Kansas Falls to VCU, Cinderella Run Continues

Selby/Woolridge (Lacey? doubt it)
Releford/McLemore
Mc//Mk/TRob
Mk/TRob/MC
2012 national champs.

just beyond words…

But this is just horrible. You lose two games all year, then you are handed the easiest road to the title game you could possibly imagine.

The sad thing is, I will believe to the day I die that if the opponent’s jersey had said “Purdue” “Notre Dame” UConn etc etc etc we’d be in the Final 4.

Once again, we played like crap against a small school.

The biggest problem I had is we didn’t play one good game this tournament. We played average against BU, slightly above average against Illinois and Richmond (Richmond mostly just played atrocious) and then today’s debacle.

Point is, we now have two straight years where our team absolutely dominated the regular season and didn’t play well in the big dance. Its getting old. Its concerning.

but have to echo a sentiment i heard on their board yesterday. for all that is great about the ncaa tournament, this is what you risk with a single elimination format. the best teams, and the ones who would actually draw a large audience, are not in the final four because they had simply terrible shooting nights. now bball fans get to look forward to one of the most underwhelming semifinals in history. not saying i would want a bcs-like system, but no way you can argue this system is perfect.

alright, end soapbox rant. on to research paper.

until we open next year against Kentucky at Madison Square Garden.

fuck mid-majors

and it’s fine to envision what our team will be if everybody comes back, but just to pile onto the already engulfed negativity pyre, here’s what our team could look like if we lose everybody we could lose:

PG: EJ/Nadire Tharp
SG: Woolridge/ ?
SF: Releford/ ?
PF: Justin Wesley/ ?
C: Jeff Withey/ ?

I’ve got faith HCBS will get some good recruits, but we’re not gonna get any of the top guys until our current players make up their minds about coming back or leaving. We could (should) get McLemore, we’re still in it for DeAndre Daniels, but I’m not sure we really should relish becoming a one-and-done factory.

I’m not trying to be a Debbie Downer or anything, but this loss could hurt for a long, long time.

Mid-Majors are not good for the sport, they are bad. College basketball is at its best when the top teams are competing for championships. Even though I hate the schools and all my friends do to, I would absolutely watch Kentucky vs. UNC play for the title. If VCU or Butler are in it, I don’t care. Its a cool feel-good story that I don’t care about

When it shouldn’t have made the tournament. I mean… its just bullshit

I don’t get any sympathy.

“Sometimes in sports, the harder you try, the worse you play.”

“Their players could play for us anyday. They got what they deserved today.”

Lets start with recruiting. IF we returned everyone, we have three openings correct?

And this class we have Tharpe. I’m going to assume we have McElmore, and we land a big with the last one (maybe that other guy we just got in on).

Now if guys start a leaving… who are we targeting? I need some optimism…

No searching like last year wondering what the hell happened. The team got the shots, the team missed the shots.

all but one of the good teams end the season with a heart breaking loss.

You have a great coach and a continuous buffet of 4/5 star recruits. Missouri, on the other hand, just got screwed by it’s coach right when the future looked bright. Hell, maybe we can steal Purdue, Butler, Richmond, or VCU’s coach!

scrambles for a cool DRose picture

It’s probably the most frustrating thing because we’re all well aware of the high ceiling this team had, but they too often shot themselves in the foot. Today they happened to shoot their foot off and just couldn’t overcome the self-destructive plays they’ve done all season long

Yeah we might end up with more losses, but I think a couple extra losses before tourney time could have helped this squad

Nice work, Warden!

all 3 losses this year were by double digits, which surprises me. Overall, the team had just 8 wins with margins under 10 points. Not necessarily saying anything about the team/scheduling, etc. but maybe the takeaway is that when this team was good, it was really good, and when it was not so good, look out.

VCU didn’t deserve to be in this tournament. They also don’t belong in the final four. They don’t run much of an offense. Sorry, but VCU made 21 shots – 12 of those were threes. Their offense sucked in the half court. Throwing up threes when you have nothing else available is ok, but that was their entire offense. When those stopped going in, we came back. They played the same way at the end of the FSU game – in that game both teams should have lost because they looked so bad.

Which leads me to my next point. Brady and Tyrel were terrible today. Markieff, not much better. Marcus and Tyshawn were OK. We hadn’t played a game this poorly all season. I think if we play bad, then we win this game. However, we played terrible. Also, I would place some blame on the refs – because they were bad – but I can’t because KU played like a nervous high school team that wasn’t ready for a game this big. That’s why I’m rooting for Butler and not VCU, and that’s why this loss pisses me off so much.

becomes the first coach to reach his first Final Four three times.

I don’t see them going out like this. They will encourage the team to stick together 1 more year. Also those two are so incredibly co-dependant they would pass up millions in the NBA for another year together. Hell in that article bensa posted today it says the even shower together. They have been saying all year long f.o.e. I am certain we will see them next year. Now if this turns into a ranked #1 all yr long like 2000-10, we will see

Free-throws Over Everything.

we created the game… you guys are just trying to catch up

That’s quite an accomplishment.

this team has had poor games, but they played so unbelievably bad today it just defies logic…i really thought this team was different, but they crumbled under the pressure and panicked when things started off poorly.

i can’t help but believe they took vcu lightly…this one hurts.

Warden’s Bracket Challenge score update!

It looks like tequilaprophet has held on to become the leader, and his lead should hold. All hail tequila!

We can’t rest on 2008 forever, we haven’t beat a seed higher than a #9 since then.
2009-#14 North Dakota St (W)
          # 11 Dayton (W)
          # 2 Michigan St (L)
2010-#16 Lehigh (W)
           # 9 UNI (L)
2011-#16; #9; #12 (W)
           #11 (L)

Not sure what this means, except it doesn’t look like the results of what I’d expect.
And this doesn’t address the Bradley and Bucknell losses of earlier years.
This tournament is just cruel, no best of five or anything like that.

Sorry…just rambling…POed, but if you had asked me to fill out my dream bracket, it would look just about like what we got. Ouch!

There is a growing list of mid majors that makes me shudder when I think about them. Yes, the championship is GREAT, but if this keeps up it will outweigh the championship for me.