shizzle787
King Shizzle DCCLXXXVII of the Cesspool
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- Oct 19, 2015
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The only thing early exits suggest is that they got bad matchups or hadn't been playing well yet. Marquette (bad form) and Seton Hall (coaching rumored to leave) does not suggest the middle of the league was overrated. The Big East got six teams in because of the OOC. That is what ultimately determines the cap of teams you can get it. The BE is the 4th rated league by Sagarin (right there with the SEC and well ahead of the Pac-12 and ACC). The league is 4-4 in the tournament so far and 1-0 in the NIT. It is a good league.What early round NCAA results suggest is that BE mid-tier teams were seriously over-rated this year. Among UConn's better wins (we thought) were the four over Marquette and Seton Hall, two teams that were utterly crushed in NCAA 9/8 matchups that were supposed to be even. UConn's own first round loss only underscores the point.
If you re-evaluate the Marquette and Hall wins. what exactly is left to support the notion of UConn as a Top-20 team? Certainly not the six wins over bought cupcakes. Probably not the eight wins over Butler , DePaul, Georgetown and St. Johns. What's left to hang our hats on is the double-overtime win over Auburn, the miracle (ref-aided) win over Villanova and perhaps the overtime win over VCU. You can argue that in those games, although each decided by a final bounce or a favorable whistle, we proved that we can stay with best. Perhaps we also proved this in the closeness of our games with the top-tier of the BE, although going 1-5 against this bunch.
But here's the point -- here's what the NCAA early rounds are proving -- the woods are full of good teams who can stay with the best, even occasionally beat them. UConn was not exceptional in this regard. We were just one of many power conference also-rans and mid-majors who can give a biggie a surprise once in a while. What we perhaps never were, because of the persistent over-rating of the BE mid-tier, was the true Top-20 team we were touted as.
This is not the entirely negative assessment it may seem to be. It just might allow us a kindlier view of what our coach accomplished this year. Instead of seeing him as a coach whose questionable in-game tactics cost an exceptional team a post-reason run, we might see him as a motivating leader who guided a flawed and injury-ridden team to a season as successful as it was ever likely to be,
However, I do believe that we need to schedule better in the OOC going forward. I ignore the "but we play in the Big East." 80 teams play in the power conferences (ACC, BE, B1G, Big XII, Pac-12, SEC). They all have roughly the same difficult league schedules (give or take), but the difference is how these programs schedule OOC. We should be playing a minimum of 6 power conference opponents OOC. Failure to do so (like this year) deprives the team the opportunity to play multiple different styles across different leagues AND referees.