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Message: [QUOTE="Gurleyman, post: 4867283, member: 175"] Only title of ours you could possibly call a fluke is 2014. The 1999 and 2004 teams were the best in the country when healthy. The 2011 team was 14-0 in tournaments, with 11 of those wins over ranked teams, and last year’s team maybe got some upsets to clear their path a little, but it was a total buzzsaw. Our hairiest moment was seeing our lead cut to 5 in the finals, before we daggered it right back up to 17. Was 2014 a fluke? I mean, you can probably make that case. We were a 7 seed with a novice coach who found an inexplicable level of coaching mastery which we never saw again. We did catch a break to beat St. Joe’s and then got to play at the Garden, which maybe made a difference in those games (ISU losing Niang was a break too). But the best team in the country that year was Florida and UConn beat them twice, second time by double digits (after that horrific start, we outscored them by like 25). And we would have whacked Kentucky in the final except Boat and DD both went to the bench with two fouls in the first half and our lead went down from 15 to 5 at the break. If people want to say we were lucky that year, fine (especially Louisville fans). But we had two great guards who could make plays, DD stepped up in the tourney with the best basketball of his career, and we were 43-44 from the free throw line in late game pressure situations (less than five minutes to play, lead less than 10, outcome still in doubt). Never seen anything like that in my life. So we made a lot of our own luck. [/QUOTE]

Verification: First name of men's bb coach