Second Round thread

[Goober McTuber]

right there is where you're supposed to say, yeah, we got away with one. see you next week.

Methinks UCLA has gotten away with THREE the last couple of weeks...

Exactly. In the A & M game, Kevin Love did his best Jerry Kramer impersonation on the winning shot. I have UCLA winning it all in my bracket pool, but I’ll be pulling for them to lose from here on out. What a sham.

[SunCoastSooner]

I'm not going to point the finger at the refs for that bad call as the reason we lost to UCLA. We had a 10 point 2nd half lead. We blew it. Maybe next year.

We'll have a strong team coming back. Hopefully Jordan hits a big man camp and figures out when to pass out, when to take it to the hole and that 3 steps usually results in a travel call. Thanks Joseph Jones and Dominique Kirk for the years of great ball you two played. I wish they could have finshed off the game as they would likely make it to the Elite 8 had they gotten through UCLA.

Props to UCLA on their comeback. I have UCLA to win it all in my bracket. Unless they turn it up a notch or 10 though, they are done in the Elite 8.

I might be able to accept that as a third party if that had been the only bad call in the last five minutes of the game that went for UCLA. It was just the most blatant.

[indyfrisco]

No, I don't think the officiating was very good at all. Pretty bad, actually. We had bad officiating last year against Memphis too in the Sweet 16. We got a very ticky tack foul called with no time remaining and Douglas-Roberts hit the free throws to win the game.

When you play what is considered the "elite" teams, you are going to have to play against the refs some too as they will get the benefit of the doubt. Is that right? No. Is it reality? Yeah. We were getting hammered in the paint without calls. We should have adjusted to the refs and worked the outside game.

[King Crimson]

No, I don't think the officiating was very good at all. Pretty bad, actually. We had bad officiating last year against Memphis too in the Sweet 16. We got a very ticky tack foul called with no time remaining and Douglas-Roberts hit the free throws to win the game.

When you play what is considered the "elite" teams, you are going to have to play against the refs some too as they will get the benefit of the doubt. Is that right? No. Is it reality? Yeah. We were getting hammered in the paint without calls. We should have adjusted to the refs and worked the outside game.

big XII is a pretty physical league. a season of league play leaves teams used to push and shove. this was one of my complaints against Kelvin Sampson, whose OU teams mos def pushed the limit of physical play....they never seemed to realize that the NCAA was going to be called "differently".

[The Seer]

I have NEVER claimed he was NOT fouled on that last play....If the cameras were clicking a few plays earlier, you'd a seen Westbrook get butchered on his drive to the basket...

The shit evens out...and if my team was aided by an absent whistle...somehow, I will get through it...I asked an aTm fan on a Bruin board what he wanted by coming in and ranting.

I offered to have Ucla forfeit the rest of their games; maybe wear an aTm patch on their jerseys the rest of the way; I dunno - apologize? Sorry for the bad call....

Anyway, if not for the questionable call vs. Kal, obviously they'd be zeroing in on the Final Four as we type....

[Degenerate]

big XII is a pretty physical league. a season of league play leaves teams used to push and shove. this was one of my complaints against Kelvin Sampson, whose OU teams mos def pushed the limit of physical play....they never seemed to realize that the NCAA was going to be called "differently".

True, but there is/was often an exception for Kansas on the physical part. After Byron Houston's OSU team split with KU in '92 (IIRC) but beat the shit out of them while doing it, Roy pretty much decided he was going to harass every last conference official any time one of his keeeyuds was breathed on if he was in the paint. It worked for the most part, as you couldn't get near LaFrentz, Pollard, anyone*, without drawing the whistle. It was all fine and dandy until he got to the NCAAs and ran into officials from other conferences who didn't give a shit about ol' Roy and let the players play. Virginia '95, Syracuse '96, and Arizona '97 - all those teams pwned KU down low, on the glass, everywhere. Hell, Arizona was outsized with AJ Bramlett and Bennett Davison and they were just KILLING KU inside.

*except for Ostertag, who got no respect from anyone; but why would you - hell, just look at him

[King Crimson]

big XII is a pretty physical league. a season of league play leaves teams used to push and shove. this was one of my complaints against Kelvin Sampson, whose OU teams mos def pushed the limit of physical play....they never seemed to realize that the NCAA was going to be called "differently".

True, but there is/was often an exception for Kansas on the physical part. After Byron Houston's OSU team split with KU in '92 (IIRC) but beat the shit out of them while doing it, Roy pretty much decided he was going to harass every last conference official any time one of his keeeyuds was breathed on if he was in the paint. It worked for the most part, as you couldn't get near LaFrentz, Pollard, anyone*, without drawing the whistle. It was all fine and dandy until he got to the NCAAs and ran into officials from other conferences who didn't give a shit about ol' Roy and let the players play. Virginia '95, Syracuse '96, and Arizona '97 - all those teams pwned KU down low, on the glass, everywhere. Hell, Arizona was outsized with AJ Bramlett and Bennett Davison and they were just KILLING KU inside.

*except for Ostertag, who got no respect from anyone; but why would you - hell, just look at him

that's an interesting point. though, i'm having a hard time drumming up a lot of "we get screwed by the refs" sympathy for Kansas. i've watched a lot basketball games and the last 5 minutes at AFH gravity changes.

:wink:

i do remember watching that 96 Cuse game. and me and my bartender buddy (at Boulder's world famous Sink) were astonished KU wouldn't pass it over the top of the zone. getting out-physicalled by a Lute Olson team is not put on the refs.

[Degenerate]

Oh, I'm not searching for sympathy here. I think Roy did all that stuff to his detriment, and he ended up changing his tune after a while. the '02 and '03 teams had bangers like Jeff Graves.

No one cries about officials like KU Fan, i'll be the first to admit.

[Terry in Crapchester]

Curry looks like he's about the same age as my 9-year-old, but he's been nails so far.



And rack Washington State for that second-round win against my Domers. A thorough ass-kicking from start to finish.

That brings me to my next point. At this point it might be time for ND to part company with Mike Brey. And I don't make that statement lightly, fwiw. I realize that ND's program has improved by leaps and bounds over what it was in the 90's, and that Brey is largely responsible for that. I'm also aware that, by all accounts, Brey is an honorable man, that ND likely would have let McAlarney twist in the wind if Brey had not had his back, and that White and the Administration haven't exactly done Brey any favors at least as far as facilities go.

My problems with Brey are predominantly two-fold. One is that he seems to be wedded to a style of play which has 3-4 perimeter players and 1-2 bangers underneath (Kurz was sort of a 'tweener in that regard). Although it wasn't quite so egregious this season, his teams generally seem to live and die with the three-pointer. Don't get me wrong, I love the three, and it's a great weapon to have in your arsenal. But when it's your primary, if not your only, weapon, eventually you're going to come to a night where the shots just won't fall. When that happens, you're at risk of getting blown out by a good team, or losing to an otherwise inferior team.

The second problem I have with Brey, which is even bigger than the first problem, is that he leaves a lot to be desired as a big-game coach. In that regard, one need look no further than his all-time record in the Big East tournament (3-8) and NCAA tournament while at ND (5-5, including 1-4 as the lower-seeded team). I suppose one could (and, given this crowd, will) argue that the lower-seeded teams aren't supposed to win in the NCAA tournament. But we all know that a few Cinderellas slip through the cracks just about every year. Not to mention that we're talking about Notre Dame, which built its reputation, in no small part, on being at its best when in the role of giant-killer. Yeah, that's primarily the case for football, but it's not without precedent in basketball as well -- UCLA's record 88-game winning streak was bookended by losses to ND. At Notre Dame, it's important to win the improbable game once in awhile, and the impossible game at least once in a blue moon. Brey's lone win in the NCAA tournament as the lower-seeded team came in a second-round 4 vs. 5 matchup.

All of that being said, there comes a time when a coach, any coach, has to be accountable. Brey has now been at ND for eight seasons, and a pattern has emerged during that time:

'01: Qualified for NCAA tournament as an at-large bid, received #6 seed, beat Xavier in first round, lost to Mississippi in second round.
'02: Qualified for NCAA tournament as an at-large bid, received #8 seed, beat Charlotte in first round, lost to Duke in second round.
'03: Qualified for NCAA tournament as an at-large bid, received #5 seed, beat Wisconsin-Milwaukee in first round, beat Illinois in second round, lost to Arizona in Sweet 16.
'04: NIT bid, reached quarterfinals of NIT.
'05: NIT bid, lost to Holy Cross in first round of NIT.
'06: NIT bid (only after a late-season surge), lost to Michigan in second round of NIT.
'07: Qualified for NCAA tournament as an at-large bid, received #6 seed, lost to Winthrop in first round.
'08: Qualified for NCAA tournament as an at-large bid, received #5 seed, beat George Mason in first round, blown out by Washington State in second round.

It looks to me like there's both a floor and a ceiling for ND's program under the status quo:

Floor: NIT bid.
Ceiling: Make NCAA tournament as an at-large team, receive second quartile (i.e., 5-8) seed, win first round game, and maybe second round game, if the beneficiary of an upset (either our own or someone else's).

So, the $64,000 question then becomes, is that acceptable for ND fan?

As I've said before, I'm a child of the 70's, and the early 70's is when I first became cognizant of the world of sports. Those were heady times to be a ND fan. The football team won two national championships in the 70's (as opposed to one in the nearly three decades that have since transpired). And the 70's were, without question, the Golden Era of Notre Dame basketball. ND made the Sweet 16 seven times in eight seasons from '74-'81. ND became the first school to play for a football national championship and in basketball's Final Four in the same academic year ('77-'78), and was the first school to be ranked #1 in both football and basketball in the same academic year ('73-'74). I remember those days, and I see no reason why, under the right set of circumstances, a return to those days is not possible. I don't expect us to be among the truly elite college basketball programs, a la North Carolina, UCLA, Indiana, Kansas, Duke, Georgetown, Syracuse. I do expect us to be no further than a notch below that. So for me, the answer is a resounding no.

Of course, I'm no advocate of firing a coach for the sake of firing a coach, so if we're going to dump Brey, we have to get better in the coaching department. As far as successors, my first choice would be Tom Crean, although I'm not 100% sure we would get him. He'd be making a move within the conference, which is rare (although ND is probably better situated than Marquette should the Big East ever choose to downsize). He'd also be going from a school where basketball is king to a school where basketball takes a back seat to football.

If we can't get Crean, my next choice would be one of two. Scotty Drew has done a remarkable job in resurrecting Baylor's program, and he has ties to Indiana in that his dad was the long-time coach at Valpo. I think he'd come. My other choice would be Mark Few, who has managed to turn Gonzaga into a perennial Top 25 program. With that track record, I think he could succeed at another Catholic school with much higher visibility. But like Crean, he'd be leaving a school where basketball is king in favor of one where basketball takes a back seat to football.