04-01-2015, 05:34 PM
The only "significantly underperforms" in Monty's NCAA resume is Alabama.
But in the Gonzaga loss, Stanford was without one of the Collins twins, the game was at Seattle, and Gonzaga turned out to bet the second best team in the tourney that year - they just had the misfortune of playing UConn (eventual winner) in Elite 8, and they played them far tougher than did anyone else that year.
UNC hurt, but it was not that unexpected, frankly. I was at that game in Birmingham and indeed, spoke to assistant coaches after UNC won its first round game to set up matchup with Stanford. Their reaction real time: worst possible matchup for Stanford. t was the classic "Montgomery prepares his teams well and they perform up to potential early and thus get a high NCAA seed" vs. "massively talented and underperforming UNC team putting it together in NCAA tourney." It also helped that Peppers was playing football out there for UNC (refs let him) while Stanford was playing basketball.
Alabama - no rationalization/explanation for that one. It hurt. Plain and simple. I'm not sure I'll ever recover from FT differential in that one, or the fact that Stanford should have won that game and then smoked Boeheim's Syracuse team.
P.S. I also disagree with aforementioned "rap" being Monty couldn't prepare his team for an opponent on shortened time in a Tourney. I just think that's a crock. Monty had his shortcomings (see blind eye on a certain guard over Julius Barnes), but game prep was most definitely NOT one of them.
But in the Gonzaga loss, Stanford was without one of the Collins twins, the game was at Seattle, and Gonzaga turned out to bet the second best team in the tourney that year - they just had the misfortune of playing UConn (eventual winner) in Elite 8, and they played them far tougher than did anyone else that year.
UNC hurt, but it was not that unexpected, frankly. I was at that game in Birmingham and indeed, spoke to assistant coaches after UNC won its first round game to set up matchup with Stanford. Their reaction real time: worst possible matchup for Stanford. t was the classic "Montgomery prepares his teams well and they perform up to potential early and thus get a high NCAA seed" vs. "massively talented and underperforming UNC team putting it together in NCAA tourney." It also helped that Peppers was playing football out there for UNC (refs let him) while Stanford was playing basketball.
Alabama - no rationalization/explanation for that one. It hurt. Plain and simple. I'm not sure I'll ever recover from FT differential in that one, or the fact that Stanford should have won that game and then smoked Boeheim's Syracuse team.
P.S. I also disagree with aforementioned "rap" being Monty couldn't prepare his team for an opponent on shortened time in a Tourney. I just think that's a crock. Monty had his shortcomings (see blind eye on a certain guard over Julius Barnes), but game prep was most definitely NOT one of them.