Last week, before the NCAA tournament began, we seeded the field 1-68 in three different categories. It’s fascinating to look back at these lists one week later, if only because these placements might strike you as either more enlightened than they were to begin with, or really frickin’ dumb.
The list that’s most relevant to this piece is the first one, concerning the specific expectations for each school in this tournament, given the initial bracket path laid out for everyone on Selection Sunday. As you can see, Villanova and Virginia are the two teams that have fallen short of their goals to a much greater extent than anyone else. (That’s opinion, not fact, but we’re using these opinions as measuring sticks. You get to use your own measuring sticks, of course. It’s a free country.)
Among teams that didn’t have to make the Final Four to produce a really strong tournament, three eliminated Big 12 schools — Kansas, Baylor, and Iowa State — are the only ones near the Villanova and Virginia zip code of disappointment.
When you move to the Sweet 16 level, you’ll see that several teams on the list have already reached their goal (as viewed by one pundit, whose opinions are not and should not be representative of anyone else’s).
North Carolina reached its goal — not in the sense that the Tar Heels should expect Sweet 16s, but because the program had missed that stage of the tournament the past two seasons and needed to prove to itself that it could handle an opening-weekend pod played outside the state of North Carolina. The Tar Heels expect to be a top-two seed and a Final Four contender on a regular basis, so through that prism, this is not a successful season. Adjusted for the talent on this roster, however, a realistic appraisal would say that UNC has already achieved what it realistically could.
Xavier’s season should be seen as a success in light of a fifth Sweet 16 trip in the past eight seasons. Yet, the Musketeers are here in the Sweet 16 because they drew and beat a 14 seed in the round of 32. This doesn’t make Xavier’s season any less successful, but it does show that the road to this point was easier than anticipated. Gonzaga is a team intent on making the Elite Eight, and while the Zags’ path is easy, critics of the program should not be knocking a team for merely doing what it’s supposed to do. If Gonzaga handles UCLA, the attainment of another Elite Eight (Mark Few’s first) should not be tagged with an asterisk. After all, Gonzaga once was the school which busted brackets and became a double-digit seed in the Sweet 16… much as UCLA is this year.
North Carolina and Xavier are two teams that have arrived at successful seasons, but in very different ways that require at least some explanation. For the other three teams that met their Sweet 16 goal (as listed in the link above), it shouldn’t be as hard to acknowledge the claim that this season is a smashing success, regardless of what happens in the upcoming regional semifinals.
West Virginia stands out as the Sweet 16 team which, more than any other, has squeezed every last drop of potential from its roster. Bob Huggins’s team was hemorrhaging late in February; heading into a home game with Kansas, WVU faced a scenario that also seemed possible for Texas at one point: a losing streak of several games heading into the Big 12 tournament.
West Virginia is a pressing team that was overextending itself in February. Players were hitting a physical and mental wall. The Mountaineers had to find some way to grab a win in a close game over a good team. A major result would have reset the dial for West Virginia, and there was no better place to get a win than in the friendly confines of Morgantown. There was also no better opponent to beat at home than big, bad Kansas, the ruler of the Big 12.
That endgame escape against Kansas, made complete by Perry Eillis’s botched layup at the end, genuinely seemed to liberate the Mountaineers. In that moment, a shorthanded and incredibly hard-working team realized that it could overcome considerable obstacles even in its diminished state. The ‘Eeers really haven’t been the same since, in the best possible way.
It’s true that WVU lost to Baylor in the Big 12 tournament quarterfinals, but with the Mountaineers not being particularly healthy at the time, a quick exit served their interests by creating extra days of rest. The ‘Eers were saving up for the big tournament, not the Big 12 tourney. Now that they’ve made the Sweet 16 while earning the right to play Kentucky, it’s all gravy on Country Roads.
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The Utah Utes have also validated their regular season — not to mention their ascendance as a program — by making the Sweet 16. A win over Duke in the South Regional semifinals would be tremendous, but by getting out of the first weekend, this team and coach Larry Krystkowiak have enabled the nation to see that the group which couldn’t put its best foot forward in two games against Arizona is as good as many people thought it was all along.
There is something to be said for the notion of reclaiming an identity after losing it for an extended period of time — to be specific, most of the previous three weeks before the Big Dance. This team was stale and uninspired in late February, but by taking out a tough 12 seed in Stephen F. Austin (a team that won its 12-5 game a year ago, against VCU) and then winning a contentious 5-versus-4 game, Utah has reminded itself, not just others, of its skill level and its competitive chops.
One final note on Utah: Last year’s inability to make the NCAAs was a disappointment. Precisely because of that disappointment, merely “getting in the field” this year was not good enough. Winning one game in the Dance was a minimum requirement. Winning two? This team has not left money on the table in an NCAA tournament context. If it loses to Duke, there should be absolutely no regrets (barring something very specific and improbable that might occur in Friday night’s game). Just being able to play Duke on such a big stage represents a massive step forward for Utah.
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The final team to highlight here is Oklahoma. The Sooners are the highest remaining seed in the upcoming East Regional. Solely from that standpoint, one could quite legitimately argue that the Sooners’ season is not yet a success, and that more has to be done for OU to walk away from its season feeling satisfied. Any of the four teams in Syracuse for the East Regional might be inclined to feel that if they don’t at least make the Elite Eight, they will have missed out on something very precious. (That something: a chance to play one game for the right to go to the Final Four.)
One must hasten to say — for OU and the other teams mentioned above — that no coach or player should enter a Sweet 16 situation feeling satisfied. Competition, with a chance to play for a Final Four just one (winning) game away, should create supreme urgency in the hearts and minds of everyone on a court. Fans can allow themselves to feel comfortable, but players and coaches must see the job through. This notion of feeling satisfied is best expressed as the way teams should feel a week after their final loss, once they’ve had a chance to regather and process everything that’s gone before them.
With Oklahoma, then, let’s realize that this program had not won an NCAA tournament game in two previous visits under Lon Kruger. Let’s also realize that the Sooners hadn’t reached the Sweet 16 since 2009. Even if this team loses to Michigan State, it has climbed past many steep points on the mountainside, trying to reach the summit of college basketball. Kruger and his players should be locked in on trying to stop a Tom Izzo team from making yet another Elite Eight. Whenever OU’s journey ends, however, the Sooners should realize that at this point in the 2015 NCAA Tournament, they’ve powerfully affirmed everything that was good about their regular season.
West Virginia and Utah would readily concur.
