From the moment Virginia and Texas Tech punched their tickets to tonight's college basketball national championship game the chorus of internet naysayers swarmed in front of their keyboards across the country.
Those are just some of the more mundane comments you'll see littered across social media right now in discussing this title game that features two of the three best defensive teams in the country. In fact, Texas Tech is not only the best defensive team in the country this season but the best in the past 18 seasons, according to Ken Pomeroy. Virginia, always a dominant defensive group under coach Tony Bennett, looks a bit pedestrian in comparison even though the Commodores have allowed just 59.2 points per game to their opponents in this tournament. True to form, the Red Raiders top that by allowing just 55.8 points to their opponents during the tournament.
Yes, this championship game features great defense. No, these teams are unlikely to eclipse the 70 point mark -- heck, the 60 point mark is probably a bit of a stretch. That doesn't make this game any less intriguing for fans who aren't petty, and foolish, enough to tune out because Joe Troll on Twitter told you so.
College basketball has enjoyed an offensive revolution the past handful of years. The freedom of movement rules have allowed teams like Duke, North Carolina, Villanova, Kansas, and Gonzaga to score at an incredibly efficient rate during their dominant runs this decade. Those high-flying teams traditionally make deep runs in the tournament. Heck, they usually win it -- see the UNC and Villanova title runs in the past three years.
The people complaining about Virginia vs. Texas Tech probably wouldn't like the result of every college basketball program investing on the offensive end, while ditching fundamentals and execution on the defensive side. It's hard to believe that the NCAA tournament would be nearly as fun if all 68 teams could score 100 points per contest but couldn't effectively defend a handful of solid intramural players. The variety and diversity of teams and systems in the tournament are what make it so unique, so valuable, and so beloved.
This would be a bit like complaining that elite NFL defenses can still be successful. Are we supposed to chastise the current Chicago Bears defense? Was the Legion of Boom bad for the NFL? I don't hear anybody taking shots at the 1985 Bears or the Steel Curtain Steelers. Are baseball fans now going to lament every time Clayton Kershaw, Justin Verlander, Jacob deGrom or other dominant starters take the mound?
So this college basketball season will be capped off tonight by a defensive struggle for the ages. We'll have a dozen or more Carolina-vs-Villanova-type championship games in our future before we get another Virginia vs. Texas Tech. Are you really going to be upset that you get to watch something a bit different this year?