYU over Neb
JMU over gonzaga
DePaul over Duke
Florida over Dayton
Flor State over Iowa State
UNC over So Carolina
LSU over W VA
Maryland over Tenn

This many upsets never happened 10 years ago, heck 5 years ago.

 

[Forty_four]

Yeah, we played a really lousy half of shooting the ball but even with BYU making a few unconscious shots (a couple over Breanna where the shooter couldn't even see the rim) we led at the half. Our defense continually helps us by insuring we don't have to really shoot the lights out to win against anybody. I think our likelihood of losing to anyone not named Notre Dame and maybe, maybe Stanford and Baylor is pretty miniscule. Very remote, indeed. Even then, they would have to be hitting on just about all cylinders while we stunk out the joint on the offensive end.

You must be having trouble understanding the concept that it COULD happen.

 

[Forty_four]

Sorry if the snark (or the crudeness) was too much.

Anyways, I believe that you've seen many incidents over many years that show to you that anything is possible. I also know that, presuming you don't have an eidetic memory, you are inherently biased towards those results which stray from the norm. What's more, you don't really seem to realize it.

The definition of reasonable is pretty subjective, but I'd say that anyone who claims that serious concerns about UConn stringing together two halves like the first half of the BYU game either A) is underestimating how well we can predict the outcome of basketball games or B (and more likely) has absolutely no conception of how large the gap between Texas A&M and UConn really is or C) is going to be worried about any level of uncertainty whatsoever.

Just to throw some numbers out there, we're a 37% 3pt shooting team that shot 0-8 in the first half (with a normal level shot difficulty). They're a 33% 3pt shooting team that shot 5-10 in the first half. The odds of that happening are about 1/125. The odds that they'd do the equivalent over two consecutive halves are therefore 1/16,000. Sure, crazy things happen, but I wouldn't hold my breath on UConn missing all of 8 or more shots and their opponent shooting 50% or better from three in a half again in this tournament.

One more example of why serious concerns about a repeat of the BYU performance that causes us to lose to Texas A&M are unreasonable: If you take Massey at it's word (it's crude and imperfect, but it's observations have lined up well with the outcomes so far and it's probability seems reasonable), Notre Dame is 14 times more likely to beat us that Texas A&M.

Let that sink in for a second.

I'm not referring to the odds that Notre Dame will beat us if we play them. I mean, the odds that both UConn and Notre Dame beat their remaining opponents AND that Notre Dame beats us in the finals are 14 times greater than the odds that Texas A&M will beat us tonight. In case you're wondering, the odds that Stanford beats us are four times higher than the odds that Texas A&M does. And, by the way, the Massey odds that Notre Dame beats us if we play are only 21%.

So, to quote The West Wing, a fan worrying about Texas A&M is like Butch and Sundance peering over the edge of a cliff to the boulder-filled rapids 300 feet below, thinking you better not jump 'cause there's a chance you might drown. It's the fall that's gonna kill you.

Please use all the stats you want and explain the Baylor loss last year. You can't: cuz happens. Concern is reasonable.

 

[chrissaran]

Not their best team ever, but could still win back to back championships.

 

[UcMiami]

Do you have any statistics that show it's happening more and more?

Well ... three of the last five years two number 1 seeds have failed to make the elite eight - it has only happened 5 other times since 1982 - that is not an in depth analysis, but might be an indicator that there is more balance in the field. Or it could just be an indication that the committee is getting worse!
(personally I vote for the latter.)

 

[Buzzyboy]

You must be having trouble understanding the concept that it COULD happen.

I like the word "remote" a lot more than COULD because could can sound as if there is a fairly reasonable possibility while remote makes it sound like the possibilities aren't even worth talking about. That's the reason I posted my remarks.

 

[ndmb]

Please use all the stats you want and explain the Baylor loss last year. You can't: cuz happens. Concern is reasonable.

What are you talking about? I could certainly explain the Baylor loss last year using statistics, Griner wasn't effective and Louisville (especially Slaughter) had the shooting night of their lives. What you're missing here is that that game is the ONLY time something like that happened in 16 years.

 

[rt bb fan]

Why do we have to depend on football to get us into a better conference. Notre Dame didn't, unless I have not been following ND football they are still independents and not on ACC?

 

[Goodgood]

ND football has been mediocre for years but for some reason NBC brass think that they are their ticket to higher ratings....

 

[sarals24]

Weren't they in the national championship game two years ago?

Plus, it doesn't matter how good they are, they have a huge fan base which translates into TV ratings.