OT: NCAA seeding/1st round matchups Topic

AceCards
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Quote: Originally Posted By professor17 on 4/06/2010I thought the officiating was overwhelmingly pro-Butler. If the game had been called fairly, this would have been a fairly comfortable Duke win, and I completely empathize with Coach K for taking a shot at the refs in the post-game press conference. They very nearly stole a national championship from him.
The officiating was overwhelmingly poor and did not favor either team. You could not be more wrong in your assessment. It was a great game and Duke won, the officiating did not have any impact whatsoever because it was bad in general. There were several phantom make-up calls that benefited both teams because the officials blew so many calls.
4/6/2010 2:23 PM
jeffdrayer
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As a Duke alum, and therefore someone who is prone to be biased, I'll say I thought the game was reffed pretty evenly (albeit poorly). For every time I jumped out of my chair yelling, "They (Bulter) mauled him!" I also found myself saying, "huh, we got away with one there." Anyone arguing that the refs handed the game to Duke in front of a Butler home crowd and a nation eager to see the underdogs pull one out was not watching the same game as I. As to having the easiest road, I dunno -- I mean, if Northern Iowa was in our bracket, would that have calmed everyone down? Heck, Baylor might've been the best-looking team in the whole tournament, till Duke beat them.

And in terms of the best team winning, I have to say I'm re-evaluating what it means to be the "best" team. This is, talent-wise, the worst Duke squad since 1996. Singler's the only one with a shot at the NBA, and I doubt he'll thrive if he even goes. But each of these guys knew their role, didn't *panic* (which, anyone who follows Duke knows, is the hallmark of Duke ball these last 14 years), and played tough all 40 minutes. So, if you measure "best" by number of top-50 recruits, then they were not. But it is possible they were the best *team* this year. Of course, that's debatable -- but it's not a foregone conclusion they were not.
4/6/2010 2:29 PM
professor17
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Quote: Originally Posted By professor17 on 4/06/2010
Quote: Originally Posted By AceCards on 4/06/2010

Quote: Originally Posted By professor17 on 4/06/2010
Very surprised this was a competitive game. I fully expected Duke to win by 20+. I'm not a Duke fan, but as far as I'm concerned, Coach K is the greatest coach in the history of the game.
He's no John Wooden.



Wooden coached in a completely different era. I liken him to Pat Summit or Geno Auriemma in the women's game, coaching dominant teams in an overall mediocre landscape. On top of that, UCLA didn't have to win 6 NCAA tournament games to win their titles. And teams were actually placed according to their natural region back then, and the West was comparitively weak. And UCLA got to play basically at home for a lot of their tournament games. Smaller tournament field, far less competitive sport... great accomplishments, certainly. But I think Coach K's accomplishments in the modern era are even more impressive, despite having significantly fewer titles.

4/6/2010 2:33 PM
AceCards
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Quote: Originally Posted By professor17 on 4/06/2010
Quote: Originally Posted By professor17 on 4/06/2010

Quote: Originally Posted By AceCards on 4/06/2010

Quote: Originally Posted By professor17 on 4/06/2010
Very surprised this was a competitive game. I fully expected Duke to win by 20+. I'm not a Duke fan, but as far as I'm concerned, Coach K is the greatest coach in the history of the game.
He's no John Wooden.



Wooden coached in a completely different era. I liken him to Pat Summit or Geno Auriemma in the women's game, coaching dominant teams in an overall mediocre landscape. On top of that, UCLA didn't have to win 6 NCAA tournament games to win their titles. And teams were actually placed according to their natural region back then, and the West was comparitively weak. And UCLA got to play basically at home for a lot of their tournament games. Smaller tournament field, far less competitive sport... great accomplishments, certainly. But I think Coach K's accomplishments in the modern era are even more impressive, despite having significantly fewer titles.

Wooden's teams would have won almost exactly the same amount of titles that they did historically had it been a field of 64. His teams were that dominant. Coach K is a great coach, just like Adolf Rupp, Bob Knight and several others, but John Wooden is the gold standard and always will be. He did more too change the game and had more impact on coaching in all sports than Coach K will ever have.
4/6/2010 2:40 PM
wrmiller13
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As for the refs - I though they were incredibly inconsistent, but not overly biased for one team over another.

By inconsistent I mean - There were many times when the teams would go for 2-3 minutes of rough, Big 10 style body blow play (Zoubek tossed the Butler center around like a rag doll much of the night on the glass), with no fouls called, and then there would be a very light contact that was called (the reach in by Scheyer for his 3rd foul). That was frustrating to watch.

4/6/2010 3:27 PM
wrmiller13
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As for the Wooden vs Coach K (or Knight or Dean or whoever) - it was a completely different era, with different "rules". He was a tremendous recruiter of talent as well as a superior coach. But it was the recruiting that gave him the ultimate edge. IMO, does not matter who the other coach was, you were not going to beat them, because of the talent on the floor. And his recruiting was made easier by lack of exposure for other programs, and "you can live and play in LA".

Modern example - UConn women the past 3 years. (other than the live in LA part obviously)
4/6/2010 3:31 PM
pitino27
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Quote: Originally posted by emy1013 on 4/06/2010
Quote: Originally Posted By professor17 on 4/06/2010I thought the officiating was overwhelmingly pro-Butler. If the game had been called fairly, this would have been a fairly comfortable Duke win, and I completely empathize with Coach K for taking a shot at the refs in the post-game press conference. They very nearly stole a national championship from him. What a breath of fresh air......But just wait Professor, it won't be long until Zack is on here telling you just how wrong you really are.


I'm not zack, lol, but I think of the final four teams, Butler easily had the most impressive run. Beating both Syracuse and Kansas St is very impressive for a mid-major. I think Duke, West Virginia, and Michigan State would all be about equal and all were impressive to me. Even though Kentucky played awful, WV beat them. Meanwhile, Duke beat a very good Baylor team. Finally, even though they beat no seeds better than 4, Maryland and Tenn were both pretty good teams imo, and State beat them without their star PG. While the tournament was upset heavy and not very friendly to my favorite teams, it was relatively exciting. So many OT games and buzzer beaters, and the championship game was nearly won on a last second shot as well. The only team I feel remorse for in the tournament is Butler. The reason being to get within one shot of the championship and miss is heart-breaking, but extremely impressive for a mid-major, pre-season top 10 or not. Congrats Duke fans.... Yuck!
4/6/2010 6:58 PM
vandydave
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Quote: Originally Posted By acn24 on 4/06/2010
Quote: Originally Posted By zhawks on 4/06/2010
Zoubek set an NCAA Record with 16 fouls last night. Too bad Cahill only called 4 of them.
Please - the game was officiated pretty well last night. They let Duke get away with some banging underneath, they let Butler grab and hold jerseys on the perimeter all night. They established what was going to go and were consistent with it, and that is all you can ask
i was unimpressed with the reffing last night but didnt think either team got too much benefit, the assessment above seems pretty accurate.
4/6/2010 11:37 PM
vandydave
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Quote: Originally Posted By jeffdrayer on 4/06/2010

As a Duke alum, and therefore someone who is prone to be biased, I'll say I thought the game was reffed pretty evenly (albeit poorly). For every time I jumped out of my chair yelling, "They (Bulter) mauled him!" I also found myself saying, "huh, we got away with one there." Anyone arguing that the refs handed the game to Duke in front of a Butler home crowd and a nation eager to see the underdogs pull one out was not watching the same game as I. As to having the easiest road, I dunno -- I mean, if Northern Iowa was in our bracket, would that have calmed everyone down? Heck, Baylor might've been the best-looking team in the whole tournament, till Duke beat them.

And in terms of the best team winning, I have to say I'm re-evaluating what it means to be the "best" team. This is, talent-wise, the worst Duke squad since 1996. Singler's the only one with a shot at the NBA, and I doubt he'll thrive if he even goes. But each of these guys knew their role, didn't *panic* (which, anyone who follows Duke knows, is the hallmark of Duke ball these last 14 years), and played tough all 40 minutes. So, if you measure "best" by number of top-50 recruits, then they were not. But it is possible they were the best *team* this year. Of course, that's debatable -- but it's not a foregone conclusion they were not.

uh, the paulus-mcroberts based team of 2007 (?) was less talented than this i'd argue, at least based upon how the talent was performing that season.
4/6/2010 11:39 PM
jeffdrayer
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I don't know -- I might debate that. DeMarcus Nelson was very good for that team, and McRoberts (though an NBA bust) was an excellent college player. Paulus too was just fine on that team, as were the other starters, Gerald Henderson and Jon Scheyer. I'll agree, though, they probably were not as talented as this year's squad, though I'd say by only 10-15%. But yeah, the more I look at the stats here, the more I'm inclined to agree...
4/7/2010 9:57 PM
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