this is spot on.
The 2012 team also won the championship rather easily. This team was having trouble after the sweet 16. The SEC was historically weak last year, and that was the main reason for the undefeated season. I'm not trying to attack the '15 team or undersell what they were, but man, how could anyone still compare them to 96 or '12?
The stats don't mean anything, the '15 team was not a well rounded team. Was great in some aspects, and mediocre in others. One of the best defensive teams I've ever seen, yes. But their offense never became great. never.
The bold. Oh God it hurts.
How can you compare them to '12? They were better in every goddamn overall quality metric adjusted for SOS. That's how.
You guys point to one game that they lost against a team that was far, far better than either team that '12 lost to - as if that changes the rest of the season where '15 was better in the majority of available metrics, including all the comprehensive adjusted rating systems. Also, you're acting like they rolled like '96 through the tourney, when they didn't, and they didn't play anyone in the same universe as Wisconsin in the tournament, either.
They got super great draws in the F4 against Louisville and a soft KU team that lucked out when UNC was playing some kid named Stillman White at PG. We won both by single digits. And again, they had more single digit games over the season than '15.
The only team '12 played that was as good as Wisconsin was UNC (when they were healthy), and we won that on a last second holy-shit-did-he-just-do-that AD block AT RUPP.
SEC was weak? Uh, excuse me - in both years, there was ONE non-UK ranked team (Florida and Arkansas, respectively), and they both were in the teens.
'12 - four SEC bids (9, 7, 5, 1)
'15 - five SEC bids (11, 10, 9, 5, 1)
And the OOC schedules were close, as well, and if anything, it was better in '15.
And again, '
15 did better against its schedule (including MOV) than any team in CBB since '96, which includes '12 UK.
Lol, they lost to a 4 seed (that would be a 1 seed the next season with nearly the same team) on the road by 1 point in an extremely hostile environment, on a last second shot. Then lost to another 4 seed with multiple NBA players that they had already beaten twice. And that Vandy team was better than any other SEC team this year, not to mention the Florida team that made the Elite 8.
That Vandy team was a 5 seed, actually, but let's talk about that then. That team lost to a 4 and 5 seed - let's see how this year's team did against teams in that ballpark (3-6 seeds):
Louisville - 8 point W away
Providence - 20 point W home
ND - 1 point W neutral
UNC - 14 point W home
Arkansas - 17 point W home, 15 point W neutral
West Virginia - 39 point W neutral
Gee, that looks like a perfect 7-0 record to me with a giant margin.
Again, '12 had more single digit wins, 2 losses against teams in a range that '15 blew the pants off of, played in an SEC with fewer tourney teams, had an OOC conference that was the same or slightly worse with one amazing opponent at the top and fewer good teams at the mid level, and had a worse MOV vs both ranked opponents and opponents in general. They had a 10 point win against Old Dominion to match up nicely with '15s 10 point win vs Columbia.
Some of you emotional thinkers have this magical foggy memory that has you believing that you benched 400 when you were young, the sun shone just a little bit brighter back in the day, Anthony Davis was 8'9 and playing at his current NBA MVP level -
Just take a damn second to stop and contemplate the psychology 101 biases you are exhibiting. When you reminisce about something that you're fond of from the past and forget all of its flaws to compare it to something modern, you're being primitive and simple.
Then apply some stats 101 knowledge and realize how dumb it is to turn around in retrospect and talk down about a team that outperformed any other since '96 by every metric over a game that they had a 30% chance of losing because
the other team was way the hell better than anybody '12 played in the tournament.
What if '12 had met that healthy version of UNC in April and had lost by single digits, as they could've done at Rupp if not for that amazing block?
Would they suddenly be knocked down 20 pegs on your quality of team scale, because they met an amazing team and a couple things went the wrong way in a single 3 minute span? If so, you're a simpleton. That's all there is to it.
I know some of you like to believe in Disney movie magic, forget about statistics and variables you can't account for, you just want so hard to believe that there were just teams that "refuse to lose" and if they just uphold that attitude, then they can't fail, and that includes '12 but not '15.
"No way '12 was losing", right?
Yeah, no, that's just idiotic.
If a healthy UNC were on our 6 game path to the tourney, '12 wins the whole thing no more than 30% of the time (because UNC was like a 60/40 game, AT BEST).
If you're talking about a pro tournament with 5 or 7 game series, ONLY THEN can you really say "no way they're losing" (if you're sufficiently talented), because you might get beat, but your talent + gumption and perseverance, if high enough, can carry you through over the fatigue and pain and stress in enough times in those late game scenarios that over 7 games, it's just really hard for little random variables to overcome all those factors.
But in a single game elimination tournament, you get stuff like '91 UNLV losing in the exact same way as we did - won a close single digit game and then turned around in the F4 and lost a very close one to an excellent team.
Does it mean they just weren't good enough? Of course not. Does it mean they didn't have the killer instinct, X factor, "refuse to lose", whatever? Of course not. In the crunch time of a game, all it takes is 2-3 bogus calls or bad bounces or incredibly low-percentage shots going in to change the outcome.
In a 7 game series, the dominant team just shrugs it off and finishes the job. In a 1 game series, the dominant team goes home after ruining people all season, and trolling rival fans and slowpokes from one's own fanbase start to draw big-picture conclusions about the team that would get them flunked out of the most basic stats class.
Embarrassing.
2015 was a historically GREAT team and I don't think its fair to take anything away from how great they really were. Like many of you, I've been watching ball for a long time and I've seen VERY few teams that were ever capable of doing some of the things that this team did. 
