The Holy Land of Hoops

You think as Villanova fans we aren't upset and heartbroken about what happened? We really had a feeling that this was our year, not to win the tournament, but to at least get back to the Elite 8 or Final Four like 2009. In the last 6 years we have been to the tournament 5 times, and every one of those times we made an earlier than expected exit and it has been painful. We get it.

Jay, despite having a few Sweet 16s, an Elite 8 and a Final Four under his belt over the last decade has done very well as a coach, but the last half a decade he deserves the criticism he receives as far as Villanova's tournament performance.

BUT, the point of this thread, and I am not going to call out particular teams, is none of you have the right to start with the "VILLANOVA EMBARRASSED US" nonsense, especially those whose teams have done VERY little over the last decade the way Villanova has. Besides Xavier, this tournament has not been great for any other Big East teams. Butler played ND tough, but trust me, that will get forgotten quickly soon. This is a group effort as far as keeping the Big East relevant and considering only ONE Big East team made the Sweet 16 this year, we fell short as a group.

I am sorry we are all disappointed but Villanova is not the big brother of the conference that is going to bail everybody else out when we don't do well. Villanova has work to do as well. We overachieved the last 2 regular seasons. We have good players but on our last 2 rosters there is arguably not a single pro. Remember that. We are all disappointed but again, Villanova is not going to save the conference alone, they have their own demons to exercise, we need to do it together.

DISCLAIMER: I know Villanova hasn't been thrown under the bus too much on this particular board, but trust me, I go to other messageboards and have taken note what is being said. Again, I am not calling out any teams here, but is laughable when certain other programs in the Big East are calling Villanova an embarrassment. POT CALLING KETTLE......

I'm not seeing a lot of that here and your post does the same thing in reverse calling out teams that don't carry their weight while Nova does the heavy lifting. The fact is no one has yet to step forward to carry the Big East banner far other than Xavier who will be the first Sweet 16 team of the new Big East. We all rooted for Nova to go far - everyone needs to relax.

I guess you didn't read the disclaimer. Maybe you should read this thread from redmen.com to see what I was talking about since I kind of made it clear I wasn't talking about this board in particular.

http://redmen.com/forum/4-redmentalk/43 ... tournament

PS - I wasn't just talking about St. John's fans here either. That wasn't the point of this thread. The only reason I used the redmen.com example is because you are an SJU fan and to show you that it is coming from all over. I know we were all rooting for everybody but trust me, Villanova is the one taking the most criticism right now. Deservedly? Probably, but it is not hard to dissect a team and say that they didn't do this or they didn't do that.

Well, when you post it on here in the manner you did you are addressing this board and the posters on here - not the one where you read it. It's like offending someone and saying - but no offense. Your message was very clear - no offense.

Jay does NOT deserve the criticism he has received unless you can point to a coaching decision that cost his team a game. The fact is that he got his team'sto the tournament. At some point, the players have to win the games. But they're college kids, so I'm not going to criticize them either.

Jay Wright is a class act, who is committed to the university, and you're lucky to have him at Villanova regardless of his tournament record.

Nova had a poor shooting night and still had a chance to win. Nova is a terrific team that had a bad night. It is that simple.

I don't get the Jay bashing either, much of it coming off Nova boards. They had a bad game at the wrong time. It happens. So this loss makes the seaosn a disappointment? A disappointing ending sure, but certainly not a disappointing season. Jay is a good coach and a Big East guy. He gets the league and what it means to be a part of it.

Piratefan wrote:Nova had a poor shooting night and still had a chance to win. Nova is a terrific team that had a bad night. It is that simple.

Well, a valid point is that a team that relies as heavily on 3-pointers as Villanova does is more likely to have an off night and more likely to suffer from it when it does than other teams. We saw the same thing in last year's tournament with Creighton.

Thanks guys. Appreciate the love. Truth is Villanova fans realized how important it was for the Big East for Villanova to do well so you feel a lot of pressure and when you fall short it sucks and you feel like you disappointed but I guess you still hate to get called out because of it.