Tweet
So apparently the cliche-mongers are right: it is impossible to win a national championship in D-1 basketball unless you're from a power conference. I guess playing in C-USA just doesn't prepare you to hit clutch free throws, although that may be news to UCLA.
:roll:
My gosh, who was that in the white uniforms the last couple of minutes? If it hadn't been for the blue trim, the size, and the extravagant "ink," you'd have thought it was this past year's Shockers from the way they clanked up FTs and ran off a string of miscues of which every single one was required to snatch defeat from the jaws of certain victory.
Seriously, though -- can we now finally tell Digger and his idiot announcer buddies, or the next brain-dead writer -- or for that matter, the next "woe is me" stepping-stone coach -- who tells us that you can't win unless you're in a power conference, just to shove it and go away?
Two years ago we watched George Mason beat WSU and three teams universally regarded as among the elite to reach the Final Four, where they were no more overmatched than were big boys UCLA and LSU. This year, the best team in the country all season long was the class of the mighty C-USA, and among the final eight were A-10 rep Xavier -- there for the second time in five years despite, among other things, the apparently not-so-fatal handicap of lacking a football program -- and Davidson from the "low major" Southern conference, which missed the Final Four by literally one possession against the eventual winner, and which earlier this season proved itself neither intimidated by nor overmatched against North Carolina.
Had that last three ball prayer against Kansas been answered, think about it -- it really would not have been out of the question to see Memphis playing Davidson for the national championship, and what would have happened to Billy Packer then? Would he have died of a heart attack on the spot, or melted away like the Wicked Witch of the West?
So enough of the tired BS, guys -- the simple fact is that in a 64 (well, 65)-team single elimination tournament, it is indeed possible for not only a "high major program in a mid major conference" but even a quality team that gets hot from out of a "low major" league to compete legitimately for the title. And it's obviously also possible, as Gonzaga and Xavier, not to mention Memphis, have shown, to become one of those allegedly overachieving programs outside the power conferences who can do so.
:roll:
My gosh, who was that in the white uniforms the last couple of minutes? If it hadn't been for the blue trim, the size, and the extravagant "ink," you'd have thought it was this past year's Shockers from the way they clanked up FTs and ran off a string of miscues of which every single one was required to snatch defeat from the jaws of certain victory.
Seriously, though -- can we now finally tell Digger and his idiot announcer buddies, or the next brain-dead writer -- or for that matter, the next "woe is me" stepping-stone coach -- who tells us that you can't win unless you're in a power conference, just to shove it and go away?
Two years ago we watched George Mason beat WSU and three teams universally regarded as among the elite to reach the Final Four, where they were no more overmatched than were big boys UCLA and LSU. This year, the best team in the country all season long was the class of the mighty C-USA, and among the final eight were A-10 rep Xavier -- there for the second time in five years despite, among other things, the apparently not-so-fatal handicap of lacking a football program -- and Davidson from the "low major" Southern conference, which missed the Final Four by literally one possession against the eventual winner, and which earlier this season proved itself neither intimidated by nor overmatched against North Carolina.
Had that last three ball prayer against Kansas been answered, think about it -- it really would not have been out of the question to see Memphis playing Davidson for the national championship, and what would have happened to Billy Packer then? Would he have died of a heart attack on the spot, or melted away like the Wicked Witch of the West?
So enough of the tired BS, guys -- the simple fact is that in a 64 (well, 65)-team single elimination tournament, it is indeed possible for not only a "high major program in a mid major conference" but even a quality team that gets hot from out of a "low major" league to compete legitimately for the title. And it's obviously also possible, as Gonzaga and Xavier, not to mention Memphis, have shown, to become one of those allegedly overachieving programs outside the power conferences who can do so.
Comment