Doug Gottlieb has to be one of the most biased sports analysts. For two weeks now he has trashed West Virginia's out of conference play and talked about their not so meaningful wins in conference. Did he forget what conference WV plays in? WV plays in one of the toughest conferences in basketball, if not the toughest. Even the lesser teams in the Big East are big wins compared to the SEC.
Before the West Virginia-Providence game this afternoon, Doug was ranting on and on about why West Virginia still is not a lock into the tournament, UNLESS they win the first game of the Big East tournament. Which they did. While on the other hand everyone else with ESPN was saying that WV was already in as far as they could tell.
At halftime of the Big East matchup Gottlieb started talking about how bad WV was playing, while others pointed to the fact that it was still a tie game no matter how bad they have played. The other experts still thought WV would make the tournament even with a loss, mainly because the losses that WV incurred were close against good teams.
Well, this was when the uniformed Gottlieb had to open his trap. He started talking about how close games didn't matter and a loss was a loss no matter what. He said the two point loss to Tennessee, the one point loss to Georgetown (on a missed goaltending call), the one point loss to Pitt (on a last second three-pointer from Ronald Ramon) and a double overtime loss to Oklahoma were just as bad as the big losses to Cincy or UConn. I beg to differ, but that is beside the point. As I previously mentioned West Virginia beat Providence and has moved onto the quarterfinals to face UConn. So, surly they are in the Tournament NOW right, Gottlieb?
Nope, Gottlieb starts running the rant machine again after the game was over and said that West Virginia was still NOT in the tournament. Guess what his explanation was now, you will never believe it.
Doug said that since West Virginia had so many close wins and barely beat St. Johns in the season closer and then struggled today against Providence, that any one of the PAC-10 bubble teams should be in before them.
WELL, Mr. Gottlieb, you CONTRADICTED. First you say that WV will not be in because a loss is a loss no matter what. Even if you lose to the No. 1 team by two points it's the same as losing to the No. 43 team by 25 pts. THEN, you say after WV wins that they shouldn't be in BECAUSE they struggled in a few wins late in the year. Well, Gottlieb if a LOSS is a LOSS, then a WIN is a WIN right?
Go find a new career. You are hated by so many that you are now a joke at the work place.
Ask West Virginia coach Bob Huggins, who owns 613 more college basketball victories than Gottlieb, his opinion on the Mountaineers’ chances at making the Big Dance and he says it’s a no-brainer.
“I don’t know how any team that wins 11 games in this league is not an NCAA Tournament team,” Huggins said after West Virginia’s three game sweep of Providence Wednesday afternoon in the first round of the Big East Tournament.
Huggins has a unique perspective of the process having once coached on the mid-major level at Akron for five years.
“I know how hard those people work at it,” said Huggins. “But the reality is if it’s the 34 best teams, put them in our league and see how many they win.”
Huggins coached in the Big 12 last year at Kansas State and he believes the Big East is as tough, if not tougher, night in and night out than any conference in the country.
“This has got to be as hard a league as there is in the country,” he said. “What makes it even harder is having 16 teams. So you prepare for 15 different styles of play throughout the season.”
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from 2 months ago
Gottlieb can be tough to take sometimes - but I do like how he takes a contrarian viewpoint and doesn't follow the crowd. Now, he can't have it both ways in criticizing a team for a close win to a lesser team but giving it no credit for a close loss to a quality opponent. He definitely deserves some criticism for that hypocritical line of thinking.
But I think his main point about WVU was this: let's not be so fast to grant them lock status because when you put their resume under a microscope it's not that impressive. Sure, they beat Marquette and Pitt and were competitive in several other contests but most teams vying for bids have at least 1 or 2 decent wins to point to, if not more.
Another point: I'm growing tired of these coaches going on and on about "how they can't see their team being left out because they have X amount of conference wins". With unbalanced scheduling, conference wins don't mean what they use to, especially if you play the cupcakes teams twice.
from 2 months ago
Quote: "Another point: I'm growing tired of these coaches going on and on about "how they can't see their team being left out because they have X amount of conference wins". With unbalanced scheduling, conference wins don't mean what they use to, especially if you play the cupcakes teams twice."
I don't know any cupcake teams in the Big East maybe a few struggling but no cupcakes, there are no North Westerns or Michigans. Remember, you are talking about playing some pretty good teams more than once.
from 2 months ago
Rutgers, St. John's, USF... sound like cupcakes to me
from 2 months ago
Wow...3 teams out of 16 that still leaves 13 other good teams in conference to play, I believe that is still more than any other conference.
from 2 months ago
I think that West Virginia will make the tournament, how far will they go though? This is matters which WV team shows up, the one that shoots 20% or the one that shoots 48%. But besides that I think you are right Ryan the Big East has some major opponents but the PAC-10 is a great conference as well. I would say they are the two strongest conferences as of now.
Go Buckeyes!
from 2 months ago
Doug Gottlieb must be an idiot! No quality wins? What about Marquette and Pitt? The Big East is one of the toughest conferences to make it through especially with a winning conference record. Just because you played for a Big 12 school doesn't mean Oklahoma ever had a chance of making it through the Big East Schedule with a 500 record.
Lets Go Mountaineers!
from 2 months ago
I think that West Virginia will make the tournament, how far will they go though? This is matters which WV team shows up, the one that shoots 20% or the one that shoots 48%. But besides that I think you are right Ryan the Big East has some major opponents but the PAC-10 is a great conference as well. I would say they are the two strongest conferences as of now.
Go Buckeyes!
from 2 months ago
Just so you know the comment above. I was signed out because my cousin which is a buckeye fan was here and wanted to give his .02 cents worth. So it reposted this when I logged in for some reason.
from 2 months ago
Yeah, you are right the PAC-10 is a great conference, "the greatest" conference, WV would have to shoot 72 percent to beat any PAC-10 team. But I do agree with you about the SEC being weak this year. and for your Buckeye fan cousin, "LSU and Florida says, hello."
from 2 months ago
Well, you can say what you want but it is the truth, my cousin was here before he went to work this evening. He didn't want to post under my name as it would look weird. So, I told him he could just post it without a name, which he did. He was gonna make a name but he doesn't have an email account.
We all know that it will re post once you sign in again. But I didn't have a choice I didn't know if it would or not. But frankly I give to shits less what your pussy fagot ass thinks. You are no man or you would let me know who you are. I would own you, you punk ass bitch.
from 2 months ago
I think WV is an OK team, personally I think they will get there butt handed to them today against UConn. I remember the last game they played, do you?
Hey WV fans do you remember a team by the name of Pitt? LOL!
from 2 months ago
Well, I wonder what Gootlieb has to say now after WV owned UConn the entire game. Watch out Hoyas you might be next.
from 2 months ago
I think it is crazy when a team goes to the Tournament and they are not even a .500 team in their conference. You can make all the arguments you want for Arizona, but they do not deserve to be in the tournament.
West Virginia should have been in the tourney even if they went 10-8 in conference and lost in the opening round. They are pretty good . . . They out played UConn last night. Alexander is a terrific athlete . . . Stanley Robinson is similar for UConn. Hopefully Robinson will have a similar year to Alexander next year for UCONN.
from 2 months ago
I agree. I think Arizona State deserves to be in over Arizona, but I still think Arizona played lights out the other night.
Why was everyone so hard on WV saying that they are not a lock even after beating UConn but Ohio State still can get in after losing again today?
from 17 days ago
He does it for the drama and to get hits to his sorry ass reports
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