Last I'm going to write on this subject - clearly what I wrote has riled some folks up.
In my defense, I never said that I thought Stanford should end the season at #2 - I said there is an argument to be made if you consider the rankings based on the performance of teams for the whole season.
Maybe there is a difference is how members of the Boneyard perceive what the end of the year rankings mean. Some, like myself, see it as trying to figure out which team was the best, which was the second best, which was the third best, etc., for the entirety of the season.
I think others, likely the majority, see it as a snap shot at the end of the season. Looking at final poll rankings for the past several years would indicate that those who vote in the polls see it this way. I think the team that lost in the championship game has always, or almost always, ending the year ranked second.
But I'd still argue that in the 2016/2017 season, UConn was a better team than Miss State, even though they upset us the semis in overtime and thus ended as second in the end of the year rankings - Miss State had five losses that year, we had one. I think that had we played them ten times during the season, we would likely have won 7 or 8 of the match-ups.
Better example would be the 2008 Super Bowl when a 6-loss Giants team (one of those losses being to New England) beat the undefeated Patriots. Yep - it was the game that mattered the most, especially given the $$ that are at stake for the winning team vs the losing team.
But I can't believe that at the end of the season, most fans thought the Giants were really the better team.
Anyways, the tournament was exhausting with most of the last games going to the wire. It was, given everything that happened to the team, a really inspiring run. See you next fall.