Arizona Humiliates Pac-10, Tournament, and Themselves

The Arizona Wildcats proved again why the NCAA selection process is flawed. Instead of quality, the NCAA went with a known commodity rather than going with a team more deserving to get into the tournament.

The NCAA never looked into the fact this is a team that was known for giving away big leads (twice against California, silly plays (two intentional fouls in the closing minutes and eventually ended up losing to UAB), and lastly very inconsistent.

Yes, Arizona had some quality wins over UCLA, Gonzaga, Kansas, and Pac-10 champions Washington. Let's put it this way, UCLA and Kansas were not the teams they were last year.

For UCLA players like Russell Westbrook, Kevin Love, and Luc Richard Mbah a Moute. Kansas lost Mario Chalmers and Brandon Rush.

So, it's obvious that even though those games were considered big wins these teams didn't have the talent they've had in previous seasons. The only win that could really be considered was Gonzaga.

This is also the team that was surprised they even made the tournament. A 19-13 record with a 9-9 conference record, and to show for the stretch run losing five of their last six games.

The only thing that got the Wildcats into the tournament, as I mentioned before, was the fact that they've known to be in the tournament for years. In fact, at the time it would have ended a streak of 24 straight appearances, but the NCAA wanted to put them into get it to 25 straight appearances in the tournament.

I can only imagine when Russ Pernell the coach of the Arizona Wildcats got the phone call from the selection committee stating the Wildcats were in. If he truly believed the Wildcats belonged in the tournament, he and his team wouldn't have been surprised about the pick.

What Pernell should have done instead was call back after mulling it over and the celebrations died down and could have stated this:

"We are not a team deserving to be in this tournament. We did not play well down the stretch losing five of six and I believe our team would benefit from playing in the NIT, than the NCAA tournament. The reason being is the team would gain more confidence for next year, rather than have the chance of losing big time in the tournament, and lastly there are more deserving teams than our team."

Of course, no coach is going to do that they would have to be out of their minds to say anything like that, yet the NIT is where the Wildcats belonged.

Now many will argue that they beat the number five seed Utah and beat Cleveland State in the next round. The Wildcats got a break when Cleveland State knocked off Wake Forest, otherwise they would have been knocked out by Wake Forest in a game similar to how Louisville knocked them out.

Yet, we know that Arizona made it through the first two rounds of the tournament. These Wildcats overachieved in the tournament they were a team that should have been knocked out in the first round of the tournament.

Now, onto what happened last night. The Arizona Wildcats had a date with destiny last night and when I mean destiny it was the team too not only knockout the Wildcats, but destroy the Wildcats and the Louisville Cardinals did just that.

In fact, only one Wildcat player even bothered showing up and that was Chase Budinger who went 9-15 from the field scoring 22 points, grabbing 3 rebounds, collecting 2 assists, and one blocked shot.

The rest Budinger's teammates went a combined 15 for 48 from the floor which is 31 percent.

At the end of the game, look at the Cardinals' numbers 103 points, 57.6 percent field goal shooting, 48.3 from beyond the arc, 42 rebounds, and 29 assists.

The Wildcats 64 points, 38.1 percent shooting, 29.2 percent from beyond the arc, 42 rebounds, and 15 assists. 

Even without seeing the game you can easily tell why the Wildcats got run out of the building. The Cardinals had 29 assists on the 38 shots that were made that's a percentage of 76 percent.

This tells me that the Wildcats had no defensive pressure on the ball whatsoever. Meaning that the Cardinals could get to a spot on the court at will and the Wildcats had no answer as the score indicates.

Even at halftime, the Wildcats were already down 49-28. After halftime the Cardinals never looked back and scored the most points of their season and in the Cardinals history this was the most lopsided win in their tournament history.

I had commented on Kevin Roberts's article on bleacher report, titled "Arizona Wildcats: A Team of Destiny" that, "The Pac-10 was not the Pac-10 of old. There was no solid team besides Washington and they got beat.

"So, yeah wave goodbye to Arizona. Louisville is the far talented team and Chase Budinger will have his hands full trying to defend Terrance Williams."

It started out at the top though when NCAA was selected for the tournament iwasn't really Arizona's fault that they were an average team at best. The NCAA continued to ignore the fact that like I mentioned above that the Pac-10 was not the Pac-10 of old.

Arizona was in the bottom of the conference standings at 9-9. You could have made an argument for five of the Pac-10 teams to get in, but when Arizona was added as the sixth then the NCAA became a joke and a lot of people realized that it was based on Arizona's reputation.

So, here's my thank you to Louisville. Thanks for running the Wildcats out of the building and humiliating them. Now Pac-10 fans can thank the Wildcats for humiliating the Pac-10. The Wildcats can now blame the NCAA for allowing them into the tournament, only to be humiliated by Louisville.

Even with the two victories in the tournament the Wildcats lost six of nine. With that being said, the NCAA has to stop basing their decisions on the past and look at what that teams is doing now.

If it continues to stay like it is today, then there will constantly be teams that were more deserving not getting in and humiliation to the teams that made it based on their reputation because those teams with the reputation didn't belong their in the first place.