Joe Lunardi Is An Idiot, In My Opinion
Image: The Kansas City Star
By Jonathan Reed
OPINION:
Joe Lunardi is an idiot, and so am I for being rolled up by the projections of the 118th (of 179) ranked bracketologist in the world in the middle of January while there are still fourteen regular season games remaining.
Seriously?
How the hell is the gap between Alabama (THREE losses, plural) and Tennessee (ONE loss, singular) “minimal?” Three is clearly three times more than one. Alabama has three times more losses than Tennessee currently does.
It’s got to be the difference in quality of wins, right?
Right?
Well, no! But thank you for asking!
The Vols currently have five wins over Quad 1 opponents. (A quad 1 win is a 1) home victory over a team ranked in the top 30 in the NET Ranking, 2) a neutral site victory over a team ranked in the top 50 in the NET, or 3) a road victory over a team ranked in the top 75 in the NET.) On the other hand, Nate Oats and his team only have a record of 4-3 against Quad 1 opponents.
So, no. It’s not the quality wins because Tennessee has more of them (while having only 33% of the losses).
Has Alabama amassed an abundance of quality road victories? Nope! They’ve got two nice road wins over North Carolina (34th in NET) and Texas A&M (20th). Those are good road wins! But are they significantly better than Tennessee’s road wins of Louisville (28th in NET) and Illinois (7th)? Wait! Those aren’t better at all!
I understand that Alabama has had a tough schedule, but I also understand that they have only won 4 of their 7 (57.1%)opportunities against quality opponents; the Vols have won 5 of their 6 (83.3%).
That does not feel “minimal” to me!
I understand that this may be petty in a vacuum. I also understand that I do not live in a damn vacuum. My vexation stems from years of this nonsense. No matter the time of year, we, as a college sports world, are inundated with Alabama propaganda.
In 2022, Tennessee fans had to deal with an Alabama team that LOST HEAD TO HEAD to Tennessee finishing the season ranked ahead of that same Tennessee team, all while having the same damn record. History was destined to repeat itself in 2024 until Oklahoma cut their heads off. YOU MUST NEVER FORGET THAT THE COMMITTEE TRIED TO RANK A JALEN MILROE LED ALABAMA TEAM OVER THE VOLS EVEN AFTER THE VOLS HANDLED THEM A FEW SHORT WEEKS PRIOR.
All of that is bad enough.
It’s even worse when February and March roll around and every college basketball media member starts praising Nate Oats and crowning him as Muad’Dib because he realized that shooting 3s was more efficient than shooting 2s a decade after the NBA figured it out.
Enough!
Sadly, I did not expect better from Joe Lunardi. In fact, when it comes to Joe, I typically expect something really pretentiously annoying. He consistently delivers. It’s nice to have some things in life you can rely on.