Can Coach Beilein please just sit back and play this during his presser
Umm.. I don't know if that really applies anymore..
He doesn't need to do anything in his presser. His team is the Big Ten champion.
I love you.
(In the most non-creepy way possible)
He has nothing to prove, his team beat Sparty when it really mattered.
What do you mean when it mattered??! The Big Ten Tournament is the ultimate prize!!
/s
Seriously though, everyone says the conference tournament is meaningless until they win it. I'm not beating myself up over this, and thought the level of celebrating by Sparty was kind of weird given the way their season has gone but hey, they won. Good for them.
Over these four days, the conference tournament is everything. There's a trophy, you get a banner (it's not the banner, but hey, it's nice), everyone gets very into it. We would have been psyched, they're psyched.
But you cannot fucking tell me that the contest of three months isn't what it's all about versus the idea of who it is who can play three games in three days the best. That's just truth.
Is the BTT even worthy of its own banner? It seems more appopriate to have one BTT banner and just stitch all the years you win on it.
You know that you hang a banner whenever you can, lol. Those are the rules.
Yes, but does the average school actually raise a separate banner for each one of these?
I think so. I could be wrong, but I seem to recall us raising one for Tractor's team?
Great - We can hang a BTT banner but we have nothing to stitch on it so yeah it would have been nice to have won it and hang a banner. It especially sucks to lose it to them.
I can guarantee you that MSU fans' reaction would have been the same whether they'd beate us by 1 or by 30. No one really cares about margin of victory.
We won 2 of 3 - that's the bottom line.
They can think and say whatever the fuck they want for today.
But you can ask them whether it's more impressive to prove that you're the best team at actually winning a conference or if it's more impressive to show that you're the best team at playing three games in three days. Congratulations on winning the carnival, Sparty. You did earn it.
(and they still got annoyingly lucky getting a gassed and weak NW team in their first matchup)
The "contest of 3 months" is a better indicator of who the best team is, but it is NOT "what it's all about." Tournaments, namely March Madness, are what it's all about.
After 30 games over 3 months the NCAA decides its National Champion in 6 games over 3 weeks. It's what makes March Madness great, and it's why autobids go to the champion of a conference tournament that lasts 4 days. It's not a perfect system, but from the AAU to the NBA tournaments determine champions. Like it or not, tournaments matter. Its why MSU gets to hang a banner this season, and why we were National Runner-Ups last season.
March 16th, 2014 at 10:21 PM ^
Serious question - are you a Sparty troll?
Or just stupid?
Because if you don't understand the difference between the NCAA tournament, where 6 games are spread out over many weeks, or the NBA Finals, which takes, what, two months to play, and this - a freaking four day carnival game, well, you are seriously fucking stupid. Or trolling.
There are some things that need to be said about that game.
1) Sparty was the better team today. There's a lot that needs to be said about what we just saw, but they were the better team today.
2) Sparty definitely benefited from playing 2 1/2 games instead of 3. You can do all the tough internet guy bs, but if you couldn't see that our kids had no legs, you just don't know much about anything.
3) Hmm, I wonder what the better way is to determine the better team? 3 months, 2 games where a team actually has a chance to prepare and have their legs, or an attrition contest where it's the 3rd game in 3 days? Pretty obvious answer.
4) I'd like to congratulate the franken-refs. That was truly fucking special. Nice job combining bizarro-refereeing to decimate our front line in the first minutes and then to call much of that game as though this was old Big Ten rules. Absolutely bizarro vacillation between calling ticky tack stuff and allowing them to absolutely hammer us all game long.
Say what you want, but that was a bizarre, atrociously refereed game, and if you can't see that, you don't know a damn thing about basketball.
Sparty will foul their entire team out by half-time if they play like that in the tourney under normal CBB standards.
I just pray we get a Friday game.
This still sucks, I won't deny that, and I was rooting hard for Wisky because I wanted no chance for a Sparty redemption, but our kids just did not have the juice on day 3 and the refereeing in that game was complete bullshit.
If 18-20 year olds (and Grandpa Morgan) can't play 120 minutes over 3 days without losing their legs the strength and conditioning staff should be fired. But they can so they shouldn't be. If we need to rely on immeasurable (ergo impossible to disprove) statements that help justify the loss, let's go with "it's tough to beat the same team three times." That argument has more legs.
March 16th, 2014 at 10:23 PM ^
TROLLING ^^^^^^^^^
(or just very stupid)
I'm sorry if you couldn't see within the first five minutes that this team had no legs because you must spend a lot of time watching shit you don't understand.
Thank god Beilein wouldn't do something as pathetic as this.
Thank god Beilein wouldn't do something as pathetic as this.
Good lord, we couldn't throw it in the ocean in that game, lol.
Just hoping for a Friday game, move on from this, we didn't win the carnival game version but we won the most important contest, honestly, I don't know if we ever will be, but we just aren't built particularly well to play three games in three days. Two games in three days, we can handle, but 3 in 3, we're just not well-suited.
Our kids had very little in the tank here, which, I kind of feared would be the case. Two wars in games one and two were just fatal for today.
Hoping for a Friday game. Izzo basically sent his kids out there and told them to beat the shit out of our kids. If he could damage us for the real tournament, all the better. It was highly cynical, but that's what Staee does best. The refs let them hammer our cutters, foul liberally on the offensive boards, and basically mug us all game long. Except when the franken-refs would suddenly switch for a minute here or there to being overly officious. I resent that this was allowed to be such a violent game. That was out of control and it was bullshit. But it was a great fucking strategy, credit to them. It's on the refs, not Izzo.
March 16th, 2014 at 10:43 PM ^
I think the irony and the difference between the two coaches is hilarious. Beilein would never stoop to izzo's level, evidened by his halftime interview. I dont think sparty was the better team today. We were on the verge of getting off to a hot start just like we have done in the past few games. I hate to blame the refs, but theres to question they took us out early.
We have been playing with fire the past week or so with close games, today that caught up with us.
At the end of the day I just hope that we win our next six.
I think Sparty was the much better team today and I think the refs absolutely disgraced themselves today.
And I think them being the better team had a lot to do with them being better built to play three games in three days, as well as having a ridiculously lucky opening draw of NW, and also doing a great job against Wisconsin, where we went life and death.
What does it say?
Izzo whines about "not having his players."
The refs completely took a shit all over the game today, without question, but our team is not built for three wars in three days, and I just don't think we could have won, anyway.
And, yes, the first half officiating was bad overall, and bad for us.
Nobody is laughing at anything. This is too serious for your feeble attempt at humor. As in, humorous. BTW, I up voted you, cause. Neg away.