The Mike Montgomery Shove

Duke was unanimous No. 1 entering the tournament. That was the sandwich year between the 1999 runner-up that got gutted by the NBA draft and the 2001 championship team that was clearly not better than Southern Cal. But Chris Carrawell stepped up as possibly the most out-of-nowhere (and undeserving) ACC player of the year ever, Shane Battier emerged as an elite player (who probably was better than Carrawell) and Jay Williams might have been the best freshman in the country.

Florida's 1999 recruiting class was viewed as the best, but while Donnell Harvey, Brett Nelson, Matt Bonner and Justin Hamilton were disappointing as a whole, Duke brought in Williams, Carlos Boozer and Mike Dunleavy.

 

The fact that the 2000 Final Four included No. 8 seeds and football schools, it fortold the unpredictable future that college hoops is now.

Stanford beat Duke in November of '99 at MSG, then again the following year in Oakland. Comes back to my point about Monty: His teams peaked early and lost too many big games in March.

 

I'm surprised that UF class was rated better, even at the time...

 

It was probably the most unlikely Final Four until the one with VCU a couple years ago...

 

It's not like it's a conscious decision by a third party to say coaches are different. It doesn't happen as much at the big programs, but at many levels coaches try to foster a family atmosphere. They'll even sell that to a recruit. Some coaches are really good at this. It's not the kind of thing you see as often with professors or bosses.

Again, not excusing acting like a bully asshole and physically assaulting someone, which I don't think any sane person will agree with.

 

That's not a shot at them at all... That was such a great Final Four with a No. 8 and a No. 11 there...

 

Harvey was the consensus No. 1 player in the country, and Nelson was in the top 10. Duke was No. 2, though. Kentucky brought in Keith Bogans, Marquis Estill and Marvin Stone in the prototype Tubby Smith class of guys who were big names but not particularly big talents but stayed long enough to do well.

 

Don't let this controversy distract you from the obvious: The Pac-10/12 has become an absolutely shitty basketball conference.

 

This stuff used to happen all the time. John Chaney was famous for it. As were others.

When I played high school football some 30 years ago, we had a coach who would routinely grab a player's facemask and shout at them like a Marine Corp. drill sargeant. No one made a big deal out of it and over the course of the season, it happened to just about every player on the team.

 

I remember on the Mark Mangino thread a few years ago, somebody said most people would be shocked if they saw what happened in a Division I football or basketball practice.

 

I find it doubly interesting that folks here rage against anyone putting their hands on a child on one thread - then go along with it on another because, well, it's sports.