Butler Bulldogs come thru again over VCU! Butler's experience from last year was a plus going into this game in my opinion. They were very poised and played extremely well down the stretch, with Howard on the bench with foul trouble. I thought VCU was a bit impatient in the last five nimutes. Still a very even game for the most part. Always tough to lose when you have come this far under such pressure. Unfortunately there can only be one winner.
I loved how both coaches weren't yelling at the refs at all. They let the game play. Wish some of these other big coaches would follow their example. great game to watch tonight.
This is my second final four, and this one IMHO, has been great. The atmosphere at the games last night was electric. Kentucky fans dominated the crowd. I'm pretty sure that if you combined all the fans from UConn, VCU and Butler together they wouldn't have had more fans than Kentucky. I had great seats on the lower level, right behind George and Barbara Bush. George really is frail these days, Barbara just the opposite. The place was packed, not very many empty seats, although I have to wonder what the people in the upper decks saw unless they brought binoculars. Both games were exciting as you could see with lots of lead changes and playing right down to the end. Not saying they all played great basketball, lots of missed shots, Kentucky really shot the ball badly. Hard not to observe that both Butler and VCU had seemingly 1/2 the number of asst coaches as UConn and Kentucky. Butler and VCU had the best mascots, Kentucky the worst by far. Kentucky cheerleaders looked like they were in the best shape, Butler cheerleaders were of course cute girls but weighed a good 10lbs more per/girl than the Kentucky girls. ...Midwest winter no doubt.!
Butler seems to be the sentimental favorite! I would be tickled pink if they can accomplish the feat.
Terry, here's a brief story to illustrate how far the NCAA BB tournament has come in 30 years. Contrast it to your experience at Reliant Stadium. The only NCAA finals I've attended was in 1980 in Indianapolis at Market Square Arena (no longer standing), seating capacity around 17,000. Louisville beat Larry Brown-coached UCLA for the championship. The game was preceded by the consolation game, in which Purdue beat Iowa. Between games I saw Bob Knight standing in line at a concession stand and asked for his autograph, which he provided. The crowd was roughly 25% of the crowd that you will be sitting with on Monday night. Perhaps the biggest diifference is that back then everyone in attendance had an excellent view of the court. All 17,000 of them. :lol:
Lots of talk about the Big East early in the tournament. Now they're the only major conf. still alive.
:idea: I'll take the bait. The Big East was overrated all year. I agree with all of Charles Barkley's comments. They never should have had 11 teams in the Big Dance. They certainly have the best coaches, and they have a lot of good teams; but they lack elite talent. UConn making the finals is more the result of an overwhelming numerical advantage, than it is a deserved reward for the Big East...
Jim, if you are going to align yourself with Sir Charles and make those sweeping statements, I would ask you to name the specific BE teams that did not deserve to be in the tournament and why. I then would ask you to tell me what teams should have taken their place and why. I know Corey is in the wings waiting to pounce, so I will pre-empt his attack and ask him to provide the same information. :wink: By the way, that's an ugly-ass fish. What is it?
Oh, I dunno...how about Villanova and Marquette? Are they really better than say...Colorado or St. Mary's? :?:
Reasonable speculation, but wouldn't you say it's too close to call? My point is that at a certain level the choices can be questioned based on individual opinions, but it's hard to prove that a chosen team does not belong. Perhaps St. Mary's and Colorado deserved to be in, but that doesn't mean that they would have replaced Villanova and Marquette, each of whom made a case for inclusion by their competitive records within the nation's toughest conference. :wink:
Villanova was going down like Madonna in an NBA locker room. They stunk the entire last month plus of the season. They had absolutely no business being in the tournament. Alabama won the SEC West regular season spot and that should have meant something. What doomed Alabama was early season losses EARLY in those tournaments when they were still playing true freshman and sitting out some discipline issues. Had they won those early games back during football season, their strength of schedule would have gone way up... The notion that a tournament sport such as basketball would have post-season births earned in December is just crazy. 11 teams from the Big East did not belong. UCONN's proven cheater of a head coach is also math challenged. He likes to point to being in whatever the hell place they finished the regular season at in the Big East, but the bottom line is that they ARE the Big East Champions by virtue of winning the Big East Tournament. Every team in the Big East that had a better than .500 record got in. That's garbage.
Even I thought 11 BE teams was excessive. I would be all for a rule that says you can't have more than 1/2 your league in the tournament. Either that or expand it to 96 teams.
I would agree with that wholeheartedly. I can think of 5-6 teams from power conferences that deserved to be in the tournament, but to say that the BE teams chosen did not deserve to be there just because they lost early is nothing more than biased opinion......bias against the Big East Conference. There seems to be a lot of that going around these days......from people in the south and west. Wonder why? I think we all can agree that you can play the what-if game ad nauseum.
I don't know exactly what you are talking about Sid. But regardless, both these teams won their way into the final and I am personally rooting for Butler. I like their never quit attitude. This is the lowest scoring game at halftime I remember.
Butler might as well be wearing Tennessee orange and white. They played well enough to be in it at the half and then totally blow it in the second half. I think that UCONN has taken charge and will win this one going away. The second half looks like a Nash Rambler vs a Lamborghini. For a while, the Rambler will see tail lights... for a while.
Bill, if you go back several posts, you'll see JO'Co and Corey claiming that the Big East is overrated and never should have had 11 teams in the tournament. One is from the south and the other is from the west. Also, Charles Barkley, who has claimed the Big East is overrated, is from the south. I was defending the Big East having 11 teams in the tournament. As far as the championship game, my avatar indicates who I was rooting for. Unfortunately, they ran out of gas tonight.
Well Sid I guess I misunderstood because I thought you meant some of us southerners. Corey doesn't qualify as as southerner, he's there because he has to be. Charles Barkley also went out of his way to knock the Gators being seeded as a number 2, I'm not thrilled with him either. Both those teams have a lot to be proud of and you don't win your way though a 68 team tournament by not being deserving of being invited. Enjoy your teams success even though they didn't win it all.
My only point is that NO conference should have 11 teams in the tournament. They have to draw the line tighter than that.