What if?

Kind of an ugly game today. SMU is a BAD team that we should have beaten by 20 but, even though it got to within 5 points with under 3 left, we really were in control most the game. This road trip will let us know where we stand. A lot of people are talking about "what ifs", like what if we had not blown it late against Tulane and Memphis? What if we had not choked against Illinois or Ohio? What if we had hired another coach? etc.

Try this one out... what if we had hired Matt Doherty? Wow, what a stiff. He is a terrible coach. SMU is horrible and they dont appear to be getting better any time soon. I dont think most people realize how close he was to being our coach. Not only was he interviewed, he was in negotiations for the job. Had he not been picky about his contract, out clauses, buyouts, etc. he would have been our coach. It was that close, we did not decide to pass on him, we just could not come to terms, plus there were those adamantly opposed to his hire. THANK THE LORD. We can question Woj all we want but compared to how it could have gone, he is like John Wooden.

We were meant to beat them...

What a difference a non-call on a goal tend, 5.5 seconds to throw it in and a lucky bounce can make. We stole this one... it's about time! I was ready to pounce on this staff for the loss when we were down 11 but some luck, some guts and one good inbounds play saved it. This is not one we could afford to lose. UAB is a very solid team but they are wafer thin and they have not won on the road since before Thanksgiving. I really thought we would shut them down. How on God's green earth do you not go to a zone with your big man in foul trouble as your team gives up lay up after lay up from ball screens? It could not have been to salvage rebounding because tonight was THE worst rebounding performance in the last few years, a zone could not have made it worse.

The good, is that we still found a way to win for once. It sure feels a heck of a lot better than finding a way to lose. The bad is that UTEP, Memphis, Houston, UAB, etc. are all going to try and do this to us from here on out. WE WILL HAVE TO PLAY MORE ZONE TO MAKE IT TO THE POSTSEASON!

We need to PUNISH SMU this weekend, no reason we can't win that one by 20+. Then we have 3-4 on the road with a UTEP revenge game (for them) sandwiched in the middle. We MUST go 3-2 in this stretch and I hope we go 4-1. Right now, CUSA is still Memphis and the 11 dwarfs. The 2-7 teams all look pretty dang even right now.

Bi-polar much?

Geesh, crazy road trip and crazy night. I think most thought this road trip would end in a split BUT with us creaming Tulane and losing to UTEP. This Tulsa team is bi-polar. How do you lose to a terrible team with ZERO home atmosphere and then go into UTEP, one of the hardest arenas in the league and a much better team to boot... and win? I still say it goes back to the style of play. Yes we almost scored 80 but that was not due to pace, it was solely due to all the FTs and UTEP extending the game. We played a very good game and did what we needed to win but if their star player, who was shooting 85% on FTs coming in, does not miss 5 in a row late, it could have gone the other way. When you play this grind it out style of defense, you dont force many turnovers and while you suppress the other teams shooting %, you shorten the game to the point where the Tulane's of the world can beat you.

I wish I was more excited about this win and this team but I still remain reserved. Judging by the lack of activity at ITS (there are a whopping 4 active threads saying ANYTHING about the game) I am not the only one. I remember a time that during football season, the posts on the b-ball board were still about 3-1. Thankfully football is better but the apathy for hoops is a bummer, I am as guilty as most.

How do we get it going again? First thing, win the next 4 games. UAB is a pretender and we should win easy at home. Many dont realize how depleted they are. They have not won a road game since BEFORE THANKSGIVING. They dont have any quality wins (sorry, 8th place in the Pac 10 is not a quality win) and they just wont be able to score a lot against our D. After that we have SMU (terrible) then Marshall, then UTEP at home. We win those 4 we are likely sitting in a tie for second with Houston and we can talk about getting Memphis and UCF on the road.

I think the apathy also has to do with the fact that, once again, we are elminated from at large consideration already. We all know CUSA, barring a miracle finish from someone, is going to be a one bid league and for us to get into the NCAA, we will need to win the CUSA tourny. The schedule was upgraded but in the future we need to avoid putting teams we KNOW are going to be AWFUL on the schedule. Out RPI is taking about a 30 position hit from WINNING the games against LMU and UNCC who, last I checked, were something like 2-39.

PS. Let's lay off Ray Reese, he is this teams best defender and any FTs he misses are more than made up for by defensive stops. It is all in his head at this point, gee, I wonder why?

Another alarming thought...

After sleeping on it, not much as changed, in fact, I am actually more concerned. There is no doubt that Jordan is a better player, a MUCH better player than he was when he arrived. Let's give Wojcik credit for that even though the other bigs he has signed have not showed much improvement in his tenure. Outside of that, is ANYONE better? Uzoh is not a factor here, he is the kind of player that was good when he stepped in, he would be excelling anywhere. In fact, I would argue that many players are WORSE for being with TU.

Ray Reese? This guy had David Shelton potential but his confidence has been shaken to the point where he is a non-factor in most games. Sam Mitchell? Yikes, poor kid is giving 100% effort but Wojcik just cant admit he has failed in bringing him along. Wheatley? Still a role player. Andrews? All kinds of potential when he came in but since he struggles on D, he was put in the doghouse, never to return the same. Hurtt looks like he could be solid but so did Andrews last year. What about Idlet and Richard? No way to know, they showed flashes, only to be forgotten about. None of JP's players got better under Woj and while we whined about the lack of talent, Ramsdell and McDade would start for us right now.

What about all the guys who have left? McLean? Coleman? Hall? Hill? James? Jackson? Hernandez? Maybe there IS a cancer in the locker room but could it be the coach? Food for thought. Say what you will about ORU but I bet Sutton could make an NCAA run with just the players that have given up on Wojcik.

I think the biggest problem Wojcik has right now is his relationship to the ever shrinking fan base. They don't like the guy. I went off on him last year when he was complaining about the home atmosphere and bragging about his record at home. That record was against THE WORST HOME SCHEDULES IN THE HISTORY OF OUR PROGAM. When you play crap teams during a downward time you cant call out the crowd. The anaolgy I gave last year was that it was like a preacher, yelling at the choir for the lack of church attendance. Hey buddy, preach better and preach something that people connect with and want to hear. If you piss off the choir, you got NOTHING.

At least the feeling is mutual. Wojcik does not like it here, he tried his best to get the Stanford job last year. I think now, we all wish he had.

Reality BITES!

BARF! You know what happens when you piss off your fan base? You get just enough rope to hang yourself. I wish we played terrible tonight, I wish I could point to some anomaly to justify losing to one of the worst teams in the conference (dead last in RPI before beating us) but, they were just better than us. A team with ZERO wins against the top 200 game-planned us, out-coached us and outplayed us. We had more rebounds, we shot 50% but, they knew our Achilles heal. We won't play zone and we have no point guard. They went right at Jordan with quicker, smaller players and we refused to move into a zone to protect him. This against a team who is terrible from the 3 point line.

This is a team 100% dependent on defense, I expected Tulane to score around 50. This is what happens when you have no offense, you can lose to anyone. We saw the positive against Memphis, Illinois and A&M in that, even against teams with superior talent, our defense minded, grind it out team, can compete and even win. The reverse of that however, is that just about ANY team can hang with you and beat you. What does that make you? Always approaching average, which, post JP would have been an improvement but is that acceptable now?

The biggest cause for concern is that we look like a poorly coached team down the stretches of these games. Illinois, Ohio, Mizz St, BYU, Memphis and now Tulane are all games where our staff looked clueless the last 5-8 minutes. I give all credit for USM, that was solid but yikes, you could make a "what not to do" tape from the calamity of coaching errors from those other games. Some of it is coaching 101 stuff.

Talent-wise, we are not bad but there is a STEEP fall-off, can you imagine this team with no Uzoh or Jordan? Not only do we need to replace them, we need a couple other studs to get back to NCAA caliber. Sobering isn't it. It makes you realize how very far away we actually are. BARF!

UTEP gave UAB all they could handle tonight on the road, they are going to be fired up and ready to play. They will play 10 guys and they will come at Jordan. They dont have great big men but they have some size. We will have to shoot very well and play much better defense than tonight.

C-USA is now a clusterfudge. I dont see us having much chance at second but we could still finish anywhere from 2nd to 6th. One thing is now crystal clear though, no NCAA unless we win the CUSA tourny. It is great to practically eliminate yourself in mid-January, way to fire up the fanbase.

Marshall, Marshall, Marshall.

Been traveling a ton so sorry for the delayed post. Not a lot to say though really, this was a "hold serve" win. It was nice to come out of the gates and dominate wire to wire, we really needed that after the last tough loss. If we win the next 3 we are in great shape. Tulane is terrible, if we get off the bus we should win that one. UTEP is a mystery, they almost beat Wake Forrest but also lost to some total dogs so who knows. We should beat UAB at home, they are losing steam and they have less top 100 wins that we do (2-1).

It is great to see Jordan back to the end of season form from last year. Not sure where he vanished to but I am glad he is back. Uzoh is playing solid as well, now that he isnt focused on being a PG. Yes, he is technically in that position but he is really just a 2 guard bringing the ball up, he is not running our non-existant offense. No need to be negative but I think there is a cause for concern because the drop off after our top two is pretty steep. Hurtt and Idlet have potential and finally Richard showed something but are there any Jordans's or Uzoh's among them? At least we have Uzoh and Jordan another year.

C-USA is not as good as I thought (seems like the 3rd or 4th year in a row I have said that) and there is no reason we cant contend for 2nd. Unfortunately, that still likely means NIT.

The best defense...is a crap offense.

Wow, hard to type, having to wipe the puke off my keyboard. Double suck, for the second year in a row I had to watch this game on a layover at the MEMPHIS airport! Sweet irony. The do have great BBQ there, even in the airport. I had some time to mull over it on my flight to Nashville and I think we have some real problems. Winning would have masked them but they are there.

First, this staff is stubborn, period, endstop. You can slow the game with a ZONE, not by running 30 seconds off your own shot clock. Memphis was 4-9 on 3s which is good but we needed them to shoot 18, I suspect they would have been no better than 6-18. Whatever the case, it is better than giving up a fast break layup or dribble drive. Do we even HAVE inbounds plays? I see one a game...maybe.

Run some offense! Man we are horrible, for all the talk about defense, I say, maybe it is just because we hold the ball so long on offense. I would say on 75% of our possessions, we look inept. Uzoh played well but NOT as a PG. He was forced to bring the ball down because we literally had nobody else that could. I mean, seriously, how is that possible? Could the Heirman kid be worse? Put in him, Woj has destroyed everyone elses confidence. The freshman from Memphis looked incredible.

Man this sucks, we are at our strongest at any point in the last several years and they are at their weakest. We get them at home. They play like CRAP, lots of fouls, bad rebounding, poor shooting and terrible FT shooting.... AND THEY BEAT US! Some may look at the narrow loss and be encouraged, not me. I look at it and realize that we cant beat them, even when they are at their very worst. What this says to me, is prepare for a 20 point beatdown in Memphis.

Lets play a little game of WTFWWT of WHAT THE FUDGE WAS WOJ THINKING?

1. Game prepping for the press?? We certainly didnt look like a team that has practiced much against it, but maybe we were too busy implementing a new zone D
2. ZONE??? NO??????? WTFWWT? Slow the temp, save some fouls, force them to work for long jumpshots, neutralizing some of their athleticism while keeping out stud in the middle. NO FREAKING BRAINER. Stubborn or stupid, you decide.
3. Technical FTs??? WTFWWT? Stupid, stubborn you pick either, Ill say both in this case, Ray is a senior but he is not THE man.
4: Offense?? WTFWWT? Really, no PG, no plays, no tempo, no chemistry, FREAKING BARF!

We can rebound great and Jordon had a monster night but when we play teams like Memphis we really get exposed. We just DO NOT POSSESS enough guys that are fundanentally capable of playing at this level. You should be able to dribble and pass agasint any team.

Beat Marshall, take off the sting, smoke and mirrors is fine, just make it look like we are good again.

That's all folks, my ambien is kicking in and I dont want to start writing sloppy stories about Buzz Petersons wife.

Two down, one to go...

Like the last game, I dont know how good Charlotte is, they certainly arent as good as the team we beat last year at home as they have been depleted with injuries. I think they have had 2 or 3 starters go down so far. Bottom line again though, it is a road win even if they are only 3-5 at home. Maybe Jordan should just play the second half of games, he has been a monster the last two second halves. Hurtt is on fire but he needs to drive more, he wont be able to sustain shooting like that but he is playing very well.

I actually think we have a shot at Memphis... IF WE PLAY SOME ZONE and shoot the ball better. Memphis is green this year and they have not shot the ball well, if we play like we did against BYU, they will run their offense until they get a mismatch and then penetrate at will. They won their first road game of the year tonight in unimpressive fashion at UCF.

CUSA is a clusterfudge, Memphis is still king but they will lose 2 games at least this year, after that there are no less than 5 teams that could finish second. UTEP looks solid and Houston, who has been up and down POUNDED UAB tonight.

Man, looking back, we are really close to being 13-3 or 14-2 with an RPI in the top 40 but we just didnt get it done. Of course, as I have noted, that first 9-20 JP team was close a lot too. We really need to beat Memphis to cancel out that Ohio loss.

Will the TU that got creamed by OU and OSU show up Tuesday? Or will the TU team that beat Tx A&M and took Illinois to the wire show?

I have no feeling right now, all I can say is that if we dont play zone for at least 12 minutes, I think we lose by 15.

On the road again...

First, all hail channelsurfing.net for broadcasting the game for free. I dont know how good USM is going to be, they may stink but a road win in conference is always HUGE. We played horrible for the first 10 minutes and PERFECT the last 10 minutes. USM scored FOUR points in the last 10:30 of that game. They looked totally juiced and we dominated on the boards. They had good guard play but their 4-5 position was non existant. It was good to see Jordan and Wheatley tear them up in the second half. That is the best he has looked all year. It is great to see Reese playing better. If we can win a roadie with Uzoh going 3-14, you have to feel good about our chances the rest of the year. I LOVE the 7 man rotation, it makes it so much easier to get chemistry.

All that said, this is ONE GAME, Murray St also beat Maryland tonight and freaking Harvard beat BC after they beat UNC on the road. This win does not mean we are going to the NCAA or challenging for the CUSA title. We have to win the next 2 games to really start talking about going on a run. If you look at the schedule, we could easily be sitting at .500 in conference heading into the SMU game on the 31st. I hope we are 5-1 or at least 4-2.

Time to focus on hoops people, if Memphis isnt a sell out I am going to puke.

GREAT YEAR IN FOOTBALL!

For all the ups and downs and unrealistic expectations this was a banner year in football. I am perfectly content with the season as a whole. Yes, we could have beaten ECU but we also could have lost to SMU. This is as good as it gets people. There will be years where we snag a conference championship but all the BCS talk was just that, talk. We are a TINY program and it is an AMAZING accomplishment to win 39 games in 4 years and go 3-1 in bowls. Next year, we have a lot tougher schedule, let me kick a dead horse one more time and say that it would have been AWESOME to have Tech at home. Who knows how we will do next year, I will say 8-4 and I will take that every year.

It was fun to talk about why we should be ranked and about going undefeated BUT, I think we should not be so aggressive about such in the future. #1 goal every year should be to win conference, everything else is gravy... so... no more 14-0 shirts, no more scoring touchdowns with 5 seconds left against outmatched D2 opponents, no more one off revenge road games at bad SEC schools, no more cancelling home and homes with Big 12 teams and no more orchestrating a BCS run. Let's win CUSA, everything else will fall into place after that.

Great job coaches, players and fans. We are all looking forward to next year.

NS Who? Really? 67 points? Really?

The only good thing about scheduling NSU is that it wont hurt our RPI (because they are D2) but man do I hate these games. They make sense in November but not in January. Yes, our schedule has been upgraded but it has gone from abysmal to just average. I suspect we land around 110 for our SOS which will sadly be the hardest sched of the Woj era. I digress...

I was ready to POUND NSU today but when I arrived and saw less than 2000 people there (probably a third of which were NSU supporters) I reallized that I was one of the few left who still care. We can complain all we want about some people being negative but that is actually GOOD for the program, if you are negative, you still care. You know what will kill a program? Apathy. That is unfortunately where we are at. Think of it in these terms. Over THREE THOUSAND PEOPLE paid $20 to NOT watch the game today. Brutal. Style of play doesnt matter? Riiiiiiight. You can post all the attendance figures you want, the reality is that we are averaging 2000+ per game of, paid for, empty seats. We need to get THOSE people back first and not playing boring snoozville hoops is a great place to start.

Speaking of which, the first 12:30 of this game may be the most boring pile of dung I have ever sat thru. Did we really take the opening tip-off, stand around for 34 seconds and force up a 25 footer at the shot clock buzzer to start the game? It was 15-14 and our half court offense was PAINFULLY inept... against a D2 team. Jordan had 9 at that point, mostly due to him being half a foot or more taller than anyone guarding him. Then, we stopped trying to run offense and just felt out the game, this is what Self's teams did. We actually were able to score 18 in the last 7:30 after having 15 in the first 12:30. Interestingly, Jordan was on the bench most of that run. I think something is not right with him. He does not run the floor well and gets winded. Could he be anemic or something? I think the kid has made huge strides but I just dont get the NBA talk, let alone the lottery references. I hope he makes it as it will be nothing but great for TU. We'll see. We kind of cruised from the half on in but we never looked very crisp on offense. We should have forced the pace, they had no hope of staying with us but instead, we were happy to let them control the pace and we scored a whopping 67 points.

What happens in conference play when teams have us scouted and start to pressure us? When they start to double Jordan with a non-D2 center he cant easily pass over? The conference is stinking it up so we can still actually do some damage and I can tell you right now that I think we will beat UAB or even Memphis this year, it will be a 58-56 type game but I'll take it. I still dont know what to think of this team. It would not surprise me if we went 5-1 over the next 6 but it also would not surprise me if we went 1-5. We are missing some of the building blocks for a solid NCAA caliber team. Passing, chemistry, offensive execution... all just not there and I am not sure where it will come from.

One last rant. Please lay off Sam Mitchel. How is it HIS fault that he has to play because of people quitting, injuries, etc.? We have some very educated fans but when we struggle, the retarded ones come out and start saying things like Bawji is the savior of this team, etc. Newsflash, you same fools once thought Sam was the answer to all our problems, and JT Ivie before him, etc. Richard is young, does not have any clue where to be, who to box out, etc. that is why he gets limited minutes. He is athletic and could be a player for us, just not ready and Bawji? What on earth has he done on the court to make anyone think he needs more than garbage minutes? Again, young, does not know some of the basics, routinely out of position on defense and has done NADA in the garbage minutes he has picked up. Just weird that him NOT playing elevates his talent in many eyes. The real discussion here is why is Idlet not getting more minutes, he has SHOWN the most in actual game play. Also, while I am ranting, dont even get started with the fire Woj talk. He is the coach, our coach, we made the bed and we must lie in it, no matter how stinky the sheets may be right now. Last year we were not a good team until the end of the year, we havent even started conference play yet. I think we have lots of problems but last year we were in the same boat for most the year. I just am hoping that run starts early enough for us to make some noise in a real tournament (one with some history and legacy). If we flame out, I dont want him fired but I would like to see a new assistant with a penchant for offense and with some local recruiting ties (Texas, OK, etc.)

We have two roadies coming up, both we could win and both we could lose by 15. USM is decent and well coached, they just beat a pretty good Ole Miss team by 20 at home. Charlotte is an impossible team to figure out. I saw them play Clemson after losing to ODU and App St. I expected Clemson to kill them but it was nip and tuck the entire way. They then proceeded to get HAMMERED by ASU. They have lost a lot of close ones and I would expect this one will be close as well. I will actually be fine with a split. Of course, I may be one of the few who actually still care.