GrizBear said:
Some of you will be getting a big dose of reality soon.
Great win by the Lady Bears for sure, but this was not the same Virginia Tech team that was undefeated at home this season. Do I have to remind you they lost 3-time ACC POY Elizabeth Kitley to an ACL in their last regular season game? After that, Notre Dame beat them by 29 in the ACC tournament.
Even then, it took a heroic and fabulous effort by Jada Walker to pull this one off. Super glad for Jada and the Lady Bears but this was not the landmark win some of you are making it out to be.
I knew this comment would rear its head, but I wasn't going to comment until I saw it. We all know this was not the VT team of earlier in the year. The thing is the committee knew that as well. If Kitley was still playing, VT would not have been a 4-seed. They would have been higher which would have pushed another team down to the 4. The point being we beat the higher seeded team on its home court in front of a very motivated packed house in a tough place to play. If the committee felt that VT didn't even deserve a 4 seed without Kitley, they would not have been there. And VT did have time to develop their game knowing Kitley would be unavailable. They did not have that time prior to the ACC tournament.
The game was significant as it represents on the court highly visible improvement, not "internal improvement", but something that the naysayers here tell us that is all that counts......results on the scoreboard and in the bracket. It puts Baylor's name back into the second weekend of the tournament. It keeps Baylor's name in media and its name comes out of the mouths of the talking heads for another week. It has to be a boost to how the staff sells the program to recruits and portal participants. Another 2nd round exit would not do any of that. As someone above pointed out the Duke game was also significant. I didn't single that one out because the Baylor name in WBB had already been "announced" because of 2005. But we did after 2005 falter, so the Duke game was one that reminded people we were still out there and were not going away. The game last night was similar, especially after we had been counted for dead after 2021.
We cannot live in the past. We as a program got dumped at the altar and without any prior notice. What the staff has been able to do is remarkable under the circumstances. Yet some of our own "fans" continue to take every opportunity to portray it in a negative light. I don't think anyone here expects to make the E8, but we wouldn't be shocked if we did. And if we don't, that won't take away what the team accomplished this year. Progress has been made every year and the team has gotten stronger. What last night's game did is put us back in the news that includes only 15 other teams.