Duke was gift-wrapped a title? We played a much harder tourney lineup than UK. Per Kenpom, in every round but 1 (WI > MSU) we played the harder opponent and we then beat WI anyway. Given how well Duke played in the tourney (better D than UK), you could make the argument that the best team won this year.
Re: Coach K, he said last year that he wanted to coach 5 more. On the Duke boards, a lot of folks think that K retires from the NBA gig after winning the Olympics in 2016, and that if a stacked Duke wins the NCAA title two years from now, that might be the perfect time to move on.
Agree there will be a let down no matter who replaces him. Capel is driving a lot of our recruiting, but I don't know how good of a head coach he would be - other than Blake Griffin he didn't do much at OK. Like UK we Duke fans will be hoping Brad Stevens gets sick of the NBA around the time we lose our HOF coach.
Not usually a conspiracy theorist, but this is my theory.
I think Duke was given the easiest path.
The NCAA and their sponsors were chomping at the bit at the idea of a Duke/UK final. I don't think they were as confident in Duke getting to the title game as they were UK, so they made the path a little easier for Duke.
They knew Duke and UK would both breeze to the Elite Eight. The other two games were iffy. Both UK and Duke were given good matchups for the Regional final. UK was suppose to play a KU team they already throttled. Duke was given a glorified mid-major Gonzaga.
Now the other regionals were set up to make sure Duke survived to the title with the idea that UK would be there no matter who they played. So Duke would play a weak opponent in the national semis. So the East bracket had Nova, which had no business being a 1 seed and a limping UVA team as the 2, keeping Duke's path to the title wide open.
It's either that or the NCAA selection committee buys into the computer ranking crap so much that they couldn't tell who was for real and who was a fraud.
Nova should not have been a 1 seed. No way. They did not pass the eye test and in the end they fell hard.
Zona was more deserving of the 1. Everyone knew this that actually watched the games and did not get wrapped up in the whole RPI, SOS, CRAP stuff.
And it was obvious that UK was #1 and Duke and Wisconsin were 2A and 2B.
The tourney should have been set up like this:
Midwest- UK/KU vs. West- Zona/Zaga.
East- Duke/Nova vs. South- UW/UVA.
Everyone of the 1 and 2 seeds would have been pretty close geographically except UW and they would still be closer than they ended up being playing out West.
With that set up, we likely get the four true contenders in the Final Four.
So Zona gets robbed of a Final Four, Michigan St. lucks into that spot. UK has to play a revenge minded UW in the semis, UW puts everything they have into beating the Cats and have nothing left for Duke, the Devils get a team that had no business being there in MSU (which they breezed through) and the Dukies win the title.
Just my theory. I don't think they meant to hand the title to Duke, I just think they wanted a Duke/UK matchup in the title game and thought that the way they set it up really gave that the best chance of happening. Unfortunately, it didn't work out.
A friend of mine has a different theory, he says the NCAA wanted UW to win the title because they wanted to reward Kaminsky for coming back and saying NBA bball wasn't as exciting as NCAA hoops. He says they do not want OAD players to win it all, they want four year guys to win it. They want to reward those teams that keep their kids in school. He says Duke just got in the way.
It's all about money, though, so I can't see them wanting a Wisconsin team in the title game. That doesn't scream ratings bonanza like UK/Duke would. My theory is driven by money, which is why I think it's more feasible.
