"Fact is Duke did finish 9-8 in their last 17 games. Fact is DUKE OWNS a 5th place finish in the ACC. Fact is Duke lost early in the ACC Tournament. Fact is Duke was one game away from a LOSING RECORD in their last 17 games. Fact is these are FACTS!"
"ND finished ahead of them and beat them twice. They are a 6 seed."
How anyone can look at these indisputable facts and deduce that dook merits a 4 seed, is beyond me. The most damning is the fact that they went 9-8 down the stretch. They didn't finish strong after a weak start, they staggered to the finish line.
Put them in our regional and they have no realistic chance of advancing to the FF. But they once again are placed in the easiest regional. But I'm sure that's pure coincidence, just as it is every year.
I was born at night, but it wasn't last night.
This has been an interesting discussion that comes down to what one defines as facts or at least what one as an individual is in belief of based on available evidence. I personally do consider what chapelhilled offered as fact that duke finished 9-8 down the stretch and flamed out on their first game of the ACCT. I do accept as fact that as Archer offers ND was a 6 seed but beat duke twice. I do accept as fact that duke's path to the sweet 16 is by beating UNCW and Yale? I do accept as fact there were 2 men with duke ties on that selection committee.
You may look at those things I take as facts and consider them circumstancial evidence and that they are actually but for me they are convincing. I would not expect the committee or members of it to admit any team received preferred treatment nor do I expect to see any slips of paper indicating this. All there is or will be is speculation based on circumstances. This is not a criminal court of law we are prosecuting this question in, this is a message board where thoughts are offerred.
This began as speculation of the questionable seeding and placement that duke got for this tourney and the seeding they tend to get most every year come NCAAT time as comparred to what happens to us pretty much every season at the same time. All the sudden & some how it became more of a bar of prosecution in criminal court where a smoking gun was required to offer grounds for belief?
And OK, if you want to consider what I and some others consider to be facts for us to be nothing more than opinion FINE & DANDY, your right to do so clearly but it is as well my right to embrace what I DO consider facts and allow them to drive MY OPINIONS.
Now maybe you consider where duke was placed to be perfectly fitting and the same for our own seeding, if you do again, FINE & DANDY FOR YOU. BUT I disagree and in part I do because no defense is offerred to counter what I do consider fact and no reasonable defense is offerred to explain what we see as the result. ALL I see is this banter of the definition of what a fact is, to me a point that means very little in this venue because we are not in criminal court where that bar is the standard. The discussion of the definition of fact was for me nothing more than distraction from the question at hand and I had no problem at all granting that my speculation was not based on the legal defination of fact because it was not nor IMO did it have to be, So agree to disagree with the poster i had the running dialog with was not a problem because while we do absolutely disagree, there never was a requirement to agree, I was trying to clarify my point, I was not needing to win a case so my client could escape the death penality.
And by the way, OJ was not convicted in criminal court because the weapon was not produced, in that case the smoking gun was a knife that could not be produced. But OJ was convicted in civil court based on the very same evidence prosecuted in criminal court that was circumstancial in one court but reached the bar of proof in the other. The bar of proof for this venue is much closer to civil court than criminal court and should be.
