Go Wildcats!
Just to confirm: yes, now that U of Kentucky won, this will be the lowest seed combo for the final game ever.
I don’t know how UK keeps managing to pull rabbits out of it’s hat at the end of games. And how about that Andrew Harrison? That’s now three straight games where he’s hit the game winner at or near the buzzer. Crazy.
Their last 4 games UK has been behind by 5 or less with 4 minutes left in the game, yet they’ve won every game. They simply refuse to lose.
I have felt all season that UConn has the talent to win it all, but in order to do so they would have to avoid injury and maintain their focus. Geno Auriemma has said of the women’s team that when they play ther A game they’re unbeatable. I’m not sure I’d go quite so far for the men, but I would say that when they play their A game they are very hard to beat.
I’m quite surprised UK got past Wisconsin. Arkansas beat UK twice in the regular season. UK is quite capable of playing great or coming apart on any given night.
I’m not that familiar with UConn. I wouldn’t be surprised if they win the championship. beating Florida by 10 points says a lot about this team’s game.
Maybe now, with a 7 and 8 seed in the finals, someone will agree to take a look at the seeding process those old bastards are using to make the bracket in the first place.
What they did to Wichita State was downright criminal. For that team to have to play Kentucky in the second round (oh, and they are in the finals now. Whoops!) was just despicable. Like any number 1 seed, they should have had an easy road to the sweet 16 before the walls started squeezing in a little.
But the road the committee put out in front of Wichita State was wrong.
Kentucky finished, what… 2nd in the SEC? That’s an 8 seed? That’s a joke. I know they didn’t have an amazing regular season, but they made it to the finals of their conference tourney, correct? That was a major screw job to Wichita.
I didn’t follow UConn much this season, so I have no idea if a 7 seed was fair. I don’t remember much complaining, though, so maybe it was. They sure don’t look and play like any 7 seed I can remember.
There is no Villanova or NC State here. These two teams are good. I don’t think either one could he considered a cinderella, not the way they are playing. Especially UConn. They didn’t just squeak by Florida. They beat them by 10. And Kentucky has probably had one of the most impressive runs of any team I can remember. Not only the teams they have won, but how they have won, a point or two better than the team they play. That is an amazing show of mental toughness to win every close game against some great opponents.
This should be a great game to watch. I have no dog in this fight at all, could not care less who wins. Just want to see a hard fought game. And based on this tournament, Kentucky will not die and will be around at the end. UConn won’t be blown out either, so this game should have a ton of lead changes and come down to the final minute, hopefully the last possession.
This is why NCAA basketball is so much better than the NBA. It is actually watchable!
In Kentucky’s case, what do you do with a championship caliber team who keeps losing in the regular season? They only beat ONE ranked team all season, and lost 10 games. Sure everyone knows they’re better than an 8 seed, but why should they be seeded ahead of teams who deserved it more than they did?
And that’s just it: they didn’t look nor play like a championship caliber team until the tournament started (well, you could argue that it started in the SEC championship game against Florida, but still). Nor did they have an impressive resume of quality wins, a strong schedule, good conference play in the weak SEC nor a small amount of losses.
It is literally like they came out of nowhere, in a sense. Sure they’re talented, but they didn’t play like it until just very recently.
Some of the local media here in CT did complain a little bit about the seeding; they felt that UConn should have been seeded a little higher. As I said, UConn has a lot of talent, Napier is arguably the best point guard in the country, and he and Boatright are arguably the best backcourt, but the team has lacked consistency. They had some quality wins, but they also lost some games that they should have won. I think they finished 5th in the American, and they went to the final of the conference tournament, losing there to Louisville.
I really hope they win tomorrow night. I think it would be a fitting ending to Shabazz Napier’s college career.
I see your point. But even when the brackets came out, the “bracketologists” were all over the Kentucky seeding, saying it was too low, and the only reason it was an 8 seed was to set up the potential 3rd round matchup with Louisville (that ironically happened).
But where to seed them before the tourney? I don’t know. Maybe a 5-6 seed? I am thinking of another 8 seed, Colorado, which got blown out by 9th seed Pitt. If Pitt played UK, I think we can all guess how that would have turned out.
I guess ultimately it doesn’t matter. UK earned their way. They didn’t have any “gimmees”, and were challenged to the end almost every game. They could have made it to the finals from any seed on the board.
From today’s CNN article: "I feel bad for the people ahead of us,” Cauley-Stein said. “We shouldn’t have been an eight seed. Going into the Wichita State game, I thought, ‘They didn’t screw us. They screwed the people ahead of us.’”
Nitpick - Aaron Harrison. Andrew’s playing very well too, but it’s Aaron that’s draining all the clutch threes.
This tourney run has been cardiac-arrest inducing …they’ve won by 7, 2, 5, 3, and 1. By contrast, the 2012 behemoth won by 15, 16, 12, 8, 8, and 8…no drama that season!
Quick guards with good court vision have given UK trouble this year (LSU, most egregiously)…but, if they can outrebound UConn by the usual 10 or so, keep the turnovers down (only 4 against Wisconsin!), the championship will be right there for them to grasp.
Nah, we can’t. It’s easy to look backward from where we are now and talk about how silly we all were not to see this coming, but we’d be saying that for any one of a million different outcomes. If Pitt beat Kentucky in the second round this year, nobody would have been surprised - Kentucky was a disappointment all season! And Kentucky could have very plausibly lost any of the games it’s played in the tournament so far. They’re good, but being good only counts for so much in a series of coin flips like the tournament.
Hell, if St. Joe’s gets a decent shot at the rim or a friendly foul call, that game never goes to overtime and UConn is out in the first round and nobody has any second thoughts about it. And two different teams are the teams of destiny.
I agree with a lot of the posters above. I mean, Wow, a 7 vs 8 seed, two of the lowest seeds ever to play for a title. Only 3 teams lower than a 6 seed ever made it to the Final. Now BOTH teams are “Cinderellas”, this should be exciting and historical. :eek:
Maybe it’s just me, but programs like UConn and Kentucky just don’t have the same “underdog” appeal as Butler or Villanova.
How would you like to be a guy that picked the final two teams, one game away from the Billion dollar prize… And you blow it?
Can you imagine?
That would be my luck! I am sitting on the last game of the tourney, and I pick the wrong team in the final.
I doubt anyone got the final game correct. But even if someone did, they surely got other games incorrect along the way.
Getting this year’s bracket correct would be the miracle of sports prediction miracles.
I wonder if anyone DOES have the final pair? Is there any way to check this? I am guessing if someone had the final two correct, it would be news worthy.
IIRC, it was newsworthy when somebody in the US went the first weekend unbeaten with his Yahoo/Google/CBSsports tourney bracket. This happened 2-5 years ago.
Cite: http://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20120321006420/en/Perfect-Bracket-Left-March-Madness-2012-NCAA
Colorado deserved their 8 seed based on the rules the selection committee uses to select the field. They were 15-2 until they lost their best player to an ACL tear, and only went .500 the rest of the way. Only two of their losses were to teams that didn’t make the tourney, and one was the game where the injury occured. Their record was comparable to the other 8 seeds, but it was an easy pick to say they were going to lose to Pitt. The committee used to take into account how you were playing going into the tournament (last 10 games) but they aren’t allowed to consider that anymore.
I just looked at the overall leaders in ESPN’s bracket challenge and they all have the final game correct. They all also had the Final Four nailed, and all five had seven of the eight Elite Eight picked as well (they all had Kansas instead of Dayton.)
Thanks for looking this up.
That is amazing to me. 5 people all getting 7 of the 8 elite 8 correct? And the final game?
That blows my mind as much as the guy who went 48-0, and 64-3 overall. And 48-0 against the spread!
I hope that guy made some money on his picks.
I am amazed that people could get the final 4 correct and then get the final game from the beginning of the tourney. I tried picking just the winner from the Sweet 16 and couldn’t even manage that.
To pick Kentucky and UConn, based on how they played all season is like seeing into the future. I could believe it if one random person picked this, but 5? That is truly remarkable.
Goooooo UCONN!