Virginia goes down
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Wow. To be honest I feel really bad for the Fans of Virginia and the University. To be the first #1 seed to lose in the first round in the history of the game, and maybe the only one ever? OMG.
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Not just a loss but a complete ass kicking.
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MU down 22 at the half. Nope don’t feel sorry for them. LOL
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@BShark that’s the shocking thing, there have been close calls. Heck we have been a part of a few of them but this was an absolute route. UMBC got up 10 in the first 3 minutes after the half and never looked back. I think everyone knew it would happen someday, just didn’t expect a blowout or it to happen to the #1 overall seed. It’s kinda funny from the stand point that Seth Davis, Joe Lunardi and others said that Penn had the best shot in years to beat KU and they thought about picking them.
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TCU gave the game away to Syracuse…
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4 big 12 teams in the sweet 16?
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@DoubleDD KSU probably the only one.
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Silver Lining Dept: At least Virginia can finally stop hearing about the Chaminade game as the greatest upset in bb history.
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It was going to happen eventually. I don’t particularly have anything against Virginia. Only thing I can say:
Better them than us.
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All of the things that needed to happen for a 16 to beat a 1 came together in that game.
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Lots of good shooting from the 16 seed. 12-24 from the three point line, 26-48 overall.
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Low turnovers. Just 17 turnovers in the entire ball game. A 16 can’t get into an up and down game with a 1 seed. They don’t have the talent.
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Facing a 1 that plays at a slower pace. Virginia was never going to push the pace, so UMBC had the chance to stay in a slower game, and once they started hitting shots, UVA was in trouble.
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Facing a good college team 1 vs. a 1 with a ton of NBA level players. Virginia doesn’t have much in the way of pro prospects. That’s important, because once UVA got down, they had to just keep running their regular offense. There was no Malcolm Brogdon on this team to have just take over. UVA had to hope things turned around as a team because they didn’t have the individual talent to turn the tide.
That’s the lesson from this. UVA, while clearly much better than UMBC, was better as a collection, not on an individual by individual level. As a result, UVA got down and with UMBC playing at a pretty good level, couldn’t just make up the gap. And the crazy thing is, depending on how healthy Dean Wade is (and if UMBC is ready to play on Sunday), UMBC could be the first 16 to make it to the Sweet 16 because KSU without Wade can’t dominate them, either.
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The NCAA is all about matchups, momentum, talent and a whole lot of luck. UMBC turned out to be the hit shooting team that I predicted could beat Virginia and a bad matchup that played its best game of the year or the program’s history. It could repeat against KSU but I doubt it can play a second game as well as it played agains Virginia.
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I don’t think UMBC will beat KSU. KSU is still a superior team to UMBC by quite a bit. But if you’re UMBC, you would much rather match up with KSU, who plays at a pace you can live with, and hope Lyles can be the best player on the floor when it matters, as opposed to having to play up and down with Creighton bombing away from 3.
UVA played at an adjusted tempo of 59.4 according to KenPom. That was the slowest pace in all of D1 (and what kept UVA from being able to come back once they got down double figures).
K-State plays faster than that, obviously, but their tempo of 65.6 was fast enough to move them all the way to 305th in the entire country. That’s better for UMBC than Creighton, which plays at 70.8, which is 56th in the country.
It’s easier for a fast team to slow down than it is for a slow team to speed up. UMBC played at a faster pace than KSU all year, so if they need to slow down to hang with the better KSU squad, they can do that and hope Lyles and their shooters (three guys besides Lyles have hit 60+ threes this year at over a 40% clip) can make enough shots in a lower possession game to give them a chance at the end.
Teams that play slow are always vulnerable to less talented teams because teams need to get fewer stops, and need to figure out fewer ways to score.
If UMBC only has to deal with 65 or so possessions, that’s a game they can win. KSU probably can’t stay efficient if they have to play at 70 plus possessions, so UMBC will have a chance in this one. It’s not a great shot, but if UMBC had a 1% chance to beat UVA, they have at least a 15% chance to beat KSU. According to FiveThirtyEight UMBC actually has a better chance of beating KSU tomorrow than Seton Hall has of beating KU today.
We’ve already discussed on this board what could go wrong for KU. UMBC shoots the three well enough that they could trip up KSU, and if Buffalo beats Kentucky, these glass sneakers may fit well past midnight.
Here’s an article from last month talking about how pace of play could affect a favored team, comparing the difference in performance from fast paced higher seeds and slow paced higher seeds to roughly the difference between a 4 and 5 seed.
That’s not insignificant. KSU happens to rank below 300 in pace, where we generally see teams underperform. I’m not saying, I’m just saying.
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Now is the time to hire Tony Bennett. His stock is down.
Why he is no good. He can’t even win a first round game. But would he like to run our program.
I know a lot of aliases don’t like him, because he plays slow down, physical ball without draft choices, until TPTB in the apparently rigged recruiting process deign to give him some.
And I hope we can find someone better, when the time comes, but…
This is the time for an elite major to get him cheap.
And this early exit monkey will ride on Bennett’s back unfairly, same as the early exit monkey rode on Self’s back, until Bill got the knack of making it to the Elite Eight and Sweet 16 regularly.
Also, this is the Carney.
"Let me take you down
'Cause I’m going to strawberry fields
Nothing is real
And nothing to get hung about
Strawberry fields forever…"
–The Beatles, “Strawberry Fields Forever”
Statistically improbable things routinely happen in this tournament.
Each year, this tournament is the 9-11 of sports.
Good teams fall in their own footprints.
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Yes Virginia, there is a Santa Claus! Just ask the Retrievers.
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@Gunman I see what you did there…very nice!
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Think I heard of a movie with this title…
