I personally detest the "no great teams" claim that Bilas and a couple others like Forde seem to have picked up on (I see Bilas as the main proponent of that idea, and Forde seems to be parroting his analysis in that regard - apparently Forde can't make up his own shtick).
It always takes a special team to do what UConn did in winning 5 games in 5 days in the Big East tourney and then 6 more in the NCAA tourney. UConn didn't peak until the end of the year, and they lost some games before they put it all together, but I think the way they were playing at the end of the year was pretty special. If you want to take a historian's viewpoint and say there are no teams that really stand out historically in a given season, then fine, but clarify that is what you mean and don't just use the word "great" by itself to make that claim. Bilas' "analysis" is also partly revisionist crap because he wasn't saying there were no great teams in '10 before Kansas lost in the second round to UNI, but once he decided there were no great teams in '11 then he also decided to look back on '10 and say there weren't any great teams there, either. OSU was a great team last year as well - it's also revisionist BS to look at them not getting farther than the S16 and claiming that is solid evidence that they weren't great, because UK was clearly one of the top-3 or 4 teams in the tournament. It was pretty obvious to me from how UConn dominated Butler that none of the top-4 teams in the tournament were on the side of the bracket that Butler came out of - I think it's clear that the best four teams in the tournament were UConn, Arizona, UK and OSU. All the analysts knew the Committee stacked a couple of the regions (the two that UK and UConn came out of) when the brackets were announced, so I'm not just drawing that conclusion based on what happened in the tournament.
Additionally, I think this Bilas/Forde argument is foolish for them to trot out because their employer televises a lot of the sport, and they're cheapening their own product by telling viewers that it isn't very good or (in essence) none or only a couple teams are worth watching. In any event, the fans can decide for themselves whether a team is great or worth watching & I don't think there's much room for a reporter to patronize us and tell us what teams are great and which aren't. The only person I personally knew that came from Duke was one of the most patronizing, elitist people I've ever met ... Bilas also seems to fit the "patronizing elitist model" pretty well - and Coach K wonders why people hate Duke!
If you want to say a certain team is going to go down in history, OK, then say it, but don't use "great" to have it both ways and simultaneously cheapen the accomplishments of great teams while not painting yourself in a corner by going too far in promoting other teams. I think it's only fair to put Bilas and Forde on the record as claiming UNC and Kentucky next season are going to be historically great teams, teams that you can look back on several years from now and say they weren't just the best of the best in '11-'12, but the best of the best over a number of years. They shouldn't be allowed to weasel out of their stance by altering what their definition of "great" means.
