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Message: [QUOTE="billsin01, post: 1718309, member: 837"] I know it's not fun but I'm in this boat. I can't really speak to anything before '87, but if you take it since that season, it's really not a bad resume at all. 87 -- lose on a last second shot in the title game. Painful but incredible season. 88 -- Loss to Rhode Island. Bad loss 89 -- Loss to Illinois in the Elite 8. Obviously winnable as it was a close game but that was a really good team. No shame in that loss. 90 -- Loss to Minny in the sweet 16. Not a good loss but a sweet 16 ain't terrible. 91 -- Richmond. What can you say. Terrible. 92 -- Loss to Umass, 2nd rd. Cuse a 6, Umass a 3. Not a bad loss. 94 -- Tough loss to a good Mizzou team in the Sweet 16. Fine season. 95 -- About as close as you get to pulling a big upset but it doesn't work out vs. Arkansas. 96 -- title game loss to UK 98 -- Loss to Duke in sweet 16. 1 vs. 5 -- not surprising. 99 -- L to Oklahoma State in Rd. 1. 8/9 game -- not surprising. 00 -- hammered by dominant eventual champion MSU team in sweet 16. 01 -- Second round beatdown by Kansas. Not that surprising, though it was ugly. 03 -- Title 04 -- sweet 16. crappy loss to Alabama but it was a 5/8 game so no major upset and it's still a sweet 16 05 -- Vermont. Brutal. 06 -- 5/12 upset vs. A&M. Bad loss but crazy run through BET to win it and that team may have been entirely spent by that point. 09 -- Loss to OU in the sweet 16. OU plays lights out and runs away with it. Loss to a 2-seed is not shocking. 10 -- L to Butler in Sweet 16. Hurts but Onuaku out and Brad Stevens is a freaking good coach. Not terrible, IMO. 11 -- Loss to 11-seed Marquette. Sucks, but not shocking. Not an ideal matchup. 12 -- OSU loss in elite 8 13 -- Final Four 14 -- L to Dayton. Bad loss but they end up in the elite 8 and have averaged more than 25.5 wins the past three seasons. Hardly shocking. So JB's resume looks like this: [B]Terrible losses[/B] 88 -- Rhode Island 91 -- Richmond 05 -- Vermont [B]Not great losses (not inexcusable but you'd like to have back)[/B] 90 -- Minny 11 -- Marquette 14 -- Dayton [B]Losses with asterisks[/B] 06 -- A&M (BET title probably took a bunch out of that team) 10 -- Butler (Onuaku) 12 -- OSU (Melo) [B]Meh[/B] 92 -- Umass 99 -- Oklahoma State 01 -- Kansas [B]Pretty solid runs[/B] 89 -- Illinois 94 -- Mizzou 95 -- Nearly take down Arkansas (national runners up) 98 -- Duke loss 00 -- MSU loss 04 -- Alabama (not sure how to rank this one. It sucks but it's not terribly shocking and it's a sweet 16) 09 -- OU sweet 16. Ugly loss, but not crazy. [B]Final Fours/Titles[/B] 87 -- near miss 96 -- out of nowhere 03 -- title 13 -- Sort of out of nowhere 16 -- insane. So I don't know. I look at a lot of JB's criticism really stemming from the Richmond and Rhode Island losses as well as the fact that his team didn't quite pull too many upsets like we've seen the past few years with knocking off a 1 in IU and then a 1 in UVA this season. Knocking off Kansas in 96 was pretty impressive as well. But the bottom line is I'd say he's had 14 seasons with a really good run or at least a solid run with a loss to a really good team. He's had three tournaments that weren't exciting but weren't surprisingly bad in any way either (92/99/01). That leaves 6 NCAA tournaments that have left a distinct impression of underachievement (in terms of pre-tournament expectations). Hard to come up with an excuse for Rhode Island, Richmond or UVM. So those are three stinkers. But I don't know about others here, I wasn't surprised by Dayton in 14 or Marquette (in the least) in 11. Not great losses but I struggle to call them atrocious losses. i think they're losses that happen from time to time in this tournament. Don't really remember Minny but obviously a disappointing loss. I don't know. I really think JB's overall record is better than people think, at least if you believe that he's lost to some really good teams along the way. I can't help but feel like Richmond and Rhode Island have colored people's perceptions for a long time. [/QUOTE]

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