Jay Bilas thinks Maryland is tougher than us (LOL) | Page 4 | The Boneyard

Jay Bilas thinks Maryland is tougher than us (LOL)

McLovin said:
He also picked Creighton to lose to USCB and Nova to lose to Winthrop and Georgetown to lose to Colorado. Not a single BE team will win according to him (he is an idiot IMO). He should drop the L and change his name to Jay Bias.
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Honestly, I have the same except I have Uconn winning. He's not an idiot. Sorry but USCB is tough and Nova has their hands full with an experienced mid.
 
Slick said:
You have to realize that ESPN plugs the ACC and Big Ten non stop. They have that product and they are trying to protect their own jobs.
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They're certainly going to push them a little more. But they don't push all their products (re: The American & many others) and the B10 and ACC have largely been the best two basketball conferences for a while.
 
tykurez said:
Is this common knowledge? Literally had no idea ...
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It was in a recent NY Post article (Fox property). It's clear that was the extent of ESPN's research. Heck, they still think Polley is hitting 3's on the reg.
 
No matter how fair or unfair it is, I think Bouknight made us look pretty soft for most non-UConn fans giving us a quick glance over the past week. Recency bias.

At the end of the day, it’s more bulletin board material and I don’t want Bilas hyping us up anyway.
 
tzznandrew said:
I mean, that's cool too.

They didn't just lose to Georgetown, they got slaughtered. By a 12 seed.

But even if you trust them more than I do, Santa Barbara is a good team that can compete with—and beat—Creighton at a neutral site.
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XLCenterFan put money on Creighton winning the national championship. Maybe he's not the most amazing sports bettor of all-time after all.
 
Jay Bilas has liked & touted UConn in the past (Kemba 'ship) & doubted UConn in the past (Shabazz 'ship). I say who cares we've won with Bilas on the bandwagon and with Jay under the wagon wheels.

I like that the thread evidences a fanbase immediately sour and/or citing conspiracy theories b/c Bilas picks against UConn and questions toughness. I dunno about the team, but UConn fans clearly ready for the postseason.
 
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August_West said:
I do. It’s just a component.

We’ve been out toughed and won , and we’ve been tougher and lost, it happens. Providence didn’t out tough us when they beat us. The games I mentioned were specifically tied to physical and mental toughness. Cant be debated if you watch the games.
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I mention mental toughness specifically in my first post.
 
BigErnMcCracken said:
With all due respect this strikes me as complete gibberish, unless it's a high level form of sarcasm that I'm not picking up on.
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Intending neither gibberish nor sarcasm, and I would have thought, BigErn, that you would be among the first to agree.

Take away the reactions of the talking heads and what is left of the pleasure of victory? You need someone to intelligently appreciate and objectively value your victory. Without the talking heads, you are left with the biased rantings of your fellow fans and the indifference of your opponent's supoorters. Listen, by the time the NC game is played, 90% of all college basketball fans have tuned out. The game is played for the fans of the two remaining schools and the talking heads. The fans of the winner have a moment of ecstasy and by the next day have trouble locating another human being who cares -- or even remembers, were it not for the talking heads.
 
I actually agree with Bilas that we are not very tough, at least mentally. If you read his book, he is much more focused on mental toughness than physical.

When we are a much better team this year, we cruise past opponents. When it is an even matchup, look at all the close games against equivalent talent levels -

0-3 against Creighton
0-2 against Villanova
1-0 against USC

That's 1-5 in games where we should reasonably be expected to be in a battle. In all of those games, USC included, we had long stretches where we lost our composure and couldn't execute in the crunch. That is the mental toughness and grittiness that we simply haven't proved.

Another way to look at this - in games decided by 10 or fewer points, we are 2-6.

Maybe we find it in the NCAA tournament, but I wouldn't bet on it! If we are going to make a run, we better win some laughers cuz I do not trust us in close games.

Just being real - Bilas doesn't lie.
 
McLovin said:
Not saying any of the Big East teams can't lose their opening games, but to not pick a single big east team while also claiming Maryland is tougher than us (why? because they tried to fight Michigan?) is just a joke. It makes me think he hasn't watched a single minute of Big East basketball all year.

Edit: Bill Raftery who calls both Big 10 and Big East basketball was raving about our team's toughness during the DePaul game. Bilas should watch a few minutes of our game tape before making ridiculous claims.
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I don’t think Creighton loses. I kind of do think there are lots of teams that are tougher Than UConn. Creighton for one. How many close games did UConn win?
Raf is an old Big East guy. He thinks it is equal to any other conference. Coached at Seton Hall and got his start calling Big East games. Toughness is nice but I’d prefer talent. The Big East has eh talent this year so I doubt many teams go very far. Villanova might have made a bit of noise but injuries late were a killer. Tough to adjust to losing your leader that late in a one and done format. I don’t love Creighton. Truly Georgetown isn’t that good. This is a team that lost to Navy after all.
 
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bmayuc said:
I actually agree with Bilas that we are not very tough, at least mentally. If you read his book, he is much more focused on mental toughness than physical.

When we are a much better team this year, we cruise past opponents. When it is an even matchup, look at all the close games against equivalent talent levels -

0-3 against Creighton
0-2 against Villanova
1-0 against USC

That's 1-5 in games where we should reasonably be expected to be in a battle. In all of those games, USC included, we had long stretches where we lost our composure and couldn't execute in the crunch. That is the mental toughness and grittiness that we simply haven't proved.

Another way to look at this - in games decided by 10 or fewer points, we are 2-6.

Maybe we find it in the NCAA tournament, but I wouldn't bet on it! If we are going to make a run, we better win some laughers cuz I do not trust us in close games.

Just being real - Bilas doesn't lie.
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At first I didn’t believe that we only won 2 BE games by less than 10 points. I looked it up and that is indeed true. But that also means we won 9 big east games by 10+ points, and 5 wins by 10+ were away from home. That is really impressive. Winning on the road is tough, although a little easier this year with less fans. I’d be curious how many other power conference teams won 9 conference games by 10+, including 5 10+ wins away from home.

Edit: The top 2 teams in a down ACC year, UVA and FL St, won 7 and 8 conference games by double digits this year. 4 double digit road wins for UVA and only 2 double digit road wins for FL ST. Winning away from home in conference play is mentally tough. UConn did it 5 times by double digits.
 
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bmayuc said:
I actually agree with Bilas that we are not very tough, at least mentally. If you read his book, he is much more focused on mental toughness than physical.

When we are a much better team this year, we cruise past opponents. When it is an even matchup, look at all the close games against equivalent talent levels -

0-3 against Creighton
0-2 against Villanova
1-0 against USC

That's 1-5 in games where we should reasonably be expected to be in a battle. In all of those games, USC included, we had long stretches where we lost our composure and couldn't execute in the crunch. That is the mental toughness and grittiness that we simply haven't proved.

Another way to look at this - in games decided by 10 or fewer points, we are 2-6.

Maybe we find it in the NCAA tournament, but I wouldn't bet on it! If we are going to make a run, we better win some laughers cuz I do not trust us in close games.

Just being real - Bilas doesn't lie.
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Bouk and Andre didn't play the middle game v. Creighton so I don't think it's fair to include that and they only played Villanova once this season so it's really 1-3 (Creighton @ home, Nova on the road, Creighton @ MSG, USC @ Mohegan).

And who cares what Jay Bilas says. If you're mentioning Tyler Polley just because he won 6th man of the year to the shock of everyone before Adama Sanogo & RJ Cole then you aren't paying attention. His blurb read like a computer generated write-up that grabbed the conference awards and worked backwards from that.

That being said, Maryland will be a good test and the Huskies will need a great performance to win.
 
Dogdeacon said:
Jay Bilas has liked & touted UConn in the past (Kemba 'ship) & doubted UConn in the past (Shabazz 'ship). I say who cares we've won with Bilas on the bandwagon and with Jay under the wagon wheels.

I like that the thread evidences a fanbase immediately sour and/or citing conspiracy theories b/c Bilas picks against UConn and questions toughness. I dunno about the team, but UConn fans clearly ready for the postseason.
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Look at it in this light. In 11 we were in the OBE , on ESPN all the time and Bills did a ton of our games. In 14 we were in AAC hell Bills didn’t see us nearly as much.
 
3RingsCT said:
I swear, no one on the Boneyard has watched a Maryland game this season.
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Plenty of people have acknowledged this, in multiple threads.

They have been tested by better teams than UConn has. On the other hand, there's a reason they're the 10 seed.
 
I have no issue with Billas’ assessment. Actually, he’s spot on. Does it mean it will happen? No. But honeslty, his assessments year in and year out are extremely well thought out and incredibly logical. If you’re getting on Billas, you don’t know much about the basketball landscape yourself

As far as UCONN goes, there are far too many of you in here that think just because we’re back in the Big East that we are automatically a great team. We aren’t. There aren’t any signature wins this year. Zero. This isn’t a historical team by any stretch. And left face it, the Big East wasn’t really all that good this year. The B1G was waaaaaaay better.

Maryland is battle tested. We aren’t. Maryland has beaten good teams. We haven’t.

The ONLY reason we are a 7 and they are a 10 is record. However, their level of competition was far superior this year. It’s not even debatable.
 
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Maryland is an undersized team who likes to play a slow game in half court. We need to pound them down low with Sanogo, Whaley, Carlton, etc.

In addition, they suck when the game speeds up and when you speed them up. We play very well when we are able to play fast that is the key to this game. Speed the game up and run at every turn. We are not going to outsmart anyone in half court sets. Our strength is to run and play fast.

Aaron Wiggins is a good athletic wing for them, and Morsell is their Damien Jefferson clone who can do a little bit of everything.
 
BigErnMcCracken said:
Plenty of people have acknowledged this, in multiple threads.

They have been tested by better teams than UConn has. On the other hand, there's a reason they're the 10 seed.
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Record. Plain and simple.
 
3RingsCT said:
Record. Plain and simple.
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Maryland has also been incredibly inconsistent all year. They have lost 4 times to teams below .500. For reference, we don’t have a single loss to anyone below .500. They lost to Clemson OOC, we beat USC OOC. However, they do have more signature conference wins than us.

Never said Bilas was wrong by picking them over us. My issue was calling them “tougher” when he clearly hasn’t watched a minute of UConn basketball this season (as is evident by saying Polley is a “defender” off the bench LOL). It’s flat out lazy for someone who is paid to be an “expert”.
 
Tenspro2002 said:
Are you arguing the USC win was a good win, but not a big game?
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I don't think it's that good a win (6-seed) nor that big a game.

You might argue that it was a good win—sure, yeah, better to have won it and it sort of helped your resume than lose it and miss that opportunity—but unless you're playing a Top 10 team or so, big games are sparse until around March.
 
This game will come down to possession value, free throws and rebounding, as neither Maryland, nor UCONN shoot the straightest.
 
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We haven't fared well with elite teams....we are probably 0-for the last couple years. This is as much about growth of our coaches as it is the players. Hoping that this tourney is a breakout. Creighton showed us we have much to learn, but certainly not counting us out.
With as much as Bouk is bounced around like a pinball, games in rapid succession would be tough. Solution...get out fast and run away from opponents.
 
Mental toughness is the open question. We haven’t really stepped up in any high stakes close game. When your NBA bound “star” cant make the clutch shots down the stretch, your 3 sniper can’t hit the broadside of the barn, and your guards are shooting air balls, there’s a problem handling pressure. I hope Creighton helped realize panic always leads to the outcome you fear most.
 
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