Prescott;1598431 wrote:Shouldn't each of Izzo's final four teams be analyzed separately? I think he took (2) #5 seeds to the Final Four and his merits as a coach are being denigrated because he got those teams to overachieve. In both instances he eventually lost to a #1 seed. In one tournament run as a #5 his team defeated a #1 seed and a #2 seed just to get to the Final Four.According to some of you he would be more highly regarded as a coach if the #5 seeds performed like #5 seeds and lost in the 2nd round.
On the other hand, using this season as an example, one could argue that Tom Izzo's teams often
underachieve during the regular-season and therefore are given lower tournament seeds as a result of losing so many games. Then when he takes that low seed that everybody considered a favorite at the beginning of the year to the Final Four Izzo is praised for overachieving.
I am not saying all of his teams are legit championship contenders -- I am sure there are years in which Izzo really did overachieve with the talent he had -- but we should keep things in perspective.