Duke, for the talent they had, had a fatal flaw: Shooting. When hitting three's at high rate----they were unbeatable. When hitting at a decent clip---damn near unbeatable. Shooting it meh? Beatable. On a night where nothing fell? Very beatable.
As for Cal and "K" having all this talent, and not winning titles, being a mark on their coaching? Naaaaah. Its hard to get a FF....Much less winning the damn thing. Had Duke came out today, hit 14 three's, and ran MSU off the floor? We would be talking about how great "K" is, and how he coached this team to the FF. That's somewhat true---But not completely true. When shots fall, coaches look really, really good. Look at UK today vs Auburn. Herro was a no show. If he plays at the level he is capable of---UK probably wins. That's the beast of this tournament....There is no next day. Next week. You have an off game----You can lose. Especially in the Elite 8. Its not like these coaches are losing to scrub teams. Auburn is very good. So is MSU. I mean MSU was picked by quite a few to win the damn thing.
Anyways......Both probably get the label of "losing" with all this talent. Which I think is silly. Now, if these dudes were coming back as Soph's and Juniors, and they were falling short---Ok. But we are talking about teams led predominantly by freshman.
BTW---- I'll take their "failures" down here in Bloomington.