I mean, its not meant to be personal towards the Vols. I included my Cats for a reason. Just call it like it is. Duke will have to have an off game for someone to beat them in March or April.
As of Today, Rank Your Top 5 Teams Most Likely to Win the Tourney
- Thread starter DezyVol
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When was the last year that the best team hadn't lost more than once? Don't say 2015 UK. We all know Duke was the best team.
I didn't take it as anything against the Vols. I recognize that Duke is the most talented team out there, but it just seems a little defeatist to crown them before the fight.
My attitude is we are kicking bama's ass until the end of the 4th quarter. Then it changes we will kill those filthy bammers next year!!!
Absolutely not crowning them right now. The tournament is a crapshoot and one off game could easily mean getting beat. I was just simply saying that if Duke plays 6 great games in a row, they will be champions. The good news is, that doesn't always happen for the best team
Well, I certainly wasn't attack Duke's great team. I was attacking (if you want to call it that) defeatist mentality.
If we play y'all and play hard,but y'all are just too good for us, I'll still feel good about a great season and I'll be the first to give y'all congrats. But, you gotta beat us first.
Jimbo, I don't know about you, but I'm nervous about the next game and it doesn't matter who we are playing.LaughingAbsolutely not crowning them right now. The tournament is a crapshoot and one off game could easily mean getting beat. I was just simply saying that if Duke plays 6 great games in a row, they will be champions. The good news is, that doesn't always happen for the best team
It sucks we didn't win the title. But its not a secret the best team didn't win that year. Come on.
Just like in 2010 when Kansas was the best team.
Something like that. I'll need to update my list to show that I have them as the 2016 champions. Refs going after Devonte Graham in that Elite 8 Villanova game sure showed a lot of that east coast bias stuff that people are always talking about.
Now you are just showing the effects of the gummy bear you ate 20 minutes ago. Best team doesn't always win. Like in 93', 99', and 02'. But in 2010 and 2015 the best team certainly won. No need to be bitter.
In the OOC schedule Tennessee played two ranked teams on neutral sites. They were big ones and they split with Kansas and Gonzaga. No other team has been ranked on Tennessee's schedule.
For comparison Kentucky played Duke, UNC, Louisville and Kansas. UK won 3 out of 4.
There are three teams in the SEC that are ranked and two others that have been ranked, Auburn and Mississippi State. Of those four schools Tennessee plays a total of 5 times. Of those four teams Kentucky plays them 7 times.
In the SEC Tennessee only plays Auburn, LSU and Mississippi State once. Florida has fallen flat of their faces and may not make a tournament so those two wins should be guaranteed. So the tough Florida game has been negated.
So the unbalanced schedule in the SEC is helping Tennessee out, so far. Of course late, Tennessee must play UK twice and at LSU. But the schedule has helped Tennessee. Additionally, their foe in the big 12 SEC matchup was West Virginia and we know how they have hit the skids.
In the next couple weeks Tennessee will get to prove that they are number one. Based on the schedule so far I suggest that UK has had a far tougher road to hoe than Tennessee.
I agree that Kansas was the best team in 93 and 02 but both of those teams fell short in the Final Four. I didn't want to go that far back but thank you for doing so. Go ahead and add the 97, 98, 03, 11, 16 and 17 teams to that list of best teams that year to not win a title.
@JimboBBN will agree with me that 2010 Duke was no higher than the 3rd best team in 2010. That was a Kentucky-Kansas race all season long.
2015 was Kentucky as a top 2-3 team of the last 30 years followed by Wisconsin.
And I don't eat gummy weeds. That's illegal. I don't want to have to answer to you down in the county system some day.
They've had a tougher road, but that doesn't necessarily make them a better team. They need to prove it just as much as Tennessee in terms of matching up vs top competition late in the season. As far as eye test based on what I've seen so far this season I've got Tennessee ahead of KY, but that can obviously be flip flopped based on how they do head to head this month.
Okay, I was just being a smartass. But I continue to find it so ignorant that people keep saying that Wisconsin was the second best team in 2015. Duke beat them at Wisconsin earlier in the year and beat them in the championship game. So the 3rd best team was 2-0 against the 2nd best team. Makes sense.
Duke gets all the calls. Don’t know what else to tell ya.
Duke is, without a doubt, the most talented team in the country. With that being said, I’m relatively confident that they won’t win it all. The team is simply too young and inexperienced to defend some of the exotic offensive designs that they’ll see come tournament time and with little time to prepare, that spells disaster. It’s simply one of the negative effects of relying on one and dones
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Definitely agree about 2010. I would take 2015 Duke over 2015 Wisconsin, though. **** Frank the tank.
Whisky was the best team that year. Refs took it to then in that second half when K cried at halftime that their strategy would be to get the refs to call more fouls on the other team.
That reasoning would hold in any other year, but when you have a team that plays man and can switch 1 thru 5, it doesn't really matter what "exotic" offense you throw at it.
Jimbo, UK 2015 just didn't have the same versatility once Poythress went down. They had a clear weakness: guarding small forwards.
The Cats just couldn't stop Dekker; its not like Wisconsin got super lucky and got a fluke win or something.
I don't get why UK fans think they would for sure have beaten Wisky on any other day; that was perhaps the best offensive team this century.
They clearly had more fire power than anyone else even after Poy went down. I’m not arguing they were far and away better than Wisconsin or Duke but they would still have beaten both of them in a series
I have yet to see any evidence that OADs hinder a team's chances of going deep in March vs having less talented upperclassmen.
In 7 years having multiple healthy OAD 1st Round picks, Duke and UK have a combined 2 Titles, 2 other Final 4 runs and 3 Elite 8s. That's absolutely absurd.
Talent and coaching matter a lot more than experience.
BBN got too wrapped up in those impressive early season blowouts of Kansas and UCLA. UK was on the verge of losing a lot of SEC games that year but pulled out some close wins.
ND exposed some of those leaks too.
They won 38 straight games. No team has ever done that before. I’m not sure what else there is to say
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