Minnesota 86 Louisville 76 (NCAA Tournament Round 1)

[TheDeuce]

Bad loss, no other way to slice it. Mack is 10x the coach and lost to little Ricky who’s a shell of his daddy as a coach.

 

#TheObsession

 

:lol2:

[tcjkbt]

It went deeper than that.

 

Almost blew it at home against Clemson. Coughed up leads against those good teams. Non-competitive against Syracuse. Looked mostly harmless against a pretty poor Boston College team in late February.

 

This team just didn't have the spark. That's fine. But it wasn't easy to sit down and watch.

I agree, G-low. I was not able to see the game today but generally speaking UL did not do anything since Duke that indicated they were a program that had turned the corner or a program that was primed to take off next year. They meekly accepted their fate with little or no "fight back." That is disappointing to me.

[Pura Vida]

By picking Minnesota, I am in first place in the company pool (for probably 30 minutes or so).

 

There’s a group at my work who are mad at me.... they said they picked Louisville just because of me, against their better judgement lol

 

The whole bracket challenge makes the first weekend a lot of fun.

[John Anthony]

#TheObsession

 

:lol2:

 

It’s a bad loss. Now I will never expect you to be objective with UL, it took me 2 months to show you it was “Lamar and some dudes’’ lol.

 

Little Ricky has done nothing at Minnesota and is one of the most overrated coaches in the country, yet UL was never in this game. Was this little Rickey’s first or second NCAA win?

[TheDeuce]

Ah, it’s good to be back. :lol2:

[GrantNKY]

This was a pretty easy game to pick for me. Louisville was a tale of two seasons. Pre-Duke collapse and Post-Duke collapse. Pre-Duke beats Minnesota. Post-Duke never had a chance. Mack needs to get better guard play if he is going to make a stronger tournament run in year 2.

[Getslow]

This was a pretty easy game to pick for me. Louisville was a tale of two seasons. Pre-Duke collapse and Post-Duke collapse. Pre-Duke beats Minnesota. Post-Duke never had a chance. Mack needs to get better guard play if he is going to make a stronger tournament run in year 2.

 

That's been a popular theory, but it ignores trends that had already started.

 

Blowing a 10-point lead to Florida State, getting outhustled by a pretty lousy Indiana team, handing back an entire 20+ point lead at home to Boston College before hanging on... all those happened before Duke. Heck, between blowing out Miami and UNC in early January, this team found a way to lose to Pitt.

 

The truth is that this team isn't particularly good, and once conference opponents were able to starting picking apart weaknesses, it was all over for these guys.

[TheDeuce]

That's been a popular theory, but it ignores trends that had already started.

 

That’s what you get when people watch two games out of the season and then attempt to diagnose what went wrong and when.

[hrcarrier]

I thought that the Cards would beat Minnesota, nice win for the Gophers and Pitino. Louisville is definitely ahead of where most thought they would be, the future is bright!

[newarkcatholicfan]

I was not smart enough to pick this one. I ain't to upset being its the Big over the ACC.

[jpa2825]

That's been a popular theory, but it ignores trends that had already started.

 

Blowing a 10-point lead to Florida State, getting outhustled by a pretty lousy Indiana team, handing back an entire 20+ point lead at home to Boston College before hanging on... all those happened before Duke. Heck, between blowing out Miami and UNC in early January, this team found a way to lose to Pitt.

 

The truth is that this team isn't particularly good, and once conference opponents were able to starting picking apart weaknesses, it was all over for these guys.

 

This. They would have been much better off getting off to a slow start and seeming slightly above average after the UK loss. Instead, they looked VERY competitive / should have won tough games against TN and Marquette and did win games against Michigan St. and Seton Hall. The loss at IU seemed better than it actually ended up being as the season went on. Even the cluster at Pitt was salvaged by a late run to push it into OT and then quickly forgotten because of the blowout at UNC.

 

If you had to pick a high point of the season, and where it started going south afterward, that would be the game - not the Duke game everyone points to. Scare v. BC at home and then a win over NC State (who was ranked at the time and later dropped precipitously). At Va Tech was a tiny blip upward, but not a "great" effort / a good effort followed by inability to sustain the rest of the season after blowing out UNC.

 

Mack is the right guy. Let's see what he does over the next 2-5 yrs.

 

Happy to have uninterrupted focus on the #4 ranked baseball team and Coach McDonnell.