I seriously think USC/Oregon will beat Gonzaga (or Creighton). However it all shakes out, there’s a very good chance the Pac-12 will have two teams in the Final 4.
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I like the way you are thinking.
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Alabama about to be bounced from the tournament. sigh
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UCLA with a healthy Chris Smith, yikes! Cronin was a great hire in LA
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Now Bama is being dickish. Fouling with 10 seconds left when down by 11?
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PAC gonna have 3 in the Elite 8. Meanwhile the Big 10 and SEC have one each. ACC - Nada. Big East - Nada
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Meh. It’s how they’ve played in every game. Granted most games they didn’t lose. I’m just glad we can worry about Football again.
*Actually really bummed. Alabama has only been to the Elite 8 one time. Zero final fours.
UCLA hired an existing head coach with a solid resume. The best way.
Cronin and Craig Smith look like brothers, based in appearances.
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someone on twitter pointed out Utah’s net ranking improved from 75 to 45 with the PAC12’s success in the tourney. It’s got to be sub 40 after tonight.
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You realize it’s the same in the women’s tourney too? PAC 12 killing it.
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One thing that is abundantly clear, especially after this weekend’s games: the Pac-12 was criminally under-seeded in this tournament.
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NO truck stops in this conference
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Hmmm, maybe Coach K wasn’t so bad after all? Hmmm.
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yeah, yeah, yeah. thx moose for the input.
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They DID. 3.
Been saying it all year but nobody would listen to me. Utah really wasn’t that far away from being the team everybody wanted this year. It’s why I’ve been so angry and frustrated by everyone’s constant calling for his firing every time they lost. Because I KNEW how good the Pac-12 potentially was this year, and nobody would listen. Perhaps they lost to the teams they did BECAUSE OF HOW GOOD THEIR OPPONENTS WERE. Six of their 13 losses came to teams who have made the Elite 8. If Utah had found a way to not lose those 3 games against Cal, Stanford, and Washington, they legit would have a claim to have made the Tournament themselves.
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One thing I loved about moving to the PAC was not having to pretend to cheer for conference schools in the ncaa tournament. I would half heartedly cheer for the Lobos as a 6 seed as they got destroyed by St. Bonaventure, or San Diego St. as a 9 seed as they were decimated by a terrible Providence team because I thought (with some reason) that the Utes reputation hinged on the teams they were beating. (Note: this rule did not apply to byu). Moving up in conferences freed me from this tired charade; or so I thought.
Now, under Larry Scott’s divine leadership, I’m suddenly supposed to cheer for UCLA to make the final four (UCLA???$??)? Or USC??? Oregon state I can handle, but only out of respect for the Glove. I don’t know about this. Cheering for conference mates is something only teams from the WAC do; or the MWC; or the SEC. Most teams that are secure in their conference affiliation, in their place in the world, couldn’t give a flying flute about how OTHER teams from their conference are doing; they only care about how THEY are doing.
And I get the feeling of stick-it-to-the-man, and sympathize with it to an extent. I mean, the experts (computers) said that the pac 12 was terrible (east coast bias) and they were hopeless as a conference and kids from California were choosing to play in Georgia blah blah blah. But just remember this time when UCLA has their act together (along with Oregon and UW and Arizona) and usc hires a real football coach. We will all look back, longingly, at the time in the early ‘20s when the deck didn’t seem so stacked against us.
So forgive me if I have trouble boarding the LarryScottExpress.
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Yeah, it’s clear that one factor in the equation has been that the PAC is better than pretty much anyone has been able to detect. The teams in the PAC seemed to grow and gel a little more slowly than average this year, thus why so many were so clueless about the PAC’s collective basketball value. Kudos to you for predicting it correctly.
Another factor here, in regards to the dismissal of Coach K, is the unrealistic value that Utah fans place on the product here. Like byu-p and their 1984-driven delusional football fever dreams, Utah fans still dwell in the hype of past greatness. If it’s not the Majerus 90s, it’s the late 70s-early 80s Jerry Pimm teams. Hell, there are probably a few old codgers that still live in 1944.
The fact is, Utah is no longer a basketball power, and I don’t think it will ever be again. The problem is that kids who would have been happy to take the opportunity to play in remote locations like Utah back in the 70s, 80s and 90s are simply more savvy now. The expansion of media has played a big roll in this, and most particularly social media. Kids who are making their decision about where to end up in school are much more discerning and choosy than they used to be. The painful fact (for Utahns) is that kids from urban areas simply don’t want to come to Utah, not with so many other choices available. Utah has a bad reputation around the country, a reputation of being insular, weird and in many people’s minds, racist. Whether you believe that this reputation is earned or not, it exists. It’s what is now deterring the top athletes from considering playing in Utah, and it’s why Utah is having to settle for scraps.
Larry was having to scrape and claw to bring kids into the program, and I’m sure that he probably deserves some responsibility for the transfer losses that seemed to be happening every year. But people fail to consider that perhaps part of the reason some of the kids have transferred out has to do with the atmosphere in Utah. It’s real, and it ain’t going away anytime soon.
Now that Utah is in the PAC and competing against other PAC schools, the reputation Utah has as an unwelcoming place is probably even more exposed. Coach K had a tough job, and he wasn’t perfect at doing it, but he has done okay given the circumstances. I don’t have much faith that a replacement can do better. I’ll try to be optimistic, however, because hope is more fun than hopelessness.
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