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?