Fourth place in the Pac 12 is not shabby. It's a deep conference that tends to get underrated by East Coast pundits, and every game is a battle. The Bruins started the season horribly, had some bad out of conference loses and looked horrible early, but were peaking at the right time, challenged Arizona in the Pac 12 tournament, and have the players to be very competitive.
But watching them play in the 2nd half of the season tells a very different story than RPI. I think Pac 12 teams may not be championship contenders -except maybe Arizona- but they do get underrated. You put Stanford or Arizona State in the tournament, bad RPI or not, and they will be competitive, a good shot to make at least the Sweet 16. Last season the Pac 12 had three teams in the Sweet 16, and so far this year the conference is unbeaten. They are also unbeaten in the NIT. Meanwhile the highly touted Big 12 had 4 teams lose in the first round. You have to use common sense, not just RPI. To have just three Pac 12 teams in the tournament would have been ridiculous. As much as I would like to have seen Stanford - and I think they would have performed well- I have to admit that UCLA was playing better than the Cardinal, and clearly the fourth best team in the conference, and probably higher, during the 2nd half of the season. At any rate, UCLA is in a good battle right now, against a Cinderella team. Lets see if they make the Sweet 16. Maybe that would vindicate the committee a bit.
IMO, if any vindication was necessary (I don't think it was) it's already happened. A team with no business being in the tourney has no business beating a 6 seed. Big programs make big tournaments. Despite what you may read on BigSoccer from time to time, UCLA is arguably a big basketball program. I got hometown players suiting up at UAB and NC State (I laughed at the Wolfpack a bit for their first-round struggles, but a win is a win, I guess). That said, if Kentucky runs the table, everyone can relax. Can't we all just get behind Big Bluegrass like we do the Crimson Tide?
No doubt. And the odds are in their favor, they are clearly the best college basketball team in the universe right now. Everybody else is playing for a chance to get a huge upset.
Daxter Miles, Jr.- yet another twentysomething trying to sound brave and edgy when his team hasn't won anything. By the time he completes his education (IF he completes his education), maybe he'll have enough sense to know his opinion isn't relevant. Kentucky could have allowed the game to look more respectable, but they'd been insulted, so I guess they had to address it. Bob Huggins didn't deserve that, but then again it was his job to silence that young fool before he could open his mouth and remove all doubt. And the his post-game comments about his team not playing well... no, they played as well as they were allowed to play, full stop. What's really funny is that West Virginia isn't even the flagship program of its own conference --that would be Kansas-- so Miles and that fanbase needed to be quiet, period. UCLA Carlos had a Spanish-language term for people who try to seem proud even when their team isn't currently champions of anything. I wanna say it was either perdido or ardido, but I'm not sure. The team to give Kentucky the best game from here on out will be a team that catches them slipping.
I got no problem with him or with the way his guys do their thing for a season or two and split for the NBA. UK and cbb as a whole don't have any moral right to keep any of their students from earning a living when someone's clearly willing to pay them. Seems like it was just a couple years ago he was on the brink of an undefeated season until Mario Chalmers hit that three against his Memphis team.
MSU is just a tournament team I had as party and Big blue final. Duke making it to the final four was surprising.