Quote:
Originally Posted by BDj23
No offense, but you had to go all the way back to damn near the beginning of my life to find one instance of it being a crap shoot.
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7 seed Uconn beat 8 seed Kentucky for the title in 2014. A 3 seed or lower (aka a fringe top 10 team or worse) has won it all 9 times in the modern era. A lot more have reached the final four or title game.
In about 40% of tourneys in the modern era, a 2 seed or lower won it all. I can't find the numbers for overall 1 seeds, but I now it's much lower than 60%.
Again, I don't like the word crapshoot, but I think, in most years, you have about 6-8 teams that have a good shot at it, and it just comes down to who gets hottest at the right time. Plus some luck.
KU wasn't hot in the first three rounds this year, but managed to eek out wins over average teams. Then they turned it on in the final three. In many past years, they'd obliterate teams in the first 2-3 rounds and then show up flat in the Elite 8 vs a team that was on fire for a night.
I've always thought the quick turnaround games (2nd round, Elite 8, NC) partly mitigate the advantage of a great coach. Self's a good example. Most of his disappointing losses happened in those rounds. One day just doesn't allow a coach much time to gameplan and dissect a team. KU always has solid talent, but not usually enough to just show up and out-talent an elite 8 caliber team.
I wouldn't change the tourney format, but it's hard to deny that it's one of the toughest events in sports to win. And one of the most difficult to predict. You can be a basketball savant who follows the sport 24/7 and you'll still be very lucky to correctly predict half the games.