The Official 2014 "Running Commentary of Every Single Game" Thread

[Trapper700]

Quote: Originally Posted by rspencer86

I was impressed with Shabazz as a player, but his mouth has made him look like a goon IMO. Saying he goes to bed "starving" some nights... come on, man. And the video above, yeah, way to stick it to the NCAA for punishing your team for dreadful academic performance.

I think you just don't understand why he (and everyone else who follows the program) was upset by it. Yes, UConn had poor APR scores from 2008-2010. They were already punished for it by the NCAA and they lost two scholarships.

The NCAA then decides that they want to enact new, harsher punishments for poor APR. The problem is that they made these punishments retroactive. UConn got punished again, this time with the tournament ban.

And when the NCAA changed this rule during the '11-12 season, they refused to use the most recent APR data which would have put UConn above the minimum, since the APR scores of 2011 and 2012 were above average (it was also perfect this past year). The NCAA instead used the 2009-2010 and 2010-2011 seasons as the requirement for the 2 year rolling average for 2013 tournament eligibility. They didn't use the '11-12 season at all when determining eligibility for last year's tournament, and that would have let UConn play (943 APR score). It's also worth noting that while the 2010 APR score was pretty bad, the 2011 APR score was exceptional (978). The NCAA actually gives official commendations to schools that receive APR scores within the top 10% of the sport (975+). So the NCAA simultaneously praised and commended the school for its good APR score in 2011, then banned the school from the tournament in 2013.

So, essentially UConn got punished with a tourney ban, and the people who were mostly affected by it were last year's players. This was for something that happened between 2008 and 2010 for which the program was already punished for (the previously mentioned loss of scholarships). UConn's APR scores ever since Shabazz was a freshman have been well above average, yet he is told by the NCAA that he's unallowed to participate in the tourney during his junior year. That's why he's pissed off and said what he said.

This is all not even taking into account that APR is a terrible arbitrary standard that has no actual bearing on education or student performance. Jay Bilas said APR was like measuring a person's health status only by how tall they are.

[Koolie G]

I just got back from Dallas and wanted to say congrats to UCONN. They had a great tournament and their defense forced teams into bad offensive games. I also think the zone could have helped KY a little bit, but I think Calipari was concerned about the rebounding out of the zone. UK missed FT's that could have changed the game, but losing the rebound battle is where I think the game was won and lost. UK pretty much dominated the glass all year and they weren't able to do that against a much smaller UCONN team (who had frontcourt foul trouble as well).

Napier is just a great college player. He made deep threes at critical times and UK missed 3 or 4 chances to take the lead. That may have changed the outcome if UK could have gotten over the hump. It was a great run for a UK team that was counted out at the beginning of March. I am proud of the Cats and Coach Cal. That being said, UCONN deserved to win that game and they had a great year. UCONN's last 20 years of basketball have been more than impressive and congrats to all the UCONN fans on this board.

[superjames1992]

Nice job with the UConn college basketball sweep. Pretty cool to see the same school win both the men's and women's championship.

[CMH]

Isn't UCONN the last school to accomplish this as well?


Sent from my mobile device.

[ehh]

Yep, exactly a decade ago. Both schools won the title in Texas in 2004 (SA and Houston) and at least the men won in Texas this year (Dallas).

The UConn men also won the 2011 title in Houston. Texas is definitely our lucky state!