Originally posted by normhead Anyone can get lucky and recruit the right 8 players
In a one game playoff, that's certainly true, although usually it is the team with 5 players working together for a solid defense that wins, not an underdog team shooting the lights out. My example is the 1983 Universiade Games in Edmonton. The U.S. had two national teams of college players, the A team with Michael Jordan was playing in Brazil, the B team with Charles Barkley was sent to Edmonton. On the Canadian side, only Jay Triano ever got to play in the NBA. Back then, Canadian college ball wasn't much better than American high school ball, but there was a pretty good program at UVic, and the Vikes head coach, Jack Donahue, was also coaching the national team. In the warmup for the gold medal game, the Americans put on a shooting and slam-dunking clinic, but relentless pressure from the Canadians kept it close enough until the last minute to end up winning by a few points.
For all the sudden death drama of March Madness, no school makes it to the tournament without having a top notch program for a long time. UMBC just got a big recruiting boost for the next 5-10 years, regardless of how deep they go this year.