Your Valuation of Postseason vs Regular Season
I have a couple of offseason threads that I wanted to start and this is one of them.
How do you personally value the postseason versus wins in the regular season?
For me, I would obviously give up anything before the tournament for an NCAA title. If we literally lost every game in the regular season, then ran through the ACC Tournament before winning it all, I would take that. On the other end, nothing would make up for missing the NCAA tournament completely, not even winning the NIT.
The first is a rather extreme scenario and thankfully the second has not really been a fear recently, but how about in between? I must say that I am not one of those people who values losing later in the tournament that much more than losing early. I would probably trade a win against an ACC team that I do not care about for an additional win in the tournament, but not more than a few. Assuming they would not win either tournament or the ACC regular season, I would rather sweep UNC and lose in the NCAA first round than lose to them twice and lose in the national final for instance.
To try to place a figure on it, I would trade a win in the first round through the national semifinal for about two ACC regular season wins and one ACC tournament win (not including the final or a rivalry loss). I might take two tournament wins in exchange for a minor rivalry loss. I might settle for a regular season split with UNC for four tournament wins or so, but I would not take being swept by them in exchange for winning the ACC tournament and losing in the NCAA Final.
How about you? Do you highly value advancing additional rounds of the NCAA Tournament in comparison to regular season or ACC Tournament accomplishments? Do you feel much better about losing in the final versus the semifinal versus the Elite Eight versus the Sweet Sixteen?
Better Seasons than Final Four Seasons?
I racked up all the seasons since 1984 and counted NCAA wins, ACC record, and ACC champions.
It was a bit of work but insightful.
The question is, do any of the non-Final Four seasons measure up to any of the 12 Final Four seasons? Here are the best tests of that.
The 1989 Final Four team (big win over Georgetown in the regional finals) was 9-5 in the ACC (0.643) and lost to UNC in the ACC finals.
There are two obvious challengers. The 2000 team was 15-1 in the ACC and won the championship. The team won its first two matches but lost in the regional semis to Florida -- this team had a short bench and Mike Dunleavy was suffering from mono.
Then there is the 14-2 2006 team that won the ACC championship. JJ's final team lost to LSU in the regional semis.
A third might be the 1998 team, 15-1 in the ACC, that almost made the Final Four, giving up a big lead over Kentucky in the regional finals. This team lost to UNC (Jamison and Carter) in the ACC finals.
I would rate the 2000 and 2006 team as better (more rewarding to this fan) than the 1989 team -- but look at the trade-off: ACC champions and a much, much higher conference winning percentage.
With respect to the other years -- most teams with good NCAA results had good conference records, so winning goes along with winning.