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The first weekend of the 2024 NCAA Tournament is in the books and it left us with plenty of March Madness storylines.
One of those storylines is top overall seed, UConn. The Huskies are the reigning NCAA champions and look every bit capable of going back-to-back after a pair of dominant victories over Stetson and Northwestern.
But it’s also important at times like these to keep everything in perspective, something that that ESPN star Mike Greenberg failed to do on Monday.
Mike Greenberg seems to think UConn could make the playoffs in the NBA's Eastern Conference pic.twitter.com/1baMm1LvQj
— Awful Announcing (@awfulannouncing) March 25, 2024
Greenberg went on Monday morning’s edition of “Get Up” and fired off perhaps the worst NCAA Tournament take you will ever hear.
“If they were in the NBA’s Eastern Conference, would they make the playoffs,” he began. “I’m looking at teams that are eight games under .500 in the play-in. Right now, they’re better than that…UConn’s an NBA team!”
Co-host Jay Williams didn’t take long to put Greenberg in his place, stating that UConn executes like an NBA team but the talent level is not there.
While Seth Greenberg stated that “there’s no chance” the Huskies could make the playoffs.
Mike Greenberg Rightfully Gets Fried For NCAA Tournament Take
Frankly, Greenberg isn’t wrong. UConn would be a massive underdog in every single NBA game it played over an 82-game season. And that includes games against the lowly Detroit Pistons and Washington Wizards.
This is the absolute dumbest f****** s*** you will ever see on TV. If they played 20 times, the Pistons would beat UConn by however many points they wanted to win by every single game. https://t.co/L4tL1Sui9v
— Dan Wolken (@DanWolken) March 25, 2024
The Chicago Bulls have:
• Consensus All-Americans Ayo Dosunmu, Lonzo Ball
• All-American Nikola Vucevic, Jevon Carter, Torrey Craig
• All-Conference Coby White, Javonte Green, Alex Caruso, Terry Taylor
• Final Four MOP Adama SanogoAnd they SUCK, bro. Stop, I'm begging. https://t.co/pCyh92eIfF
— Shehan Jeyarajah (@ShehanJeyarajah) March 25, 2024
This is what happens when we value opinion over reporting and debate over fact. Having unique and thought-provoking opinions is really hard. So folks stretch to be provocative and you have nonsense like this. https://t.co/HR18pF7l4C
— chris carlson (@ccarlsononSU) March 25, 2024
Huskies stars Donovan Clingan and Stephon Castle could well go in the first round of the 2024 NBA Draft. And multiple other players could develop into NBA prospects in the future.
But the thing about NBA teams is that they’re already full of NBA players.
The jump in level of play from NCAA basketball to the NBA is nearly incalculable. The idea that a college team could win 10 games, let alone make the playoffs, in the NBA is utterly preposterous.
Thankfully Greenberg was set right by his two co-hosts.