I know Florida stumbled badly down the stretch last year, but I was curious if there is any correlation to conference tournament winners and National Championships. In other words, does it really matter if you win your conference tournament?

One of you monkeys go check this out and post the findings here.

tia

uh, Florida WON their conference tournament last year.

Nobody has ever lost in their first conference tournament game and then gone on to win the NC.

UNC lost in the semi's 2 years ago after coming from 15 down in the quarters against last place Clemson.

UNC stormed through the ACC in '94 en route to back to back NC's...except they lost in the 2nd round of the dance to BC, breaking a string of 14 straight Sweet 16's.

in the last 8 years (1999 forward), 5 of the eventual National Champs won their conference tournament:

Florida-06
UConn-04
Duke-01
Mich State-00
UConn-99

All 3 teams of the teams that didn't win their conference tournament (UNC-05, Syracuse-03, and Maryland-02) won the conference regular season title (or were 1 seeds in their conference tournament) and each team lost in the semi-finals of their conference tournament.

Still looking for SEC tournament info so I can go back further than 1999.

okay found the SEC stuff.

1998 - Kentucky won NC. Also won SEC tournament and regular season.
1997 - Arizona won NC. There was no Pac-10 Tournament. Did not win Pac-10 Regular Season
1996 - Kentucky won NC. Did not win SEC tournament, but won SEC regular season.
1995 - UCLA won NC. There was no Pac-10 Tournament. Did win Pac-10 Regular Season.

Going back to 1995, the only team to win the national championship without winning their conference or their conference tournament was Arizona in 1997.

Since 1995, there has been 12 National Champions. Only 4 of those national champs lost in their conference tournament. All 4 of the teams that lost in their conference tournament ALSO won their conference regular season title. (The Pac-10 did not have a conference tournament in 1997).

There's always time for a first!

Billy said we were the streak breakingest school- "unfortunately" - so this will be just one more streak we break for the good.

Good work, monkeys. I still believe we can win it all. We needed the extra rest anyway.

quote:

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UNC stormed through the ACC in '94 en route to back to back NC's...except they lost in the 2nd round of the dance to BC, breaking a string of 14 straight Sweet 16's.

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unc has never won the ncaa tourney back to back.

hth

I thought BCG said his practices are designed so that the games are less strenuous. I'd have prefered that we keep playing in the Big 12 just for that.

That is EXACTLY what I said. Everybody in America had picked them to repeat in '94, with the same crew back from '93, plus Stackhouse and Wallace. But somebody forgot to tell BC...

Sheesh, I went to UNC - and after T.A.-ing for a year, I definitely saw the need for some more remedial reading courses.

i did too. the way you wrote the first part made it sound like you were saying that the heels won back to back. that's why i replied with my last post. you still in the area?