Conference tournaments shouldn’t be allowed to overwhelm our perceptions, in the sense that a strong body of work during four months of regular-season competition should not dissolve into the mists of the present tense thanks to one quarterfinal flameout. That’s not fair to the coaches who work around the clock to make their programs better.
However, when a regular season’s body of work isn’t that strong, the conference tournament serves to show whether a team responds well to a proving-ground moment, an occasion soaked in the fierce urgency of now. Yes, the conference tournament doesn’t have the final say for a team that knows it will still go to the NCAA tournament the following week. Yet, it’s quite striking how frequently certain schools either stumble or succeed at the conference tournament level. It’s quite noticeable how some programs continuously put the pieces together — or fail to do so — in March.
Let’s offer a very brief overview of some of Thursday’s higher-profile conference tournament losers. You’ll quickly see how hard it is to sustain a high level of achievement in this business:
*
Let’s start with Oklahoma State. The Cowboys lost their third game to Oklahoma (another team with a history of subpar performances in the Big 12 tournament). One gets the sense that Travis Ford is in a maze with no exit whenever he goes up against Lon Kruger. The Cowboys made the second weekend of the NCAA tournament several times during Eddie Sutton’s tenure. Ford has been with the Pokes since the autumn of 2008. He still hasn’t made the second weekend a single time in Stillwater.
Here’s the money line, though: Ford is comparatively better than several of the coaches and programs we’re going to mention next.
One of the few who isn’t is Jim Larranaga at Miami. Larranaga, the architect of George Mason’s run to the Final Four in 2006, brought Miami an ACC regular season and tournament double (referring to championships, of course) in 2013 and took the Hurricanes to the Sweet 16. That campaign was, by any measurement, the best and most successful season in UM basketball history. For that reason alone, Larranaga (whose “n” has a tilde over it, in the interests of full disclosure) has already achieved richly in Coral Gables.
Yet, while one would have thought that Miami would use that Sweet 16 season as a springboard to bigger and better things, here are the Hurricanes, staring at another NIT ticket after falling to Notre Dame in the quarterfinals of the ACC tournament. The same team that won at Florida, Duke and Syracuse got blown out at home by Eastern Kentucky and Georgia Tech. Even Team Tilde could not straighten its path enough to get back to the Big Dance this season. It is hard to sustain success… even for coaches a million times better than Travis Ford (and Larranaga qualifies).
Then consider Ole Miss, a team that’s a mess (or is it amiss?) after a nutty loss to South Carolina in the second round of the SEC tournament, chronicled by TSS basketball writer Scott King. Purely in terms of wins, Andy Kennedy is one of the more successful coaches in Ole Miss history. Yet, his only NCAA tournament season to date is one made possible by a comeback as miraculous as the one his team almost pulled off against South Carolina. In the 2013 season, Kennedy’s Ole Miss team trailed Missouri by 14 points in the second half of an SEC quarterfinal. The Tigers (coached by Frank Haith, say no more…) imploded, and after Ole Miss hit a tying three in the final minute, Missouri threw away the inbounds pass. The Rebels scored in the final seconds, escaped with a win, and then tucked away an automatic bid by beating Florida in the tournament final two days later. Ole Miss made the Dance for the first time in Kennedy’s (then-) seven-year tenure by sneaking in at the eleventh hour.
Ole Miss might get into the field this year — only because other bubble teams are shooting themselves left and right — but the Rebels are still waiting for a season in which they convincingly knock the door down as an at-large candidate.
Next on our tour of Thursday exits is Illinois, which bombed out of the Big Ten tournament in an 18-point loss to injury-riddled Michigan. While it’s true that the Illini comfortably made the 2013 NCAA Tournament, they still did so with an 8-10 Big Ten record. Coach John Groce, in three seasons in Champaign, has yet to post a winning Big Ten Conference mark. Even with all the talent available in Chicago, Illinois can’t get going, and few coaches face a more urgent 2015-2016 season than Groce does for that very reason.
*
So many programs struggle to keep momentum going. So many coaches arrive at points where you think they’ve turned the corner, or — for those who had turned the corner years ago — have regained their fastball. Yet, just when you think they’ve solidified themselves (perhaps for a second or third time), they fall back.
Hello, Rick Barnes of Texas. Howdy, Johnny Dawkins of Stanford. Greetings, Anthony Grant of Alabama.
Barnes had seemingly restored order at Texas after a surprisingly strong 2014 season. Dawkins was supposed to have transformed his tenure at Stanford after making the Sweet 16 a year ago and getting both Chasson Randle and Stefan Nastic back this season. Grant made the NCAAs in 2012 and figured to create an Alabama ascendancy. All three coaches are scratching their heads after ugly conference tournament exits on Thursday.
*
Recall how Dean Smith made 13 straight Sweet 16s at North Carolina from 1981 through 1993. Remember that Bill Self has won at least a share of 11 straight Big 12 regular season titles.
Why are those feats worth remembering and celebrating and mentioning again and again and again?
We see the answer at conference tournament time: It is hard to sustain excellence and quality at so many programs. Maintaining a high level of achievement is so much harder than meets the eye.
As the saying goes, “If it was so easy, a lot more people would be doing it.”
