Getting light-years off topic, but I made this point in another thread weeks ago:
People complain that we've gotten easy paths through the Tournament in our last few runs -- our region fell apart in 2004, faced 8 seeds for the championship in 2011 and 2014, faced 5 seeds in the Final Four in 2023 -- but we got absolutely none of that luck in the 90s and early 00s.
We never had a 1 seed knocked out early, we almost always faced the toughest possible seeds in the later rounds -- 1994 lost to chalk 3 seed Florida in Miami, 1995 lost to chalk 1 seed and eventual champ UCLA in California, 1998 lost to chalk 1 seed UNC in NC, 2002 lost to chalk 1 seed Maryland, 2003 lost to chalk 1 seed Texas in Texas.
People like to complain but they are either intentionally overlooking or clueless as to what happened.
1999 - nobody can say anything about that run.
2004 - the only possible gripe (especially considering the national semifinal game) could be Ga Tech being our title game opponent but I want to know if Duke had beaten us in the semifinal and won the title that year would anyone say they lucked out?
2011 - we had a run very similar to Duke in 2010 (other than we were a three seed, they had been a one) including the same opponent in the title game. We actually won our game comfortably while it took a very late, very questionable foul call to give them the game (which was almost lost on a half court shot at the buzzer). Nobody claimed Duke was lucky in 2010.
2014 - this was actually a more formidable set of opponents than anyone wants to admit. Nova was a two that many felt should have been a one, Iowa St was a three. Michigan St beat one seed Virginia, Florida was a one seed. The issue here would have to be the order in which we played them because if Kentucky happened a few rounds earlier and Nova in the finals, there wouldn't be anything for anyone to gripe about.
During the past two runs I don't know what else we could have done to prove ourselves. There is no case anyone can make to claim we weren't clearly the best team both years.
I really don't get how some believe they can diminish any of our titles as I can guarantee they would not view them as luck if their schools has won them. We did the only thing we could do, beat the teams they put in front of us. What were we supposed to do when an alleged undeserving opponent faced us, say "this game shouldn't count"?
