Who is ready for College Hoops?

[Buck]

It's here!

[KCWolfman]

Originally Posted by KC_Connection

Shared, outright, whatever qualifier you want to put on it, they all count the same in the trophy case. .

LOL, qualifiers were fine when you were mentioning Indiana's win when being the only program to beat Michigan at Ann Arbor this year. Certainly one of the most impressive wins in all of the NCAA this year, barring TCU's greatest win in the 20 year RPI history.

[KCWolfman]

Originally Posted by KC_Connection

Yeah, that's KU.

And that down there is Indiana.

Ahh, the qualifier is the ten year mark, I didn't realize and I apologize. I thought since my last successful season was Mike Davis taking Bobby Knight's team to the Championship game in 2002 the past wasn't relevant.

Well you are certainly correct, IU has suffered under Mike Davis and Kelvin Sampson. And unlike Larry Brown, Kelvin didn't steal a championship while breaking NCAA rules. But Crean has obviously brought back good play, great in state recruiting (keeping Zeller instead of losing him like his brother to Roy was a great stride), and an even greater prospect of the future to Bloomington. IU should be back to center for quite awhile to come with Crean at the reins.

The last 10 years certainly belong to you. Enjoy them, you have earned them. But tonight we will be talking about seeds in 2013, of which Indiana's current situation will carry much more weight with the NCAA officials than KU's last decade.

[Bearcat]

Originally Posted by KCWolfman

Shared title, with the help of a few bogus calls.

Parity... keeps things entertaining in the Big 12.

[DaKCMan AP]

Billy Donovan's lessons
Originally Published: March 8, 2013
By Rick Reilly | ESPN.com

One day, Florida's Billy Donovan was jogging when he passed a woman sobbing on a curb.

He ran past. A couples of miles later, he hit his halfway mark and turned around. On the way back, she was still sitting there, weeping. He had practice to plan, a pile of paperwork on his desk and game tape to watch, but he just couldn't run by her twice.

He sat down next to her and asked, "What's wrong?"

"We just lost a child," she wailed. "And now my husband and I are having troubles. And I … we … just don't know where to turn!"

Donovan knew.

In 2000, he lost a child himself, a baby named Jacqueline, killed by her own umbilical cord.

"You go into a hospital," Donovan says, "and a doctor tells you the child inside your wife is dead and they're prepping her for delivery. And then they take you into a room and three people are asking you to pick out a tombstone and a cemetery. And you walk back up to the maternity ward and there are balloons everywhere that say, 'It's a boy! It's a girl!' and people are full of joy and you're just totally disconnected and devastated. So I knew what she was going through. I invited her to our house. We tried to help her."

You can say Billy Donovan was a disaster as a Wall Street trader. You can point out he was one-and-done as a New York Knick. But you can't say he wasn't born to teach.

He seems particularly good at teaching college men the game of basketball. At only 47, Donovan already has 445 wins going into Saturday's game with Kentucky, not to mention four Elite Eights and back-to-back national championships. At this rate, if he coached until 70, he would end up with 984 wins, which, as you read this, would be the most in college basketball history.

"Nine hundred?" laughs Donovan, whose Gators just clinched the SEC title. "Oh, my god, I'm already exhausted and you want me to get to 900?"

Besides, then what?

"I love what I'm doing," he says, "but when my time is done, I don't want to look back and see that I left a path of destruction with a bunch of trophies thrown in. I don't want to be some old gray-haired coach sitting there with a ton of wins but no friends."

Maybe that's what makes Donovan different from so many of the Florsheim-stomping coaches today in college basketball. Maybe that's why Donovan stays inside his kettle while so many others blow. Maybe that's why he answers the rare Kenny Boynton air ball in practice with: "Hey, somebody shut the doors! It's messing up Kenny's shot!" Maybe that's why he wants his dad, Bill, Sr., at as many practices as he an get, and why his son, Billy III, is a Gators walk-on. He knows those red-faced, jacket-throwing coaches too well. He was one of them.

"I used to come back from a tough road loss, 1 or 2 in the morning, and go straight to the office and pull an all-nighter trying to figure out what went wrong. Or I'd close the door of my office at home and watch tape. My highs were too high and my lows were too low."

Now, like John Wooden, he stays as even as Alligator Alley.

"You talk about a guy who's won two national championships," says Buzz Williams of Marquette, "and yet he still looks you in the eye and says, 'How are you doing?' There are a lot of guys in our business that don't do that. Sometimes they think they win because of who they are."

Once Donovan realized that whether he won or lost wouldn't tremble the cosmos, he started teaching it to others -- such as his former neighbor across the street, a guy named Urban Meyer. Imagine that: One block, four national championship trophies. Meyer nearly cracked under the pressure of what he'd built, retiring and unretiring, his boot tangled in the stirrup of a beast he couldn't get off.

"We talked a lot," Donovan says of Meyer, now the head football coach at Ohio State. "You start to realize that the trophy brings you nothing of real value. Nothing, really. The joy in coaching is helping a group of kids accomplish something they couldn't accomplish by themselves."

This offseason, Erik Spoelstra, head coach of the defending NBA champion Miami Heat, enrolled at the University of Donovan. Spoelstra spent seven hours grilling Donovan on how to repeat.
Seven hours? Seriously?

"I told Erik, 'You've got to enjoy the journey. You're not in the NBA Finals. You're at ground zero.

"After you win [a championship], all of a sudden it's not about whether you won, it's 'Did you win by enough points?' You've got to start all over, enjoy the process, the struggles, the joys, the pain."

No wonder Donovan tends not to panic about making the past two Elite Eights but no Final Fours. After those losses, he didn't go back to the tape room and pull his Eddie Munster haircut out. He has learned to accept both the cruelty and kindness of fate. If Casey Calvary doesn't come out of nowhere to tip in a crazy bounce for Gonzaga in '99, Florida makes the Elite Eight. If Georgetown doesn't miss a wide-open jumper in the 2006 semifinal, Florida doesn't go on to win the national title.

"You have to take both ends of it. You have to realize so much of it is just luck, the breaks of life."

Like a child dying suddenly in the womb?

"Yes. In the end, I had to accept that it was just a freak accident. I had to believe something good would come out of it."

Since Jacqueline died, he has been helping to raise funds for a new children's hospital at the university. He has helped a group called the Little Bits of Honey Memorial Fund that covers the cost of infant funerals for couples who can't afford them. And he's been open to teaching from his own deep wounds, even curbside.

Turns out he was right. Something good did come out of it. Billy Donovan himself.

http://espn.go.com/espn/story/_/id/9...onovan-lessons

Billy D is Awesome. So glad he's our coach.

[frankotank]

Originally Posted by Pablo

Maybe you Indiana fans are similar in that regard. I don't know that you've ever had a football program worth a shit, and your basketball program used to be great, but isn't anymore. So you can pound your chest about being in a great conference, but what has your school done lately in any regard athletically in major men's sports to build that conference up?

I don't get it.
what am I missing here?
SHIRLEY you aren't saying this about IN basketball? ARE YOU?
I just cracked up at first and then starting thinking what an insane comment that would be considering they will probably be a 1 seed.....so I must be misunderstanding something here....

[frankotank]

Originally Posted by KC_Connection

Unbelievable that Michigan choked that game away.

free throws......they're HARD. JFC!
just unbelievable.
I had to laugh at Indianas last basket....a lame prayer air ball and Oladipo catches the sonofabitch and puts it in at the buzzer.......SHIT!

lets see....Robinson misses a point blank layup which he coulda dunked, is fouled, and misses free throws. Hardaway blows a 1 and 1. Burke blows a 1 and 1. how many opportunities do you need guys?

oh well. great game. AND they scored more that 50 points!

[Pablo]

Originally Posted by frankotank

I don't get it.
what am I missing here?
SHIRLEY you aren't saying this about IN basketball? ARE YOU?
I just cracked up at first and then starting thinking what an insane comment that would be considering they will probably be a 1 seed.....so I must be misunderstanding something here....

Yes. I was saying that about an Indiana program that's been nothing to talk about for a decade.

[Prison Bitch]

Originally Posted by Pablo

Yes. I was saying that about an Indiana program that's been nothing to talk about for a decade.

Two, actually.

[Pablo]

Originally Posted by Prison Bitch

Two, actually.

Fair enough.

[frankotank]

Originally Posted by Pablo

Yes. I was saying that about an Indiana program that's been nothing to talk about for a decade.

the "isn't anymore" part is where you lost me.
IN has been down for the count for quite some time, but I do believe they're back. they used to be great.....and now will be a 1 seed. not too shabby.

[Pablo]

Originally Posted by frankotank

the "isn't anymore" part is where you lost me.
IN has been down for the count for quite some time, but I do believe they're back. they used to be great.....and now will be a 1 seed. not too shabby.

A one seed is a good start, but it isn't much of an accomplishment in its own right. I'm not ready to declare Gonzaga as anything special because they look to have a one seed locked up. Both Indiana and Gonzaga are having very good seasons thus far. Conference championships are something to be proud of. Neither will mean a thing if they don't at least grab a FF berth.

[Pablo]

And Indiana may very well be "back". Only time will tell. They've been on an upward trend the last couple of seasons. Just not ready to declare a program has risen from the dead over one regular season.

[frankotank]

IN certainly suffered some major setbacks with the Sampson fiasco.
be interesting to see if they keep up the good work.

[KC_Connection]

Originally Posted by KCWolfman

LOL, qualifiers were fine when you were mentioning Indiana's win when being the only program to beat Michigan at Ann Arbor this year. Certainly one of the most impressive wins in all of the NCAA this year, barring TCU's greatest win in the 20 year RPI history.

I didn't put any qualifiers on Indiana's win. It was impressive, like many of their other road wins this year. But Michigan choked that game away completely in the final 40 seconds.

[frankotank]

I was wondering what the lowest seed to ever win the NCAA championship would be....
what seed and who is it?

take a guess before looking.

here's a hint

Spoiler!

the team is famous for one of the biggest upsets in sports history

here's another hint

Spoiler!

this is their run thru the tourney
• Southeast
o ??? 51, Dayton 49
o ??? 74, Michigan 59
o ??? 46, Maryland 43
o ??? 56, North Carolina 44
• Final Four
o ??? 52, Memphis State 45
o ??? 66, Georgetown 64

last hint

Spoiler!

it was 1985

and the survey says!

Spoiler!

Seed #8, Villanova in 1985