Most schizo Creighton team I’ve ever seen. But when they are locked in they are a handful.
Well the good Creighton Bluejay team showed up today.
- Thread starter Trickyoxx01
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Most schizo Creighton team I’ve ever seen. But when they are locked in they are a handful.
Yep. But when they are bad…they are really bad. Bummed that I cant be in Kentucky next weekend.
Creighton played a great game, but it’s no surprising to me that Scott Drew decided to choke again in March. Other than the 2021 title run, his resume ain’t much better than Tony Bennett during the last 10 years. Georgia State, Yale, USC, UNC and now another disappointing loss in March.
Agree with that. That 2021 team was a bunch of piranhas and could play inside and outside. This Baylor team was way too guard centric.
I need to think of a comprehensive list of good tournament coaches, but I can tell already that Tony Bennett is definitely not on this list.
I wouldn't call this a choke. Creighton was picked top 10ish preseason for a reason.
Yeah no shit. I didn't ask you who you think wasn't good though. Thats my point. You basically just criticize coaches but your criticisms don't mean much if you can't even articulate who you think is good.
It’s very simple to measure tournament records against expectation, ie. Whether his team usually play up to seeding or make very early exits. A few examples of good tournament coaches currently active are Tom Izzo, John Calipari, Bob Huggins and Eric Musselman.
Of course context matters as it’s increasingly hard to play up or above seeding if your team is regularly top or no.2 seed, but losing in first or second round against double digit seeded mid majors is never a good look anyway, especially if this happens way too often.
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It’s not surprising to me that you list consistent regular season underachievers as good tournament coaches
Missing the plot on Bennett completely. The fact that he's capable of earning these high seeds consistently is pretty remarkable considering he's accomplishing that at a traditionally middling to slightly below average program prior to his arrival. He showed his system can win a title if he has the higher end talent on the squad.
This should be obvious to most fans but some choose to solely judge a coach based on playing to seed.
I know injuries are a big part of basketball but Bennett's postseason record when his team is fully healthy compared to when it is not is drastically different. We've really only been fully healthy 2 times in his entire postseason career at UVA. Those happened to be in 2016 (Elite 8, massive choke vs. Cuse) and 2019 (National champs).
How were they underachieving? Tom Izzo’s team plays in B1G conference and it is unlikely they get very high seeds due to the strength of the schedule, context matters. John Calipari has done usually okay in regular season, not spectacular but nowhere near underachieving. Eric Musselman’s Arkansas were usually just as good as a 3-4 seed, this year they might have underachieved in regular season though. On the other hand, UVA losing to mid majors in first round has no excuses, it’s not like being eliminated in 2014 and 2015 by MSU.
Cal hasn't earned a 1 seed since 2015 despite having a top 2 recruiting class each year. The fact you think that isn't underachieving is mind-blowing to me. Cal would probably lose to a 16 seed at this point if he was capable of earning a 1 seed. Arkansas's recruiting class this year is insane yet they earned a 8 seed. That's underachieving. If you're going to bring up injuries, then you need to apply that to UVA too. Show me one time that a fully healthy UVA team has lost to a mid major in the first round. If you're gonna say context matters, then that context matters. If UVA sucked more in the regular season, you'd probably say Bennett is a better tournament coach because he wouldn't be playing mid-majors in the first round.
Self has as many titles as all four of those combined, but he's a worse tourney coach. I love it. 😂
Why in the hell is Huggins on that list anyway?
You're either a good coach or you're not. The idea that certain coaches flip a switch in March is ridiculous. Equally stupid is basing tourney coaching ability on the rate of playing to seed. If you're consistently a high seed, you're not going to consistently play to seed. It's as simple as that. Do you think it's harder to reach the final four as a 1 seed, or to reach the 2nd round as a 6? Hmmm....let me think....
Exactly. Not only that, but Baylor lost 10 games this year. He's acting like those dudes were an elite team. They weren't. They were a good squad, and they had guys banged up.
Self is for sure a good tourney coach. But has he 'done more with less'?
Has he ever made a FF when he wasnt a top seed?
Like I look at Izzo and he got to a Final Four as a 5 and a 7 seed. Thats very nice.
Yup he should have another title by now and that will always be his 'knock'.
Calipari should also as well, looking at the talent he brings in.
But the thing is, both of Self's titles at KU, if Im not mistaken, were not reliant on younger players for the most part. Calipari having big roster turnover every year isnt great.
I wouldn’t say that Izzo “should” have another title by now. It’s not like he gets dominant talent every year. But with the number of final fours he has, you’d think he’d have broken through again. Easier said than done though.
Self’s only been to the final four as a 1 or 2 seed, but he’s never been worse than a 4 at KU, and only a few times. The first of which lost in OT in the E8, and the other lost in the 2nd round after losing two of their best players and fizzling down the stretch. That team started out #1 in the country, but after losing Azubuike and Vick they weren’t a legit 4 seed.
Hard to prove that he can do it as a lower seed if he never has a lower seed. That shouldn’t be held against him.
Yes Bill Self is a worse in March than the ones I've mentioned, for a long time he was considered a choke artist with 6 major upset losses in 2005, 2006, 2010, 2011, 2014 and 2015. Winning the 2nd title did change a lot of things, same reason why I wont put Tony Bennett at the tier of John Thompson III, Jamie Dixon and Tommy Lloyd due to their fluke title in 2019. Bill Self and Jay Wrights are the tier of coaches Id call 'Hit or Miss' in March Madness, they can go very deep in the tournament but their teams are also vulnerable to early upsets. Good tournament coaches? Yes. Great tournament coaches? No.
And of course I think its harder to reach the final 4 as top seed, but during the years when Bill Self's KU werent top seeds, they rarely played up to seed anyway. Lost to 14 seed Bucknell in 2005 as 3 seed, lost to 13 seed Bradley in 2006 as 2 seed, lost to 10 seed Stanford as 2 seed, lost to 7 seed Wichita State as 2 seed, lost to 5 seed Auburn in 2019 as 4 seed, lost to 6 seed Southern Cal as 3 seed. So yeah, your argument about KU being top seed regularly is invalid, and Bill Self aint among the best tournament coaches despite winning 2 titles.
If your criteria is simply “who plays to seed most often,” then no, Self wouldn’t be near the top of that list. But that’s poor criteria. For one, it’s an automatic advantage to coaches with lower average seeds. Much easier for them to play to seed. Plus, we all know that teams are over/underseeded all the time.
According to you, it was a “major upset” when 7 seed Wichita St beat 2 seed KU. Wichita was 11th on Kenpom. KU was 10th. Wichita still had the core of a team that had been to a final four and an overall 1 seed in separate years. They were no 7 seed. At that point in the season, they were the better team. You’re calling it a major upset and it wasn’t even an upset.
2014 also wasn’t a major upset. Without Embiid, KU wasn’t a legitimate 2 seed. Probably closer to a 5. They lost to a top 30ish Stanford team that had multiple NBA players.
2011 VCU was clearly underseeded. They didn’t just upset KU, they won FIVE tourney games. Most by double digits.
2010 was definitely a failure, given the talent on KU’s team, but Northern Iowa was better than their seed. They were a top 25ish team on Kenpom. Bradley was also top 25 and beat an inexperienced 4 seed.
If you look slightly below the surface, you see that most of these were not massive upsets. Bucknell is probably the only true big upset and that was a long time ago.
You’re also not considering times that he’s beaten the odds. He took Tulsa to the Elite 8 as a 7 seed. Took a 4 seed to the Elite 8. Got a 2 to the final game. Blew out UNC as an underdog and beat the favorite Memphis. Beat Vegas favorite Duke to reach the final four in ‘18.
Won it all with the 5th best odds last year.
Point not taken. You made a good argument earlier that KU as top seed made the path to 'play to seed' more difficult, but I countered with the fact that Bill Self's KU rarely played to seed even when they werent top seeds. Other than 2015 WSU being actually good as a 7 seed, all the rest are just excuses. If you want to go with the excuse routes, you can find similar excuses for almost every tournament coach, even choke artists like Tony Bennett can blame Deandre Hunter's injury for their infamous UMBC upsets. Lets all blame upsets by injuries, bad luck or opponents being underseeded, shall we?
With this being said, I am aware of the fact that KU might have been a cursed program. Bill Self did great at Tulsa, though it was only 3 seasons which is a very small sample size. Bill Self at Illinois didnt play to seed in any of his 3 seasons there anyway, so its hard to make a case that the problem is just KU. Remember Roy Williams choked regularly in March during his KU years, but became a great tournament coach at UNC. Would be interesting if Bill Self moves to UNC and spend 10 years there, and then perhaps we can judge whether hes a great tournament coach or not.
Remind me again and I'm not trying to really interrupt anybody, but who are the top 5 upper level active head coaches in the NCAAT? Curious as to what we get here.
I’m not saying that KU shouldn’t have been favored in most or all of those games, but they weren’t all huge upsets.
Expecting a coach that averages better than a 2 seed to play to seed as often as a coach who averages a 6 seed (Izzo) is ridiculous. In a typical year, Izzo needs one win vs a double digit seed to play to seed. Self needs 3-4 wins.
The sample size of lower seeded teams during his KU run is small. One exceeded its seed, three didn’t. One of those was the team that was blown out by USC. USC was #6 on Kenpom and KU was #27. Anyone who watched that game knows it wasn’t a coaching failure. It was an underseeded team with far more talent than the higher seeded team. 2019 KU was also probably a little overseeded. That was a tough situation for the committee because KU had a ton of quality wins, but they had lost two of their top players. Auburn was just better at that point, and it was pretty obvious. Much like the USC game. Lastly, there was the ‘06 team that lost to Bradley. I’m not going to say that Self shouldn’t have won this game, but again…Bradley was a Kenpom top 25 team. They had the 9th overall pick and they beat a 4 seed with zero draft picks. Not the huge upset it’s made out to be, and it’s really the only time that Self lost to a team he should have beaten when his team was lower than a 1 or 2 seed.
It’s no coincidence that the biggest alleged chokers are the coaches with the highest seed averages. If you’re going to focus on playing to seed, it makes sense to compare to someone with a similar average. Duke’s about the only program with a similar seed average since Self has been at KU. They’ve played to seed less than 40% of the time, with huge upsets like Lehigh and Mercer. Yet K’s considered the GOAT. Wright was considered the best of this era by many. His two titles are sandwiched between 6 second round losses. Mostly with 1 and 2 seeds.
No coach consistently kills it in March in this era.
