Denard, seriously??
"but can we please look at the teams that they have beaten?" Seriously? Big 12 champs? SEC champs? What they have to win the national title. In these 3 days they've beaten better teams than Maryland, FSU, and Cinci could have on neutral sites.
You can't bust the MVC saying the Majors deserve more bids (Cinci, Maryland (and you claim UT played bad the last month?!), FSU (only 1 good win...and at home?!), etc.) and then say the Majors are overrated (Tennessee, Seton Hall, etc.) when the MVC beats these power conference schools, including their regular season champs (Kansas, UT). Either the Majors are overrated or they deserve more bids. But to say that the 5th and 6th teams from Major conferences (FSU, Maryland, Cinci, etc.) deserve to go in over the mid-major at larges (Wichita State, Bradley, Northern Iowa, etc.) and then say that the Major's regular season champs are overrated makes you (not you specifically, D, but you as in people in general) sound like an ass.
To say that Seton Hall didn't deserve to be in the tourney exactly proves my point. These middle of the pack Majors don't deserve to be in the tournament (Seton Hall, Cinci, Michigan, FSU, Maryland, South Carolina, etc.). Yet the MVC showed its teams did.
And everyone, including myself, said Tennessee doesn't deserve a 2 seed. That doesn't mean they aren't a quality team. You make it sound like they should've been a 8 or 9 seed. They're a solid 3 or 4 seed. They won their regular season conference championship. And they lost to a MVC team when it mattered.
Who do you expect the MVC to beat before you give them some credit? Duke? UConn? Nova? Memphis? Texas? I never said these MVC teams were Top 5 teams. All I've been saying is that their Top 4 or 5 can compete with all but the Top 2 or 3 Majors from any conference. They've already done that. Again, they beat the champs of 2 of these conferences and a team from a 3rd Major conference.
Yes, I will crow about Seton Hall. Beacuse those are the types of teams people said should have gotten in over these MVC teams. So when they do beat them, I'll crow about it. Oh, but I didn't mean that specific middle of the road Big East team. Seriously? Come on. That's pure shit.
Anyway you want to look at it. The MVC has won 2 more games than expected in the tournament, knocking off 3 Majors already in the process. Claiming the Majors they beat are overrated further proves my point.
posted by Me @ 8:35 PM
3 comments
3 Comments:
I gave the MVC credit. I said I was impressed by Bradley's win and by Wichita State in general. But facts are facts: Seton Hall was terrible. Period. Any team that loses a game by 40+ points should be per se barred from the NCAAs. Beating them is like beating a high school team. UT has played like ass the last month of the season. I don't even think they were a four seed. The committee obviously didn't watch them or else UT would not have been playing in Greensboro while UNC gets shipped to freakin' Dayton. Those particular wins don't prove anything to me.
Don't misunderstand...I'm not trying to down mid-majors. I don't think FSU or Maryland should have been in either. I specifically was thinking of a team like Hofstra getting the shaft. I think its good that mid-majors are playing well and beating teams from major conferences. Hell, I picked Wichita State so its not like I didn't believe in them! But to point to those two wins in particular as some sort of proof that the MVC belongs strikes me as not very impressive. So we'll just have to agree to disagree.
You can say what you want about Tennessee at the end of the season, but conference regular season champs is conference regular season champs.
So they lost 3 of their last 5 regular season games and 4 of their last 6 games before the tournament. They only lost 3 the ENTIRE season before that. They had won 8 straight before losing 4 of 6. They beat Florida twice and Texas. 5 of their 7 losses before the tournament were to other tournament teams. The other two were to a hot S Carolina team in the SEC tournament and Oklahoma State, not exactly a terrible team.
They're not even a 4 seed? So you think LSU (who couldn't win the regular season championship) deserved a higher seed than them? Pittsburgh, Nevada, and Washington are all on par with Tennessee? Maybe 10 loss WV and 11 loss Indiana should have been seeded higher than them. Or 8 loss Oklahoma and 11 loss Michigan State? Those are the four 6 seeds. Very impressive. All those are much more worthy than Tennessee. Maybe Syracuse or 7 loss Pitt (losers of 3 of their last 4 regular season and 5 of their last 9 - their biggest win in Big East was vs. W. Virginia?!) should have been seeded higher?
You can't say they don't even deserve a 4 when they 1) win the regular season of a power conference with 2 other teams ranked 5-seed or higher and 2) you can't name 9 teams more deserving of a 4 seed than them. They only had 7 losses with an RPI SOS of 6. They ended the season 22-8, having won more than 75% of their games. Yet they didn't deserve a 4 seed? I'm sorry Denard, but you will never convince me (or probably any semi-intelligent basketball fan) that Tennessee didn't deserve at least a 4 seed. Shit even if they were a 5 or 6 seed, that is still an impressive win for a mid-major. ANYTIME you BEAT a REGULAR SEASON CHAMP from a MAJOR conference, it's impressive.
And as for Seton Hall, you can't look at 1 game and say they suck. Shit, they beat Pitt, W Virginia, Cinci, Syracuse, and NC State. So they have a few quality wins. And again, these are the teams the MVC was competing against for at-large bids, so yes, these wins are important AND impressive for any mid-major because those wins will help them get more bids the following years. And think about it this way, if you don't think it's impressive to beat them, then you would be bashing the MVS if they'd lost. The point is, they can compete with Majors, and they've proven it in the tournament. I've never said the MVC has Final Four quality teams, but they're beating exactly the caliber of teams I said they were capable of beating. And they've now won 2 more games than expected. And THAT is impressive.
I understand this must be painful for you having to defend Tennessee. And I imagine that you feel riled up having to personally protect the MVC. But all of the yelling, screaming, and capital letters in the world is not going to change my mind. I remain unconvinced that beating UT is an impressive win.
TN was a fraud. Pure and simple. They play a gimicky style of play and in the second half of the season, teams figured it out. A team that loses 4 of 6 at the end with one of those wins over Vanderbilt is a good team? And they were down 17 to Vandy! If Vandy hadn't been so terrible, that would have been 5 of 7. What happened to the committee supposedly valuing play down the stretch? I thought the last 10 games was supposed to be important for seeding.
Let me ask you this: Did you have TN even winning their first round game? Maybe you did...a lot of people didn't. Would you have been suprised if UT lost to Winthrop? Either way, UT was highly, highly overrated. Again, read what I wrote...not what Cullen wrote and not what the general media has to say. I like Wichita State...I enjoyed getting to see their game yesterday. They seem like a great team to me. In my opinion, beating UT was not that big a deal. UT was exposed down the stretch and if the committee had done their damn jobs instead of having their heads up their asses, that game wouldn't even have happened b/c UT would have already lost to Bradley or some other 13 seed.
So to sum up, we are going to have to agree to disagree about this. I don't want to take more mid-majors out, hell I would put more in! Air Force getting in was ridiculous. Seton Hall getting in was ridiculous. Hofstra should have been in. Creighton should have been in. I have no agenda as pertains to the MVC. I only really even think about them when the tourney rolls around. I think they have kicked major ass. As long as A) the Heels win today and B) beat Wichita State, I will continue to support them. How can you not like a team named after a sex act? Go Shockers!
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