(03-30-2015, 12:33 PM)FarmBoy link Wrote:I'm surprised he's that low, but I'm not surprised he was in the bottom quartile. The knock on MM was always that if you give him a season to prepare against the schedule, he'll have his team well positioned to win, but ask him to put together a quick gameplan against new opponents, and his team doesn't do as well. Every year at tourney time, ESPN or some other group would publish a list of teams that underpeform their seeding, and Stanford was always high on that list.
I never really bought into that meme, because it takes a sledgehammer approach. A more-nuanced approach would take into account how a poorer-seeded team that defeats Stanford fares in the next round(s):
1989: Stanford #3 loses to #14 Siena. Siena loses to #11 Minnesota in the next round. Analyis: underperformed
1992: Stanford #12 loses to #5 Alabama. Analysis: met expectations
1995: Stanford #10 defeats #7 Charlotte. Stanford loses to #2 UMass. Analysis: slightly overperformed
1996: Stanford #9 defeats #8 Bradley. Stanford loses to #1 UMass. Analysis: met expectations
1997: Stanford #6 defeats #11 Oklahoma. Stanford defeats #3 Wake Forest (with Tim Duncan). Stanford loses to #2 Utah. Analysis: overperformed
1998: Stanford #3 defeats #14 Charleston. Stanford defeats #11 Western Michigan. Stanford defeats #2 Purdue. Stanford defeats #8 URI. Stanford loses to #2 Kentucky. Analysis: overperformed
1999: Stanford #2 defeats #15 Alcorn State. Stanford loses to #10 Gonzaga. Gonzaga eventually loses to #1 UConn in the Elite Eight. Analysis: slightly underperformed
2000: Stanford #1 defeats #16 South Carolina St. Stanford loses to #8 UNC. UNC eventually loses to Florida in the Final Four. Analysis: slightly underperformed
2001: Stanford #1 defeats #16 UNC-Greensboro. Stanford defeats #9 St. Joseph's. Stanford defeats #5 Cincinnati. Stanford loses to #3 Maryland. Maryland loses to #1 Duke in the Final Four. Analysis: slightly underperformed
2002: Stanford #8 defeats #9 Western Kentucky. Stanford loses to #1 Kansas. Analysis: met expectations
2003: Stanford #4 defeats #13 San Diego. Stanford loses to #5 UConn. UConn loses to #1 Texas in the Sweet Sixteen. Analysis: met expectations
2004: Stanford #1 defeats #16 UT San Antonio. Stanford loses to #8 Alabama. Alabama loses to UConn in the Elite Eight. Analysis: underperformed
So by my count, Monty's teams underperformed 2X, slightly underperformed 3X, met expectations 4X, slightly overperformed 1X and overperformed 2X. Definitely doesn't look the resume for the so-called fourth-worst NCAA tournament coach in the past 30 years.
If there's one thing people have learned in Berkeley, it's that you can't put "Cal football" and "Rose Bowl" in the same sentence. The words just don't fit. You'd be better off linking "covered wagons" with "Mars travel." (Bruce Jenkins, Cal '70, SF Chronicle, Nov. 11, 2017)