This thread is disappointing in many regards, but I'm glad to see that many of the Boneyard faithful have stepped in to counter the chicken littles who can't suck up a truly awful loss. Yes, Houston is a bad team. Yes, they were missing their starting backcourt, 2 top 100 recruits (House and Rose), Yes, we only played one half of basketball while Houston got to play two halves. Yes, our offense has become somewhat stagant. Yes, our big men are disappointing and can't rebound. Yes, Calhoun is suffering from something.
Now that we have that out of the way. Let's take stock of a few things. We are 11-2. We are a ranked team. We are getting solid Top 100 recruits, and maybe some steals in Lubin and Cassell, although we need to land some more talented bigs. We have an extraordinary fan base who cares about the program and the kids that play for it. Bottom line, we are relevant on the national scene, despite conference realignment, post season bans, lost scholarships, and mass defections.
JC built UConn into a powerhouse, but we lost in the Great Alaskan Shootout in '95 or something to Ohio University,. We lost in the '08 NCAA tournament to San Diego. We lost to Central FL in the Puerto Rican Shootout. happens.
End of the day, our kids tie the shoe laces on their sneakers, the same as the other 350 NCAA Division 1 teams, and when you play a game, talent, stats, records, good lucking alumni, ugly cheerleaders, attendance, etc. aren't what win games. Its the performance of five players when they are on the floor that dictates the result of the game. We are dealing with college kids, who are trying to live with all of our expectations, build a career for themselves, competing for playing time and usage, while trying not to fail out of school or get caught smoking a joint like mots other college kids. They work incredibly hard and sometimes they have a bad day at the office.
Whether we should have beat Houston or not is irrelevant - we didn't. If we wing a national championship this year, a loss to Houston means nothing. If we don't do well in the NCAA tournament, this loss still means next to nothing in the scope of a season and KO's head coaching experience.
KO is a winner. Our team wins way more than it loses. We are in games at the end and have a chance to win. Finally, we score a lot of baskets out of timeouts, where KO is setting plays. He is a good coach and he's not going anywhere. I loved him as a college player, NBA player, representative of our university, assistant coach, and now head coach.
As sports fans go, in spite of the mess we were in a few years back, we're blessed to be where we are. We have a winning program with an identity that manages to consistently win more than 95% of the rest of college basketball. I feel blessed to have KO as a coach, blessed to have the players we do, blessed to have this program to root for. This New Year, Boneyard take stock of what you have instead of a stupid loss to a game we lost.
