Posted by sol_phenom3 on 10/22/2012 2:57:00 PM (view original):
I've tried time and again to beat DI teams with my DIII DePauw team (and with other DIII teams I've coached) in exhibition games. I *have* won them in the past, but typically those teams were more or less worse than my team. This evening I beat a very mediocre/below average UL-Lafayette team on a buzzer beater.
But what I'm just wondering is what some of the biggest DIII over DI wins people have seen in exhibition games are. Has anyone ever witnessed/been a part of a DIII team taking down a human-coached DI team? Perhaps even a human-coached Big Six DI team?
It's all just in the name of fun and I know sometimes DI coaches (or even DII and DIII coaches for that matter) come up with ridiculous experiments in exhibition games or only play their worst players, but I'm just curious, because I've tried my hand at beating human-coached DI schools with DIII schools in the past and I've always failed.
no, my best is i once challenged olddave when he had an elite 8-final 4 type syracuse team (oldave is a true hall of fame easily top 25 HD history type coach, if anybody doesnt know him), with my d2 SIUE team that was one nasty press team. we forced 28 turnovers at HIS place, but we ended up losing by a couple of baskets. maybe even 8 points total, but i think it was one of those game that came to the wire but then just couldnt make FTs or he made his or whatever. our team was easily best in nation (won the title without ever getting challenged), but what was really amazing is how effective my press was against such a good d1 team. i mean, i cant imagine playing it close with a 780 or 800 overall d1 team with my d2 teams today, thats for sure.
those were the good old days, when the press was still magic. i miss my magic press teams. i mean, 80% of the other teams ran press too, so its not like it was a huge advantage, but if you played the press right, it really was beautiful. not like man. insane man teams are awesome but slightly less insane man teams are only slightly less awesome. with the press, when you got in that super elite territory, you could take an avg #1 team in the country's press and you could crush it ruthlessly, like 95% winning chance type crushing. i just don't think those things are possible now, it scales so much more linearly, there wasn't a point where it was like OMG WTF???... and i think thats why we don't see the extent of dominance at the championship level that we used to see in the magic press days.