Travis Steele and Jon Scheyer called out their respective conferences for their teams’ schedules in the MAC and ACC tournaments, respectively. Miami (OH) and Duke were both the No. 1 seeds in their respective conference tournaments.
However, Steele and Scheyer believe the tournament formats didn’t protect their seeds.Fans have shared different reactions to the coaches’ comments, especially on X. David Schefter wrote:
“Stop your whining! Miami (OH) is a fraud.”
Shawn Foss said:
“I agree with Steele. What Scheyer said doesn’t make any sense. They have like 23 hours between the end of their Thursday game and the start of their Friday one.”
Tennis World commented:
“Not a huge deal, but 11am is a pretty early start time. Really should be starting games at noon, imo.”
Matthew Amitrano wrote:
“Steele should’ve had his team more focused on winning the tournament than campaigning for an at-large bid.”
Arrest Jack Dorsey posted:
“The Miami, OH coach hasn’t been here before, clearly. That’s always been the 1 seed time slot.”
DJ remarked:
“Not only is Scheyer being a crybaby, he’s also just wrong. The Big Ten and SEC seeds all have 24 hr turnaround times.”
What did Travis Steele and Jon Scheyer say?
The RedHawks lost to the UMass Minutemen on Thursday, and Steele criticized the MAC’s failure to protect his team.
“I get frustrated,” said Steele. “We won the regular season. We’ll play whatever bracket that they got, right? UMass had to play early; we had to play early; it’s all the same. But you do want to probably protect those top seeds, right? Like, what’s the reward that you get for going undefeated in Mid-American regular-season play?”
Jon Scheyer voiced similar concerns following his team’s narrow victory over Florida State on Thursday.
“We have to recover quickly,” Scheyer said. “We’re not playing the noon game this year. We’re the only No. 1 seed not to be playing early in the country. But it’s a quick turnaround, and we’re going to work on keeping this thing going.”
Jon Scheyer’s Duke missed two starters in its lineup for Thursday’s quarterfinal win over Florida State, with Caleb Foster and Patrick Ngongba out with injuries. It all came down to a Robert McCray V miss in the final seconds for the Blue Devils to emerge victorious.
The stakes are higher in Friday’s semifinal matchup with Clemson. Duke will be looking to put the game beyond the Tigers’ reach before the final minutes.
Dawn Staley, Geno Auriemma, or Kim Mulkey – who is NCAAW’s highest-paid coach? Find out here
Edited by Kayode Akinwumi
