Words of Wisdom from a NCAA championship coach

[WarriorDad]

His words struck true to me.  This isn't a coach that is playing a victim card because he never won, this is from someone that has won it all, been to multiple Final Fours, but also has tasted early defeat. 

The tournament anything can happen.  It's a one and done situation, and all too often the best team isn't standing at the end.  Nice praise for Tony Bennett here and a few others.  Tiger Woods thrown in there for good measure. 

Here is what he had to say.  Worth the read in my opinion.

EDIT:  Coach is Jim Boeheim. 

That group of people, if there really is a group like that, probably are unemployed or idiots, never went to school. Or they're really, really smart lawyers and doctors that think they know everything and really, in reality, probably know what they're doing and know nothing else.

And Tony Bennett is in my top two or three coaches in the country by far. Unfortunately, in our business, it's all about the tournament when you're a good team. When you just get in, like now I'm a great coach. I'm, crap, I'm no better than I was two weeks ago. But, oh, you won two games, he must be really -- no, nothing to do with that.

I've seen coaches win games in this tournament, two, three, four games and they're terrible coaches. Things just went right. And it's what you do over the course of 35 games that determines what kind of coach you are. You win 17 games in the ACC, win the ACC Tournament? He's got -- I think he's got one guy who was hurt that will be an NBA player. The other guys are -- they're pretty good. There's a couple. They may sneak in. I don't know. They may sneak in there.

But he's won the ACC against Duke and North Carolina what four or five years? I don't know what it is. It's beyond even trying to understand it. With maybe two recruits in the top 40. And he's playing against 15 guys on each team over those period of time that were in the top 20 or top 10 or top 5 in wins? Come on. It's one game. It's one game.

I can, no, I can't -- but a reasonably good player on the pro tour can beat Tiger Woods in one round. When he was in his peak he got beat a lot.

This is college basketball. I saw the Spurs get beat in their first game of the playoffs one year. They won the championship. Golden State, I think, got beat in the first game. They won the championship. It's one-and-done. You're off your game a little bit, you know, and it's not that, like, people will say, they're just good in the regular season they're not good -- that's just stupid. That's just stupid.

You look at every year they've lost -- and I'm not going to recite the whole thing, but they lost to Michigan State in the Garden when Michigan State had a great team. I don't remember all the other ones. But, I mean, you play in this tournament, you're going to get beat.

Pittsburgh, they didn't like their coach because he didn't win the tournament. They're doing really good now, aren't they, in Pittsburgh? I know all those people were yelling, too. They wanted him out.

They pay this guy about $10 million, which they're trying to renege on, which is great for a university to do, you have a signed contract with a guy and then say, well, he yelled at his players. That's -- 350 coaches are going to get fired tomorrow for that.

Come on, the tournament is -- I've lost in this tournament, everybody has. I've looked at the list of bad losses, and I couldn't believe we weren't even on it. But Mike Krzyzewski has lost, I've lost, Roy Williams has lost, Bill Self has lost. Dean Smith lost. There's nobody that hasn't lost.

I think you could easily make the case that Tony Bennett's way overachieved in the regular season and they played like they probably are in the tournament. You could possibly make that case. This year's a little aberration, obviously. That was a bad -- but the other losses, you know, it's a tough tournament.

And really good coaches, good teams get beat. Tom Izzo is one of the best tournament coaches ever, and I sat there two years ago and watched Middle Tennessee beat them. They played a perfect game. We beat Middle Tennessee the next game by 30, by 30. It's just basketball.

We lost to Vermont and the next day Tom Izzo, next game Tom Izzo beat Vermont by 20. It's just the game. It's a crazy game and the tournament's a crazy thing. We all know that. We all say that, but then we don't follow through on that.

If I could hire a coach in this country and I could get Tony Bennett, there would be nobody in second place. Nobody. He's kicked our ass every time we've played him except we got lucky once.

[rocky_warrior]

Did you forget to add that the tournament is a crapshoot?

Oh, and that Jim Boeheim wrote this.

Link, for those interested.
http://www.syracuse.com/orangebasketball/index.ssf/2018/03/syracuse_coach_jim_boeheim_on_critics_of_tony_bennett_probably_unemployed_or_idi.html

[JoeSmith1721]

Boeheim might be a massive prick but he is spot on with this.

[WarriorDad]

Boeheim might be a massive prick but he is spot on with this.

He is and he is.  He's a HOF coach for a reason and could not be more right on this in my opinion.

[Marcus92]

He is right. And that's also what makes the NCAA tournament so special. You almost never see spectacular upsets in the NBA; can you imagine the Golden State Warriors going down in the first round last season? A seven-game series helps ensure that the best teams advance. The "one and done" nature of the Big Dance gives every game the ultimate urgency (not to mention the fact that a pro-style format would be totally unpractical for students).