[More Cowbell]

I agree both games were hotly contested,They win in the sweet 16 holds quite a bit more weight than the all A. Elliott got the best SV could offer in both games against them SV got the real Elliott once and lost. Elliott should have taken the all A a little more serious but they didn't no excuses so they will pay the price by opening the door and letting SV be in the same conversation with them.

Who won the most important game? Who has won 2 out of 3 meetings? Who played a overall tougher schedule?Who put a good beatdown on Mason while the other team barely got by them? Now prove they were not the best team of the two.

I will disagree with you on some other points...

You can argue that the game in the Sweet Sixteen was more important than the one in the All-A, and I will agree that it is certainly a much bigger stage. One could argue though, that while Elliott's win over SV led to nothing, SV's win over Elliott propelled them to an All-A state title. If I had to pick one of the two to have won, I would still pick the earlier game. In my mind, an All-A title is better than none at all. But regardless of whether either game was more important, it doesn't mean that the winner of the "more important" game should be considered the better team.

Second, the "2 out of 3" argument doesn't work here, since we are only talking about who was the better team in '08-09. The other game you speak of was in 2007, and since it was the only game between the teams that year, I will completely concede that Elliott was the better team in '06-07. But that game two years ago holds no relevance to this year's debate.

Third, comparing the two games with Mason is not valid either. The difference is that while SV played Mason in Rupp on a neutral court, Elliott got to play them in their own home gym. So the point differential is not surprising at all. I'd wager that if SV had played Mason at Robinson Creek this past year, we would've seen a larger margin.

Finally, the argument that Elliott got "SV's best" both times, while the real Elliott only showed up once. I'll say right now that Elliott didn't get SV's best shot in either game, yet Valley still managed to win one. Trust me, when SV misses 10 staright free throws down the stretch to blow a double digit lead, you're not seeing them "at their best." Then, in Rupp, SV had one of their poorer shooting days, yet still managed to hang around close to the end.

People supporting Elliott and Valley could go back and forth saying that their team played nervous, or didn't shoot well, or weren't ready, or whatever. I think Valley should have won both meetings, but they didn't. I'm sure you feel Elliott should have won both times, but they didn't.

The bottom line for fans of both schools is that no matter who played good and who didn't, in the end the two teams split the two head-to-head matchups. To me, this means that neither school can claim superiority this past season, and considering how evenly matched the two teams were, that's not necessarily a bad thing. :biggrin: