In 2014, they were the underdog. The little 8 seed that could.
Sure, they were printing 40-0 shirts before the season, but that’s beside the point...
I guess. I’m not sure underperforming all season and turning a preseason top 5-10 team (guessing, not sure coming off the bad 2013 season) into an 8 seed and then going on a run in the tourney is a traditional underdog role, but I see your point.
Still not sure that team wasn’t more “talented” than any team they played in the NcaaT, Louisville included. I don’t remember exactly who all was on that UK team besides the Harrison’s, Julius Randle and James Young. As time goes on with the constant turnover, it’s becoming more and more difficult to remember which UK players played with one another.
But at the same time you are right, making the final four as an 8 seed almost has to be considered a Cinderella/underdog type run.
That SS loss stung worse than any Louisville game I’ve watched. We were playing as well as anyone, and had a very good chance of repeating. Then we got dicked by the committee with a 4 seed despite being ranked like 6th in the final regular season poll. It was like the first or second year of the American conference, and the committee either didn’t know how to evaluate the conference or just went out of their way to eff us, not really sure. Just can’t understand how u can be ranked top 10 in the polls and get a four seed.
Then of course UK was in our region, who has/had owned us anyways since cal got to UK (and before, but obv it’s no secret how much worse we’ve faired against Cal at UK).
Then, as I’ve mentioned, the zebras were atrocious. And despite the unkind whistle we still very much had a chance to win the game but shot like 55-60% from the free throw line, aka beat ourselves at the stripe.
Only silver lining in that shot storm of a tourney as a Louisville fan was UConn beating UK in the championship. But even that was bittersweet bc we had dog walked UConn three different times that season. Including 25+ point wins in the last game of the regular season and the American conference championship game aka the last game UConn played before the ncaaT. So it’s not like we beat them in November and they were a totally different team in March. No doubt In my mind had we played em a fourth time we would have beaten em again. We were just a bad matchup for them, when everyone was on the same page that matchup zone Pitino ran really was a thing of beauty.
But anyways sorry for the rant. I’m kind of on the fence about the topic at hand. That UK team making a run to the final four as an eight seed is no doubt impressive, but it’s still a pretty far stretch from a traditional underdog role when you have top 20 picks in Young and Randle and well as 5 star back court in the Harrison’s who, while overrated a bit out of HS imo, were still very talented college players. I think WCS was there as well but he might have been a Frosh too, and he was much rawer coming into college than most uks recruits under cal. So I mean they definitely had “talent” on the roster, but they were also super young, I can’t think of any contributing upperclassmen that season but I could me forgetting someone (briscoe maybe was he still around)
And again when you recruit better than anyone, your probably gonna have one of the most talented rosters in the nation. So at some point it’s hard/silly to criticize Cal for not having a history of teams “over achieve” or make Cinderella runs, or excel as underdogs when he recruits so well his team is rarely ever the “underdog”.
But it’s also hard to argue with duke devils post I quoted that cal has needed top 5 recruits to win at the highest level, not low end five stars. As well as some experienced contributors on the roster as well. But that can be said for any coach imo, of course they are gonna have better teams if they have better players.
