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Message: [QUOTE="TheFarmFan, post: 3421648, member: 9403"] Well, I guess my unstated premise is that men's basketball has more depth of "good" players in D1, and thus more parity, and so a top ten men's team scheduled against a sub-200 team can still generate the occasional upset. (See, e.g., Stephen F. Austin vs. Duke. There's no universe that happens to WCBB teams like UConn, Baylor, South Carolina, etc.) Now don't get me wrong, I am a huge fan of well played defense, and I too am a CTT partisan. But I do think, at the end of the day, the reason why the media gravitates to the Ionescus and Ogunbowales of the world is their offensive production, and especially their "trick shot" capabilities. Because the men can dunk, have the physical capabilities to do more trick shots, etc., even when playing against a Virginia-esque defense, an opposing team still generates an exciting highlight reel. Now well executed defenses against capable offenses can still be really fun to watch. I'm thinking the ASU vs. OSU game, which featured plenty of steals, blocked shots, etc., which is the defensive end's form of highlight reel plays. What truly turns fans off (including, I'll be honest, this one), is trip after trip up the court that ends with a clunker or airball after 20-30 seconds of passing the ball around. A lot of mismatch games against little sisters of the poor feature that. When one team starts off shooting 1-1X while the other scores 30 points in a quarter, who wants to watch that? You know 8 minutes into the game it's over. And for the casual fan, what does it say about the quality of the product that that game is being featured on TV? Totally agree. This is why I always pick the team with more "good wins" and "bad losses" than a team with fewer total losses but fewer good wins. Last year's UCLA team was exemplary of that, and they took UConn and a rise-to-the-occasion-Crystal Dangerfield deep in the 4th quarter to escape. [/QUOTE]

Verification: First name of men's bb coach

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