The Official 2010 "Running Commentary of Every Single Tourney Game" Thread

[BunnyHardaway]

Re: The Official 2010 "Running Commentary of Every Single Tourney Game" Thread

It's kind of funny since this team is probably closer to the worst Duke teams under K than the best.

I'd say in the middle/closer to the top if anything. '81-'85, '87, '93, '95, '96, '05, '07, '08, and '09 were worse than this year's team, which puts this one pretty much square in the middle.

If we do win it all I agree it'd be by far the weakest of them all, but a title's a title.

[ehh]

Re: The Official 2010 "Running Commentary of Every Single Tourney Game" Thread

I'd take this Duke team over all those Duke teams since 2000 except 2001. and 2004. 2002 had more NBA talent, but we had no answer on the boards besides Boozer, 03 we couldn't shoot, 05 no depth, 06 no rebounding outside of Shelden, 00 no depth.

It's hard to gauge IMO because college basketball is so pathetic this year.

Duke was kinda meh during the regular season. So-so start to their road schedule, got smoked at G'Town. But they did hit their stride and as expected won both ACC titles.

Their first two games in the tourney were against the play-in game winner and a PAC-10 team that would never sniff the at-large field in most seasons.

Purdue was missing their best player and Baylor is a decent squad but nothing special. I'm not belittling their accomplishments this year but just in comparison to what other Duke teams had to face this decade it is a worthy footnote IMO. What would the '06 team do in this field? What would this team do in the '06 field?

There simply are no great teams in the country this year, past Duke teams from this decade easily could have made the FF.

[marktg30]

Re: The Official 2010 "Running Commentary of Every Single Tourney Game" Thread

Ah, I love the smell of haters in the morning...

[BunnyHardaway]

Re: The Official 2010 "Running Commentary of Every Single Tourney Game" Thread

It's hard to gauge IMO because college basketball is so pathetic this year.

Duke was kinda meh during the regular season. So-so start to their road schedule, got smoked at G'Town. But they did hit their stride and as expected won both ACC titles.

Their first two games in the tourney were against the play-in game winner and a PAC-10 team that would never sniff the at-large field in most seasons.

Purdue was missing their best player and Baylor is a decent squad but nothing special. I'm not belittling their accomplishments this year but just in comparison to what other Duke teams had to face this decade it is a worthy footnote IMO. What would the '06 team do in this field? What would this team do in the '06 field?

There simply are no great teams in the country this year, past Duke teams from this decade easily could have made the FF.

I wish the '06 team had that chance. J.J. deserved so much better than to go out the way he did.

[Brandwin]

Re: The Official 2010 "Running Commentary of Every Single Tourney Game" Thread

Duke was the better team.

[stewaat]

Re: The Official 2010 "Running Commentary of Every Single Tourney Game" Thread

All I want is for dook to lose...I don't care who else wins it just not freaking dookie

[bkrich83]

Re: The Official 2010 "Running Commentary of Every Single Tourney Game" Thread

LOL I like how some people seem genuinely surprised with Duke getting the lionshare of the calls down the stretch and all the critical ones.

Been this way forever,always will be.

[in mid air]

Re: The Official 2010 "Running Commentary of Every Single Tourney Game" Thread

Looking at the teams remaining, I think I'll root for Butler to win just because I can't imagine a team named "Butler" to be known as the National Champs. Too funny. LOL

[z Revis]

Re: The Official 2010 "Running Commentary of Every Single Tourney Game" Thread

Looking at the teams remaining, I think I'll root for Butler to win just because I can't imagine a team named "Butler" to be known as the National Champs. Too funny. LOL

LOL I asked my friend yesterday, I said "so do you think Butler can actually win the National Championship?" I followed that up with "I can't believe I just asked that. Butler.. National Championship.. seems weird to say."

[ex carrabba fan]

Re: The Official 2010 "Running Commentary of Every Single Tourney Game" Thread

It's hard to gauge IMO because college basketball is so pathetic this year.

Duke was kinda meh during the regular season. So-so start to their road schedule, got smoked at G'Town. But they did hit their stride and as expected won both ACC titles.

Their first two games in the tourney were against the play-in game winner and a PAC-10 team that would never sniff the at-large field in most seasons.

Purdue was missing their best player and Baylor is a decent squad but nothing special. I'm not belittling their accomplishments this year but just in comparison to what other Duke teams had to face this decade it is a worthy footnote IMO. What would the '06 team do in this field? What would this team do in the '06 field?

There simply are no great teams in the country this year, past Duke teams from this decade easily could have made the FF.

Not sure if this topic has been discussed more here at OS, but Duke.. SMFH. Got the easiest road I've ever seen to a Final Four.

It's not their fault, but I still can't believe how easy their road has been.

[Chip Douglass]

Re: The Official 2010 "Running Commentary of Every Single Tourney Game" Thread

What would the '06 team do in this field? What would this team do in the '06 field?

2010 Duke would have a great shot in the 2006 field.

2006 was an equally terrible, if not a worse year in college basketball. A CAA team made it to the Final Four, while none of the #1 seeds could.

[superjames1992]

Re: The Official 2010 "Running Commentary of Every Single Tourney Game" Thread

I knew WVU's defense had been good this postseason, but I didn't think it had been this good.

Game--------------------FGComp/Att---------------- ThreePointComp/Att----------------Scoring Average
Cincinnati-------------------17/51---------------- ----------------5/14------------------------------ -----51.0-------
Notre Dame----------------15/44------------------------- -------7/22-----------------------------------51.0 -------
Georgetown----------------20/47------------------- -------------4/16--------------------------------- --58.0-------
Morgan State---------------18/61------------------------- -------3/19-----------------------------------50.0 -------
Missouri---------------------20/61---------------- ----------------7/21------------------------------ ------59.0------
Washington-----------------22/56------------------ --------------3/11-------------------------------- ---56.0------
Kentucky---------------------23/67---------------- ----------------4/32------------------------------ ------66.0-----
Totals-----------------------135/387-------------- ----------------33/135---------------------------- ----391.0-----
Percentage/Avg.------------.349------------------- --------------.244-------------------------------- ---55.85-------

WVU is allowing opponents to shot only 34.9% from the floor and 24.4% from three-point range. It's hard to lose when you have those kind of numbers.

[lonewolf371]

Re: The Official 2010 "Running Commentary of Every Single Tourney Game" Thread

Well I had this tournament completely wrong. I had no idea the top seeds would be so weak.

[PdiddyPop]

Re: The Official 2010 "Running Commentary of Every Single Tourney Game" Thread

First I said they hit some big shots down the wire...second tell it to the analyst who get payed to talk about basketball. They were just as surprised as most that Duke jumped to the #3 overall..it was between West Virginia and Duke for the 4th #1 seed...they had from what a couple people said and im talking about the professionals better wins than Duke and no bad losses at that time but if Duke won they would probably get the 4th #1 seed...but they got the 3rd overall? Jim Rome had a nice piece about that. Who picked Nova to beat you guys? from what all the guys I saw were saying Nova shouldn't have been a #2 seed cause they had a bad record down the stretch getting into the tourney and was said to be the weakest of the #2 seeds. Yeah I saw a couple guys picked Baylor to win...and?

Where do I start? Sure I was a little surprised we jumped up and personally after looking at the brackets I'd have rather been in Salt Lake like it was projected. Now I really didn't mind Houston as much since we got the results. Digger, Bilas, Vitale, Hubert, espn.com sports writers, Seth Davis, Greg Anthony all picked Nova or Baylor to come out of our region. That's not a "few" picking Baylor and numerous ones picked Nova.

We justified our seed by actually winning every game we played to get to the FF. You bring up WVU. Well guess what they can now prove it by winning on Saturday. Funny how it works out doesn't it? Instead of playing Duke Sat and the UK this coming Sat they got it in the reverse order. Which means better for them doesn't it?

We had our bad games this season, but we picked the right time to have them during Jan and Feb not March. Duke didn't fade in March like so many fans always love to bring up this time. We have actually peaked now instead of last month and limping into the NCAA's or just winning the Duke Invitational aka the ACC Tournament.

[PdiddyPop]

Re: The Official 2010 "Running Commentary of Every Single Tourney Game" Thread

LOL I like how some people seem genuinely surprised with Duke getting the lionshare of the calls down the stretch and all the critical ones.

Been this way forever,always will be.

I guess the years 2002 till today never happened before did they? If they actually happen like you proclaim them to we should be defending how many titles by now? All I can do is laugh.

Btw just for giggles...Final foul tally: Baylor 21, Duke 15. Players fouled out: Duke 1, Baylor 1. How about they couldn't stop us from getting 22 offensive boards? We won this game because we played better. Because we deserved to win. Baylor gave us the best shot we could take from them, but the Bears shot poorly from deep (28 percent), while Duke certainly did not (48 percent). We shot better from the foul line (79 percent to Baylor's 63).

Want to go the charging call route we can go there too. How do you explain Baylor coming back and taking a 61-60 lead less than 60 seconds later? And Zoubek fouled out two minutes later anyway after contributing nothing other than one defensive rebound. How about the Acey Tech? The T on Acy wasn't brought up at Baylor's press conference, so that shows you how much the players and the media thought of it. Udoh spoke about the charge.
"I mean, it wasn't that big. I mean, you know, the ref made the call. We didn't get the stop. If we would have gotten the stop, it wouldn't have been as big."

All this anger about Duke advancing stems from a lot of things, but it's unfortunate that this team (which is much less hateable than a lot of its predecessors) is getting a lot of flak thrown its way because it outplayed a tough Baylor team that failed to stop it. Hate all you want (and I know you have done it in the past), but it's not going to change the fact Duke was the only 1-seed to reach the Final Four. And if you'd like to play the cynical card there as well, let me remind you that a good chunk of people had Baylor beating Duke in what turned out to be a legitimate road game. We are back in the Final Four. The immediate vitriolic reaction Sunday night proved they never left you or the rest of the sports world as an enemy.