I’m in support of this theory…great analysis Chas!

Well said Chas. Also I love this theory about “athletic, quick and aggressive” defenders giving Pitt problems. Who don’t these type of defenders give problems to? Pitt will recover from this loss and win its share of games the rest of the way. People also need to remember we throttled this Louisville team with its thoroughbreds last year in the BE tournament. Chalk it up as a loss, a bad day at the office, and move on. Washington is next and that is all that matters, not seeding in the tournament or Georgetown in two weeks.

I agree with some of what’s been said here, but 24 hours later I’m still disgusted with what I saw last night. A complete breakdown and an inability to adjust. They looked like punks. I think a lot of the frustration stems from the “here we go again…” syndrom. We’ve been here before. Lofty expectations, a fast start against mediocre opponenets, and then a late season letdown followed by an early exit from the tournament. Its getting old, and I think a lot of us are hoping to take that next step. There’s still time, but its hard to see the forest through the trees sometimes.

The expectations are our (at least my) fault. This team on paper wasn’t really any better than last years team. Its OK to have high hopes, but realistically finishing near to top of the BE conference and making a run at the BE title was probably all we should have hoped for. You get caught up in the 20+ win thing, and you loose sight of the facts. Looking back, the warning signs were always there.

Still, to be utterly and totally embarrased in your own house stings a little, as does coming to the realization that this team isn’t nearly as good as I hoped/thought it might be. I still feel the coaching is questionable, and I still think we might have a way to go before getting to the next level.

That being said, we can still give people fits when we play well, and anything can happen. Omar is right: its one game at a time from here on out. Every game will be tough, and we can’t look past anyone. We’ll see if they can man up and re-focus.

Last years team was very good. We lost to Bradley unfortunately, so did Kansas, but we were still very good and had a great year. Don’t forget Louisville needed yesterday’s game badly. Pitt didn’t and lost the game early. If anything I doubt Pitt starts that slowly the remainder of the year.

Lets put this all into perspective…Come March, seeds really dont matter, wins do. You have to string 6 wins together no matter what, and all of the teams in the Big Dance have kids who are on scholarship, who can shoot, rebound, defend, etc. I dont care if Pitt is a 2,3,4,5 seed. I DO CARE if they win 3,4,5 games heading into April.

The best thing about this loss is that it WAS A BLOWOUT. I think we all have become comfortable with the previous three losses with simple explainations (OT, Brian Butch, Tim Higgins, whatever). But not this loss. This ass-kicking was COMPLETE. It should serve as a wake up call: that to win, you need effort, hustle, confidence and focus every night.

How the Panthers respond against UW will be very telling. This should be a good test, lets hope the boys are ready.

Great remarks, not only in the post but also in the comments. I have been waiting for these kind of thoughts to come about but have yet to see them here or at the other sites. I don’t understand the “sky is falling attitude!” Listen, this team is not the greatest team to ever lace up the “Chuck Taylors” but it isn’t the worst either. So after a game like last night, everyone attempts to disect the Panther’s warts. Those warts were really prominent yesterday. Pretty easy task! They played like a bunch of meatballs. However, that doesn’t mean that their chances of making a deep run in the post-season are over. We can talk all we want about not having a great “take over the game” guy or whether or not every player is the best at his position. When they play well as a group they can play w/ anyone in the country. They weren’t prepared, they looked 3-steps behind, they didn’t do the things they usually do well when they take the floor. THEY ARE 18-22 YEAR OLDS. They will not always be focused. They will loose interest. The biggest challenge the staff has is to keep the team’s scope on the overall plan. Maybe, just maybe they will be able to close the deal. Maybe they won’t! It’s not embarassing that they lost yesterday. L’ville played well. Yes, our expectations are high and they will continue to climb as the program strives to get better. If Pitt consistently “hangs” around the Top 15 year in and year out, they will eventually make our grade! Ask UCONN and Syracuse if they would like to have Pitt’s record or team this year. Didn’t both of them just win championships not too long ago?

“Hail to Pitt”

How about this for perspective? Va Tech beat #4 UNC….At home nonetheless…Holy S@#t…”The sky is falling….The sky is falling!” Well, UNC is now not going to make it past the first round of the ACC Tourn. and they’ll probably take an early out in the NCAA’s. Cancel the season!

“Hail to Pitt”

Nice thoughts and opinions from all. As dissapointing as last nights game was, we’re still a great team that can go places. To look at the bright side, this game gives Pitt things to improve upon. A game like this is much better to happen in February instead of March…. And another thing, everyone is obsessed with the seeding in the big dance. Well I think it is a non-issue at this time. This should be a one game at a time approach. Winning the BE regular season and/or tourny is an outstanding accomplishment, even when the conference is in a “down year.” As far as the NCAAs, Pitt’s destiny is in its own hands, as it always has been. If you cant beat teams like Pacific or Bradley, who cares what seed you are. I feel this team is still better than those Pitt teams. I guess we’ll see what happens.

Perspective-a-plenty! Bobby Knight’s Red Raiders just beat #6 Texas A&M in College Station! I hear officials in the A&M athletic dept. are evaluating the need to fund men’s basketball!

“Sarcasm Added!”

“Hail to Pitt”

There are lies, damn lies, and statistics. What makes the Louisville game look like an aberration, is that Pitt has been very effective offensively this year–one of the top teams in the country according to ken pomeroy. This has enabled us to overcome our lack of dominance (lately) in defense and rebounding. We need to tighten up there–both Providence and Louisville got really good looks close in to the basket. I had some SU fans for years complain that the area around the basket was a no mans land when they played Pitt–we need to reestablish that toughness.

This was really the first time that our outside shooting failed–we didn’t luck our way to hitting 42.6% behind the arc in the BE. We should focus on setting some screens so that our best 3 pt shooters can get into a rhythmn if possible.
I fortunately did not see most of the game- but it appeared that we lost our composure in the face of the full court press–we should certainly expect to see more teams try that, and should be prepared for that the rest of the year. I would make them bring the ball in against 6 guys in practice, just to have them get used to it. A 10 second or 5 second call is not as damaging as a turnover that turns into a fast break.
I agree that some of the more acerbic tones from the fans is probably based on our disappointing finish in FB this year. We are not the only team to lose at home–look at Duke, Texas AM, and NC to name a few.
There is still a lot to like about this team–we ARE UNDEFEATED ON THE ROAD in the BE–and we play well with the lead in close games. Doing well outside of the Pete may make us more likely to do well in the tournament. But winning the BE tournament, or being the regular season BE champ, does not predict success necessarily.
One of the mags( think it was Sporting News) pointed out that the teams that finish strong in their last 10 games ( including 10-0 finishes) do not do any better than teams that finish with a 6-4 record. The tournament comes down to match-ups , and the team with the most NBA talent generally wins.(Florida, UCONN, NC)in past years. Our best Pitt team was the one that won the BE regular season, hammered UCONN by 18 in the tournament final, won our first 2 games easily, then lost to future NBA star Duane Wade.
Up until now, this team has seemed to have a lot of chemistry, and seems to be made up of good guys. They handle themselves with class–one bad loss to Louisville shouldn’t change all that. You never hear a bad thing about any of the Pitt basketball players.
I may be in the minority on this one–but as far as
I am concerned–the future is now–we won’t have Aaron Gray next year–so if we need to burn Gilbert Brown’s redshirt to give us more depth, and improve our chances in the tournament, go for it.
We have been the Indy Colts of the NCAA–a great regular season record–not so good in the postseason. Personally, I can live with all of that–but the Colts finally got over this year, and so can we.

I guess I was too bummed to notice, but I read this morning that, when A.G. got the ball in the paint, L’ville went from zone to man-to-man to better cover perimeter shooters. It, of course, worked.

Seems like the solution is more perimeter motion instead of just standing around waiting for the pass, tactics which worked previously. Agree?

It’s not a sky-is-falling attitude that you’re hearing from all the posters and it’s certainly got nothing to do with football. What you hear is a reaction to the constant glossing over of this hoop team’s weaknesses. All you read and hear is how this is the best Howland/Dixon Pitt team yet….which is a bunch of crap. (The 02-03 team that destroyed UConn (with Gordon and Okafor) in the BE tourney was far superior in most meaningful ways to this squad, but that’s a different argument.) This Pitt team faces sub-par competition in almost every game, because there are almost no NBA-type players starring in the BE this year, and that fact has lulled everybody into a false sense of security. (Think about it — no Williams, Gay, Booth, Armstrong, Foye, Ray, Lowry, Novak, Dean, McNamara, McGrath, Barrett, Pittsnogle, Gansey, Douby, Quinn, Bowman, Maxiell etc. etc. The league has been decimated.)

I think a lot of us discerning fans are understandably concerned that we don’t have much idea how good this team is because they never play anybody. We go to the games and see a team without any consistently explosive players (Sam Young is anything but consistent), and wonder how we’ll match up with some thoroughbreds outside the conference. The L-ville game just confirms a lot of doubts for us.

All that being said, I think Pitt will finish with close to 30 wins and that’s a great year for anybody. I’m realistic — I would be very surprised to make it past the Sweet 16 and that’s fine with me. Let’s celebrate what we have — a very competent, well-schooled unselfish team and be grateful we’ve got a program on the way up. There’s always next year.

(Not sure what somebody was talking about with respect to beating L-ville in the BE tournament last year, the final delta was 5 pts, I think).

I always laugh at that Louisville game in the BE tournament last year, because we went on a 31-5 run to start the game, and then proceeded to get our ass kicked the rest of the way. I think after the 31-5 Pitt run, it was 50-29 Louisville the rest of the way. We did only win by five. If L’ville had even kept the deficit to 15, they would have won that game by double digits…but so goes this crazy game of basketball.

If you didn’t watch that Louisville game in the Big East Tournament than you can make stupid arguments like the two preceding posts. Pitt was up 33-5 in that game and did not even try to score in the second half. We just held the ball on almost every possesion. L’ville made some lucky threes in the last five minutes to make the score look close. It was a complete domination and check Pitino’s post game comments. He said things like he had never been beaten that badly etc.

I wached that game and it was certainly strange.
Pitt probably played a little more methodically than they normally do in the 2nd half, but they didn’t stall and they play methodically anyway, so it didn’t feel much different. L-ville’s style was and is based on 3s, so it wasn’t a surprise that they finally got hot.

Omar — cool it down. Nobody’s making “stupid arguments”. Everybody watches and comes away with their own opinion and it doesn’t have to agree with yours.

Was that the same Pitino who said he didn’t see any weaknesses in Pitt’s team this year? That tells you all you need to know about referencing coaches’ comments for truth.

They definitely held the ball the whole half. I can remember at least 4 shot clock violations and it wasn’t Louisville’s defense. There was nothing strange about it. Pitt didn’t want to embarrass them and was content to run out the clock. I’m not going to cool it down when people on this board are going to nitpick and and make ridiculous arguments. There was nothing strange about that game, Pitt won in the first five minutes. Pitt was not looking to score and didn’t have anything to prove. That was not a close game.

How strange then that a lesser L-ville team (exchanging a veteran leader like Dean for a kid like Sosa) could manhandle Pitt at home?

Seems kinda strange, since that was such a blowout. Hmmmmm……….hope you can feel the sarcasm dripping….

Because **it happens. How did Oral Roberts beat Kansas? How did UNC lose to V’Tech twice? How did Texas Tech beat A&M twice? Answers please.

You obviously didn’t see Monday night’s game, or maybe you saw it on TV. If you were there in person, you’d understand some of the arguments being made.

You can cite upsets (like Oral Roberts over a very young KU team) all day long (surprised you didn’t manage to work in Chaiminade over Ralph Sampson and Virginia while you’re at it), or you can talk about tough league games (like VA Tech over UNC or Tech over A&M) but Monday night’s game didn’t feel like either of those. It was a beat down….a real butt-kicking. It also made only too clear how weak Pitt is when Gray isn’t on the court. Pitt struggled to get any good shots off in the halfcourt, and it didn’t have anything to do with gimmick defenses or the press (which they struggled against too.) For once, Pitino got his team to combine smart offense with some aggressive D full-court and half-court and the result was ugly for us Pitt fans.

I hope they rebound against Washington (not too impressed by what I’ve seen from the Huskies) and put L-ville far behind them. We all need to realize, though, that this kind of game shouldn’t be so much of a surprise for a team that doesn’t have to face much comp night in and night out in their conf. Because of that factor, I expect Pitt to win out at the Garden and get a strong seed in the Big Dance. We can always hope, right?

Everybody wants to make excuses for UNC and Kansas. They got beat by inferior teams and nobody says a word. Pitt gets spanked and all of sudden we are exposed.

I had to give my tickets away on Monday so you are right, I wasn’t there. I was there for every other game including UCONN and don’t tell me Louisville has better athletes than they do. Pitt got beat, badly I might add. So what? Good teams lose all the time. Sometimes they even get their ass kicked (see Marquette over UCONN last year). It happens. You deal with it and move on. The season didn’t end on Monday. It won’t end for a while. You can’t get too high after a win or too low after a loss. Pitt’s loss didn’t change much nor should it. We play Washington on Saturday which should be a tough game and then we have the stretch run. The Louisville game is over. It has nothing to do with the rest of the year. You can pretend that Louisville’s athletes exposed us, but every team in the Big East has athletes. Syracuse does, Villanova does, Georgetown does, UCONN does, heck even Providence does. Pitt managed to do fine against all of those teams. Pitino’s gimmicks worked on Monday. Pitt will be ready for them in the future.

I was at the UConn game too. UConn had quick, strong guards, but they weren’t nearly as big and athletic overall as L-ville was. Not even close.

Not sure what the heck you’re talking about with Marquette and UConn last year. Yes, Uconn had a bunch of studs (who never formed a team), but Marquette had the same backcourt and Novak and that big kid inside who they’re missing this year. They were better last yr than they are this yr, but this year’s Marquette team plays against crappy competition.

I’m still trying to figure out who’s athletic (besides UConn’s guards and a very undersized Adrien) on your list of teams. Nova is hurting for athletes (who — Cunningham, Clark, are you kidding?), Syracuse has one athletic big man in Roberts,but he stinks, Providence has q, and G-town lost their best athlete in Bowman and still has Green but that’s it.

From your response it’s clear you’re not getting what is meant by an athletic team.

Also, Pitt didn’t face any gimmicks Mon night. Nothing L-ville did was unusual or unexpected. Straightforward press, straightforward 3-2 in the halfcourt. The difference in L-ville Monday night was the fact that they finally executed an effective offensive game. They were patient, worked the ball to Padgett as much as they could and basically played inside-out all night. Most of their pts came in the paint, which is not their normal modus operandi (taking a lot of bad perimeter shots).

You win. Paul Harris and Darris Nichols aren’t athletic, the 37 points that Nichols went off for was luck. Neither are Curtis Sumpter and Scottie Reynolds. Roy Hibbert, Vernon Macklin and Dajuan Summers can barely get off the floor. Adrien, Dyson, Stanley Robinson at UCONN those guys are stiffs. The 2006 Marquette comparison to a surging Louisville squad is apt, considering both teams took out the top dog in the big east rather handily. You obviously didn’t read what I wrote. Believe what you want about Pitt.

Nichols is a limited jumpshooter with no penetration skills. Far from a dangerous athlete, and Harris hasn’t been able to figure out the difference between up and down so far this year.

Sumpter’s playing on impaired knees, and it shows and Scottie Reynolds isn’t a big, rangy athlete like Pitt saw on Mon night.

Hibbert is as slow as molasses and Macklin and Summers are no-names. As I already conceded, UConn has quick guards and an under-sized Adrien, but that wasn’t what L-ville had…….which was big, fast players at multiple positions.

You can over-rate the upper-classmen scraps left in the BE (like Nichols) or over-rate the young players (like Harris), but reading what you wrote doesn’t make any of it convincing. The league stinks and just isn’t stocked with athletes this year. It’s going to be fun listening to the talking heads at ESPN try to make the BE tournament sound interesting.

Thanks for letting me (and the rest of the public) believe what we want about Pitt. I really appreciate that you’re giving us permission to have our own opinions.

The league was stocked with “athletes” last year and still didn’t manage to get any teams to the final 4. What’s your point?

My point has never changed — Pitt doesn’t have to play anybody in the BE this year, so when they actually face an athletic team like L-ville, it’s a shock. We all get lulled into a false sense of security watching them beat Nova, Syracuse, USF, St.John’s, Providence, Depaul, Uconn etc. etc. because those teams are mostly down this year……down in terms of quality (rankings, quality wins/losses) and down in terms of just putting athletic studs on the court. When you don’t play anybody that big and fast night in and night out, you’re vulnerable and the evidence was on the court Monday night.

Pitt had to play the most athletic teams in the country last year and still went out in the second round. Who cares?

It doesn’t matter who you play, if you don’t come out prepared you lose. That won’t change if the conference is down, it won’t change on Saturday, and it won’t change in March. You can make all the assumptions you want regarding athletic talent and whatever else but the fact remains Pitt has played teams similar to Louisville for years and come out on top. I sincerely doubt the loss on Monday had anything to do with Louisville’s superior athletes. Pitt wasn’t ready and they got punched in the mouth early and never recovered. It will happen again if they aren’t ready to play regardless of the athletic talent on the other side.

Pitt has hit a wall with their current talent and athleticism level. Just think how hurting they’d be if a little-recruited stiff out of Emmaus hadn’t turned out to be a 15 and 10 guy and an NBA first-rounder. They might never get a rebound and they certainly wouldn’t make the NCAAs.

All this “ready to play”, “got to be prepared” stuff is hogwash. Sure, everybody has good nights and bad nights. We’re all fallible. That’s not the point. You can sincerely believe anything you like — being prepared or not or being ready to play doesn’t affect whether your guards can get a shot off in the halfcourt after they’ve been facing the same defense for 30 mins. At some point your talent and athletic ability take over and you can either get it done or you can’t. Pitt’s ability to rise up and overcome a bad night is very limited because their athletes are just limited, especially in the backcourt. Fields, Ramon, Graves, Cook…..they just looked overmatched. Some nights good coaching and systematic play might overcome that deficit….most nights it won’t. You don’t have to believe it from me…..most nights the athletes win. I personally love watching a less athletic team beat the studs who don’t play with any discipline, but it doesn’t happen near as much as I’d like it to, so I’m realistic about it. A little realism doesn’t hurt sometimes; in fact, it cushions the fall that is mostly certainly coming.

Then why does Louisville have 8 losses. Your theory holds no water. You should just stop.

As I’ve mentioned many times before — because Pitino hasn’t been able to get them to play disciplined offense all year. This was one of the only games in which they didn’t hoist up bad perimeter shots all night. They played smart, inside-out halfcourt offense (for once) and the result was predictable.

There’s no theory in what I wrote. It is what it is. Athletes generally win out. It’s as close to a sports truism as there is.

What was unpredictable, and therefore what makes your argument moot, is the fact Louisville’s athletes don’t play well together. Every team can put together one great game in a year and apparently that is what Louisville did on Monday. Pitt on the other hand has played only one bad game from start to finish this year and it happened to coincide with Louisville’s best. Maybe one had a lot to do with the other. However, Pitt has shown an ability to play with teams that have better athletes. The key is preparation and playing together. Of course sometimes even if you bring your A game you will get beat, but not the way Pitt got beat Monday. I think Monday’s events are the exception and not the rule.

You act like we have a team full of stiffs. Fields is a dynamic offensive player with some obvious shortcomings defensively. Graves is a capable athlete and is having a great year. Cook is playing awful but he has shown flashes of the player he can be. Ramon is what he is, a great 3 pt. shooter. and very limited athlete. Gray is a wonderful college center. Kendall stinks, but Young has been playing great the last month. Benjamin is a great athlete but limited in what he can do. Pitt is a solid team that can win the whole thing if they get hot and things go their way.

I agree with your characterizations of the players. Those were good descriptions. My only difference might be on Fields — I think he’s a good scorer, but maybe not enough of the guy they need to penetrate and push the ball sometimes.

What I don’t agree with is the end result. They are just a solid team with solid players, Gray being the only exception. He’s a wonderful college center, as you said, and that is unusual. Unfortunately that’s not enough to give this team an upside, which is why you’ll see most analysts give this team very little chance for real post-season success. Not a whole lot different than last year…….slightly better because Krauser stunk. If you replaced Graves (I’d even give up his defense) with a really good scorer at the 2, I’d have a much different opinion.

Obviously we differ on this, but Pitt’s not the type of team that can get hot and fry anybody. That’s not what solid players like Fields, Ramon, Graves, Cook, Kendall, etc. etc. can do. They’re solid, not explosive. There are no Afflalos or Brewers or Hansbroughs or Wrights or Durants or even Budingers on this squad.

Which isn’t to say I wouldn’t like to be surprised. I’m just realistic enough to know it won’t happen.

“…why you’ll see most analysts give this team very little chance for real post-season success.” Fran Fraschilla picked us for the final 4. Jay Bilas gave us a chance. Seth Davis also likes our chances. Dick Vitale likes us.

Save Durant, the players you mentioned are not going to carry any team to a national championship. In fact, Afflalo, Brewer and Hansbrough aren’t even the best players on their team.

Finally, last season Pitt had a very good team. They lost in the second round game of a one and done tournament, it happens. If Pitt plays Bradley 10 times they win 9. Same with George Mason and Connecticut. Bad luck would have the one time they played be the one time those teams win. If Pitt would have got past that game they had a very good shot to do some damage.

TV’s talking heads like everybody. Their comments are always self-serving in some way. They have a built-in motivation to try and drive interest and that involves mentioning teams from every big-time conf as potential Final 4 teams. My guess is that if you caught them off-camera you’d get a very different tone on Pitt.

I disagree with your characterization of Pitt’s chances last year….mostly because of Krauser. They were never going to get anywhere with him dominating the ball. Any of those mid-majors could have taken Pitt out last year.

Your mind is made up on Pitt. That’s great. It must be easy and fun and simple to be a fan with no doubt.

The comment on Afflalo, Hansbrough and Brewer pretty much cancels my desire to argue with you, because it brings into question your ability to assess college (not pro) hoops talent.

Taruan Green is Florida’s best scorer and perimeter player not Brewer. Collison is UCLA’s best scorer (they lost to WVU without him) and perimeter player. Ellington, Lawson and Wright are all more important to UNC than Hansbrough. Please don’t question my ability to analyze hoops. I know quite a bit about the game, specifically the college version.

Brewer is the glue on Fla’s team. Inside/outside, offense/defense….he gets it done on both sides of the ball. Green is a nice pt guard, but you can find nice PGs under a rock. There isn’t another swingman like Brewer in the country. He’s like an updated version of Pippen. (Durant obviously has the same potential, if he develops an all-around game.)

Calling Ellington and Lawson and Wright more important to NC than Hansbrough is funny. Take the core meat away and the rest of those kids are freshmen… including another PG, of which there are many. If you took Hansbrough away, Wright wouldn’t get all those free rebounds on the weak side and we wouldn’t hear much about him yet. (The same way Josh Booth got all that attention as a freshman playing alongside Okafor. Wright obviously has a bigger upside than Booth, but you get the point.) Arguing about Lawson and Ellington is laughable……you must have read too many scouting reports before they even got to Chapel Hill.

And Collison is another sweet PG, but he’s not the heart of that team yet. Afflalo is their unquestioned leader and was even last year while Farmar was still there. Yes, they missed Collison in Morgantown, but if you took Afflalo away instead they would have lost by 30. Westbrook held his own and they don’t have a replacement at SG.

Those are interesting opinions from one who professes to know quite a bit about the game. But, as I’ve said repeatedly, we’re all allowed to have opinions.

Point guard is the most important position in basketball. Good ones don’t grow on trees. Talented teams without quality point guards are horrible (see UCONN 2007, they would be a final 4 team with Marcus Williams). Look at LSU this year without their point guard, they are a train wreck. Duke is horrible mainly because of Paulus’s inability to play the position. BC has played its way back into contention because of their point guards play. Texas A&M is all Acie Law. A good point guard changes everything for a team. I argue that athletic swingmen are a dime a dozen.

Hansbrough is the most overrated player in college basketball. Ellington, Lawson and Wright are much more important to the team. As for Collison you couldn’t be more wrong. He makes tha team tick, from his on the ball pressure defense, ability to find people on the break, and lightning quickness. They would barely be in the top-25 without Collison. Brewer is important, but Green’s play this season has made them a much better team than last year.

No argument on the importance of a point guard. They do have a disproportionate impact. You’re forgetting one thing, though — there are just more good ones out there than there are of any other player. Most size-challenged talents in HS end up playing PG in college and a large % end up being decent and a decent % end up being good. There are statistically just many, many, many more good guards than there are anything else. Go see some AAU games — it’s like they’re multiplying — they’re everywhere. In fact, it’s rare for a team not have a good one waiting in the wings to take over. (LSU seems to be the rare exception.)

Nearly every good team has a decent PG. It just isn’t that unique. Look around the country — it’s a guard’s game, because of the rule changes. Good ones are everywhere. What’s rare is a 6’8″ athlete who can play offense and defense equally well or a 7-foot center who can pass, rebound and score. Those are rarities and differentiators.

You’re woefully wrong on UConn 2007. You could add Kidd to that team and they wouldn’t be a threat to win anything. You still need better players than Dyson, Thabeet, Adrien…..

And your other examples are way too casual. LSU lost Mitchell, but they lost Thomas, too, and it was Thomas that exploded in the tourney last year. Mitchell was just a solid player, not a star. Brady should have had a at least a serviceable replacement waiting in the wings for Mitchell, but he’d be hard-pressed to find an athlete like Thomas again. That’s why the NBA jumped on him — he was unusual.

UCLA is the best example of my point. If Collison stayed out a while, and Westbrook got some more time, he would be a very credible replacement. Not as quick, but solid. They wouldn’t be a threat to win it all, but they’d still be ranked.

The UNC thing is too bizarre to answer.

We should probably agree to disagree at this point. If not this could go on for weeks. I appreciate your input.

Agreed, fun arguing with you. Appreciate yours too.