Whose NCAA 2021 basketball tournament loss hurt the most?
ESPN has an article on whose loss hurt the most, having us at #3, UCLA at #2, and VCU, who had to cancel their tournament because of the virus at number 1. Sure UCLA is hurt and disappointed, but they were playing with house money; they weren't even supposed to be in the Final Four. I could be biased, but Michigan, as a number 1 seed was favored to be there, made it to the Elite Eight, to shoot themselves in the foot like they did, still have a chance to win, and just fail, would be more painful. I saw the backend of the Rutgers game, that one definitely should have been ranked higher just based on how they were up comfortably with 5 or so minutes to go and then imploded and lost it at the end. Would you put Ohio State's loss higher? Any losses stick out to you guys.
https://www.espn.com/mens-college-basketball/story/_/id/31160535/the-march-madness-pain-index-2021-ncaa-tournament-losses-hurt-worst
Rank order of loss pain:
1. Michigan
2. Michigan
3. Michigan
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66. Everyone else.
And Michigan State's loss doesn't count since it wasn't officially a tourney loss
Not sure, but I can tell you the three losses that felt the best.
1. MSU (but they really didn't make the tourney)
2. tOSU (blow me 1VaBlue1)
3. Who else?
3. UCLA
Illinois
ding ding
I guess that shows how much I give a shit about the puffery that comes out of Champaign. They weren't even on my radar for a loss to enjoy.
I mean, ours for sure sucked, but at least we made the Elite 8. I would think Rutgers, Illinois, and Ohio State both hurt more than we do. Rutgers absolutely choking away a Sweet 16 spot would have my top vote
But that was Rutgers’ first tourney appearance in 30 years. They won a game and nearly won another - even if they choked that away, they can’t be too bummed.
Illinois and Iowa have to be devastated. This was supposed to be their year.
Agree with everything you wrote. Disappointing way for Rutgers to go out, but they were, as the OP put it, playing with house money.
Illinois, OSU, and Iowa fans, on the other hand, must have felt like utter garbage after their early exits.
I wonder what the final polls will look like. UCLA made the final four, but I don't think they're one of the four best teams in the country. One of the four hottest? Absolutely.
It's been 16 years since Illinois won two games in an NCAA tournament.
I think VCU at 1 is correct. Covid cancellations suck.
I would have pegged first weekend upsets like Illinois, Purdue, OSU higher but I get why they put Michigan higher. Even after UCLA fought Gonzaga to the wire, I still cant resolve in my head that we lost to that UCLA team. It really took one of our worst offensive outputs for us to lose that game
It's pretty hard to rank these without knowing how the future shakes out. If Illinois goes back to being Illinois, they had a colossal failure by not even getting their past team in a decade plus to the sweet 16, same with Iowa. If both of those teams end up being good next year and have a good tourney run, then it's no big deal. It's like how everyone thought Virginia losing to UMBC was the biggest choke of all time, but then they won the title the next year. I guarantee most would take a national title and an embarrassing upset over no national titles and no upsets
The reason our loss doesn't hurt too much to me is that this is going to be our least talented team for awhile. It would be nice to add a second banner this year, but if that loss causes guys to come back who wouldn't necessarily have for a title run, then I think it's an overall plus.
Duke’s loss to...oh wait.
Frankly, after we lost Livers, I didn’t really see us as #1 seed. I just wanted to make it to the Sweet 16 and anything else was a bonus. Of course I’d like to have made the Final Four but I’m not devastated we didn’t. I feel we still had a good tournament.
I definitely would feel worse if I were a fan of Illinois, OSU or Iowa. They have nothing to show for this tourney.
Same here. The way we were playing at the end of the regular season and with the loss of Livers, I was happy to get through the first weekend. What made this sting was losing to a team that we should have beaten if everyone hadn't shit the bed at once with the final four in reach.
I agree.
Expectations matter. I had the team sized up as one with an Elite Eight ceiling. If they'd lost by ten to #2 seed Alabama I would've been much at peace.
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Looking at that list, the placement of Georgia Tech at #4 is ridiculous. I attribute it indirectly to Josh Pastner's genius for self-promotion, which extends back to his teen years. :) Lots of teams (including Michigan, obviously) were without key players in that tournament. Just because #8 Loyola knocked off Illinois doesn't mean that Josh's team, even at full strength, would've been able to do it.
Yeah, I was just hoping for the elite 8 but now with just an 11 seed UCLA between us and the final four I really wanted that W and we absolutely should've had it. I would've been perfectly content to get bludgeoned by Gonzaga at that point. Hang the Final Four banner and good times are ahead
This. I wanted to see Juwan hang up his own Final Four banner in Crisler. It should have happened.
I know what you mean about losing Isaiah, but after we beat LSU and FSU, especially FSU where most folks had us bowing out to them, it seemed we got over not having Isaiah. I was honestly looking forward to how we would do against Gonzaga. We shouldn't have lost that game. UCLA played us tough, give them props, but we just shot ourselves in the foot.
We beat LSU with career games from Brooks and Brown. I didn’t know how sustainable that was.
The FSU game was great but FSU has no halfcourt offense. To our credit, we dominated the game.
I expected UCLA to be a tough game, and it was. They fit the profile of teams that gave us trouble, with lots of lengthy, switching defenders. With Livers, sure, I think we definitely would have won that, but we didn’t have him.
I'm gonna sound like a hater, but I'm honestly tired of people giving UCLA so much credit. We lost that game ourselves and UCLA got absurd luck the entire tourney. People keep saying "how did people underrate UCLA" or whatever, but the truth is that I think they were appropriately rated and just had a good run with lots of luck
I would also add that I'd feel worse if I were an MSU fan. Not because of their basketball season, but just because I was an MSU fan, I would feel bad.
MSU fans have spent the last few weeks convincing themselves that losing a "play-in" game is considered making the tourney
The official record books will say it was a tourney appearance.
Frankly, after we lost Livers, I didn’t really see us as #1 seed. I just wanted to make it to the Sweet 16 and anything else was a bonus
I agree, but that UCLA loss was still rough and is hard to get over. It felt like a free Final Four, but we kept shooting ourselves in the foot down the stretch
Yeah, opportunities to make the Final Four by hitting just one open shot out of four in the last 12 seconds don't come around often. That hurts.
A top-8 team exiting in the first weekend is more painful - see Ohio State, Texas, and Illinois. Sure, being a 1-seed in the E8 going up against an 11-seed, and blowing a chance to win the game at the end is painful, but let’s add the context here. Michigan was playing without, arguably, their most important player. Michigan was picked to be upset not once, but twice, before making the E8. They ended up playing one of the worst games (offensively) that they had played all year and still had a chance to win at the end. Sure, it’s a disappointing loss, but I’m sure it’s a lot less painful than losing to Oral Roberts in the Rd64 or talking a load of trash and then getting blown the fuck out in the Rd32. Just my opinion of course.
Also, how could Oral Roberts and Oregon State be in the top-10 most painful losses? They had charmed runs to the Sweet Sixteen and Elite Eight respectively. It’s never fun to lose, but when you come in as double-digit seeds, just getting one tournament win is already a huge accomplishment. You’re usually playing a ‘better team’ in every game, so beating a few of those ‘better teams’ but then finally meeting your match should never feel that intolerably painfully.
Overall, bad list ESPN. Do better, but I know you won’t.
Texas lost to a team that couldn't score 70 points playing in an open gym by themselves.
As good as last night's UCLA-Gonzaga game was, the Texas-ACU game was just the opposite: an absolute trainwreck. ACU are what they are. Texas played awful basketball, somehow gave up 25 more opportunities at the basket in the game, and lost in the last seconds. That was easily the worst loss of the tournament.
There are probably plenty of folks in Texas who would argue that it was the best loss of the tournament because they got rid of Coach Smart.
Most impressive thing with UCLA was how they went from scoring 51 against Michigan and then 90 against Gonzaga. I did not think they had the ability to score like that.
Yeah, neither did I. That was by far UCLA's best performance of the tournament. It was the only way they even had a chance against a team like Gonzaga.
I guess I have a little egg on my face for calling them a fraud. They weren't a fraud, but they certainly were helped by a lot of luck in the tournament...and their luck finally ran out this time.
Sports are cruel sometimes. They won some games that they probably had no business winning...then they come up with that performance against the consensus #1 team in the country all year, only to lose to...a miracle backboard 40-foot 3.5-second buzzer beater? Yikes.
I didn't think Michigan's loss hurt that much because I didn't expect Michigan to be a 1-seed at the start of the season. The entire year was that team playing sweet, tasty mouse honey to unexpected heights. And as far as I'm concerned, Michigan WITH Livers beats UCLA and Gonzaga. AND next year's team should be significantly better.
Without Livers my expectations were lowered significantly. I just tried to enjoy the ride and damn was it enjoyable...until the team didn't show up against UCLA.
Michigan being anywhere near this list is ridiculous. Yes, they blew a golden opportunity, but they also made the Elite 8 without their most important player. That doesn't even compare to teams like OSU or Illinois.
UCLA almost beating Gonzaga made Michigan’s loss even more heartbreaking
Agree! Michigan was clearly a better team than UCLA. If any one of the starters had been able to put the ball in the hoop at their average rate UM would have won easily. If anyone had hit one more shot in the game it probably would have been a win. If the teams played 10 times UCLA wouldn’t win more than 1 or 2! But what hurts most is that after watching UCLA v Gonzaga you have to think M would have had a real chance to beat them. And a real chance to win it all.
Our loss doesn't hurt all that much. Realistically, throughout the season we've had players who are very hot and cold. We have a bunch of guys who could either have a serious impact or not show up any given night, and they showed up often enough for us to win a lot of games. I'm very happy that we made it to the Elite Eight and we had some very good overall efforts along the way. I'm also proud that on a bad night, we still kept it close enough to have a very good shot at winning.
Agreed on the Rutgers loss - that one is a killer for a team that doesn't get to the NCAA tournament very often. I can empathize with the UCLA loss too, it sucks to lose to an extremely lucky play like that. Then again, they had some lucky wins the entire way to the Final Four, so an honorable mention to literally anyone else they beat.
Illinois....after all the chest beating and demands to share the reg season title they fall FLAT on their face
Yep, just to get absolutely dismantled and out-coached by a team that they outclassed in almost every way
Honestly, I'm not smarting over our loss to UCLA that much anymore. Yeah it sucked, and yeah we definitely had our chances to win the game and just couldn't capitalize. But at the end of the day, Juwan pulled a rabbit out of a hat in leading this team to a B1G Championship, a #2 ranking, and an Elite Eight appearance. Juwan wasn't expected to hang a banner this soon. And unlike football losses to Ohio State and in bowl games, there's a sense that the program has a very bright future.
So, yeah. The UCLA loss sucked, but I wouldn't say it was deflating. We have Juwan, we have the top recruiting class in the country coming in, the transfer portal will be loaded, so we gon' be alright.
Absolutely. What kid in the transfer portal wouldn’t love to come play for Juwan? He will have his pick
To me, it's gotta be Ohio State as the worst way to end a season. You had a damn good year, probably the consensus #3 team in the Big Ten. Maybe things would have turned out differently if they beat Michigan in that barnburner game. But they lost, and then spiraled for a few games, but managed to recover in time for the BTT making all the way to the championship....only to lose in OT by 3 to Illinois. And then they got bounced by a 15-seed in the NCAA. So they have literally nothing to show for a pretty good season.
I mean a lot of people are saying Illinois, and that's a good answer, but at least Illinois has a BTT banner (for whatever that's worth).
It can't be Michigan. We have two banners in a year we weren't expected to do much of anything. The tournament loss only stings because we know they were capable of so much better than that. But there's nothing to be ashamed about.
Yea sorry I disagree. The season felt kind of over once livers went down. I was happily proven wrong longer than I anticipated
Agreed. A lot of posters were saying we would lose to LSU without Livers.
I mean, ours definitely hurts on a personal level for me, but if I am going to take a step back from my fandom for a second and look at the bracket in its entirety, you almost have to think that - relatively speaking - Illinois losing to Chicago-Loyola in a not exceedingly competitive way, or Rutgers pissing away a chance to be in a place they haven't been in ages....those probably suck on a visceral level for those fanbases. VCU having to withdraw probably hurts deeply for their fans, I would think - you do wonder then what could have been, I suppose.