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Message: <blockquote data-quote="The Bell Tolls for Thee" data-source="post: 131980791" data-attributes="member: 1812660">Don't be reductive by creating a false binary.  With automatic bids going to 16 seed level teams and a field of 68 teams, just "making it in" cannot be the sole criteria for judging if a team is quality or not.  Winning it all or making the Final Four equally can not be the sole judge of whether or not a team is quality against 350 total D1 programs.It is highly unlikely WVU ever fields a team like 2017-2018 Villanova, 1983-1984 Georgetown or 2014-2015 Kentucky (even though they didn't win it all) where the team is one of the heavier favorites to win the tournament.  However WVU could field a team like 1982-1983 NC State or 1984-1985 Villanova where if stars align with the right breaks at the right time, a title win or at least a real shot at the title is possible.  There have been several teams like the latter two I mentioned.  Some got bad breaks and were bounced early.  Some only got enough of a break to upset one of the heavier favorites early on in the tournament before getting a bad break.  2010 was one such team and it definitely had good breaks help them get to the Final Four. Beat 15 seed Morgan State to start.  Sweet 16 appearance by beating a typical 10 seed in Missouri unlike 2nd seed Wake Forest in 2005 or 2nd seed Duke in 2008 who met a WVU team hitting their stride coming out of a 7-10 first round game.  Got lucky that an 11 seed Washington team was the Sweet 16 match-up.  And then finally had a match where WVU was not the clear favorite in 1 seed Kentucky.  After getting past Kentucky, WVU hit the bad break of the bracket shaking out with 1 seed Duke rather than the more beatable 5 seeds in Butler and Michigan State on the other side.  Break was worse because Duke had its best shooting performance of the tournament against WVU.  Say Duke has a key player injured before the Final Four game with WVU.  Say WVU gets Michigan State or Butler in first game instead.  Say that then the 5 seed on the otherside matched up better with Duke and upset them.  Or say Duke won the other side of the Final Four, but having only 1 day to prepare for WVU worked more in WVU's favor.  Say playing Duke in the championship game was more manageable because they didn't shoot well above their average like they did in the semi final?The point is that the 2010 could've been bounced out in the first weekend if it got bad breaks.  It could've been bounced in the second weekend without favorable breaks.  And it could've won the Final Four with more favorable breaks.  Contrast that with the 2017-2018 WVU team that got good breaks just to get to the Sweet 16, but had enough weaknesses that no amount of good breaks would've pushed them to Final Four much less to championship.</blockquote>

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