Saturday, February 04, 2006

Illinois debacle follow up

If I had a vote, I would not put Illinois in the top 25. If you can't beat Penn State at home, you are not one of the best 25 teams in the country. If you cannot beat Penn State at home, you do not deserve an at large bid to the NCAA tournament.

Illinois will get one, certainly. They'll be in the field of 65. I'm just saying, if I were on the committee, I would not have them in *my* field of 65. There are 35 at large bids to the NCAA tournament. If you cannot beat crappy teams on your home court, you do not belong in that top group of 35 teams.

**UPDATE**

Alright, now that I've had a night to sleep on it, I realize the above is hyperbole. But this loss still really stings. There were no mitigating factors. There were no injuries to key players, no horrible calls that fouled key players out. There was just one team that decided to play for the last ten minutes, and one team that didn't.

All good things must come to an end, but you'd like to see them end under more acceptable circumstances.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

imagine my chagrin when i watched the first half of the game and saw dee rain some three toward the end to build the comfortable lead, but then i had to go out and missed the second half. i was pretty wasted when the late night sportscenter update came on. i went to bed hoping that i had just imagined it. unfortunately not.

Seitz said...

I'm still struggling with it. I drank a lot that night.