First, I understand the passions and emotions of youth. I was there once, and every loss like this in the ncaa seemed unbearable at the time.
But after watching both the Rocket and JBC go down to UCLA, and all the nail-biters and inexplicable collapses since, getting all wound up over last night just does not seem all that worth it. For you younger fans, be my guest if you feel it necessary to throw tantrums or otherwise bounce off proverbial walls over the loss. You have energy to waste that I don't have. As someone smarter than me once said, "youth is wasted on the young." Either way, we all have to deal with it however we need to. I choose to move on and look forward to what happens next year, with or without a boat load of McD AAs.
As for the game, I think our execution and shot-making was impressive in the first half, despite Swanigan being overwhelmed in the low post, Vince Edwards' drives and contributions all but disappearing, and the minimal open opportunities for Mathias and Cline. Yet we moved the ball around well, and hit some big shots at an even better clip than KU. The defense played fairly well, but as the half wore on, our legs just couldn't keep up with their knifing drives, kick-outs, and rapid ball reversals.
So bottom line is that we wore out trying to play at KU's pace, and made too many dumb mistakes, and missed too many shots in the 2nd half. Even young people get tired! Especially when the other team is that good and essentially playing on their home court. Oh well.
As for our team, yeah, sure, we have two physical low-post players, neither of whom can jump all that well, neither of whom are all that quick, and have real problems with quick-hand defenders and athletic leapers. But all in all, Painter used them all season as best he could.
In addition, we have some really good shooters in Mathias and Cline, and even PJ and VE. CE will no doubt come around as well. But most of all, all of those players, with the exception of VE & CE, are not exceptionally quick on their feet, and none of them have anything more than average hops. So if we play against defenders who are quicker and can elevate, it is really tough to find open looks and get off good shots. With what Painter has been able to recruit, he used a good formula: huge, physical post players who could muscle into deep low post position so we could find our open perimeter looks when opponents had to double down on our bigs.
The problem was - and it showed last night - when the opponent has a tall, athletic big that can block our post player shots, as well as tall, athletic perimeter players who play aggressive IYF defense, we didn't have the quicks to penetrate and make them play far enough off for us to get off clean looks, even when running off screens. Add in the converse issue of us trying to deny penetration on defense without an effective shot blocker, which causes us to have to collapse a perimeter defender to close the lane and thereby leave someone open on the perimeter, and you have the recipe for what happened last night.
Finally, what always makes me chuckle around here, is the constant banter about how we should get ourselves some McD AAs! As if we just need to have Coach Painter walk over to the McD AA vending machine and drop in a few quarters. And because Painter doesn't get them, then it is apparently clear to quite a few people that we should get a coach who can! Hmmm... sounds easy enough.
But considering there are only 24 McD AAs, and there are 65 different colleges in the Power 5 conferences alone, by my math, there are a LOT of other coaches who appear to be in the same boat as Painter. And when you consider that the historically elite teams, like KU, UK, Duke, UNC, and UCLA often land more than one, there are as many as 60 other Power 5 coaches who find themselves on the outside looking in each recruiting season. And that is not counting the other 282 Division 1 college basketball coaches. Slim pickings for a lot more coaches than Matt Painter.
So I guess if an up and coming coach at a directional school happens to land 2-3 top recruits over a few years - due to their parents having played at the same school, or it's nearby where they live, or for any other temporal reason - and they make a few ncaa runs - that means we need to dump our current coach and go grab the guy, cause surely HE will lead us to the promised land of an ncaa title, or even a final four, where there are only one (or four) teams out of 347 that make it every year.
Now, probability was not my strong suit in my engineering education, but swapping coaches every few years to land the latest and greatest recruiter at up and coming programs still doesn't seem to be the answer to 1:347 or 4:347 odds every year.
But what the heck do I know?
So party on, Garth! lol
But after watching both the Rocket and JBC go down to UCLA, and all the nail-biters and inexplicable collapses since, getting all wound up over last night just does not seem all that worth it. For you younger fans, be my guest if you feel it necessary to throw tantrums or otherwise bounce off proverbial walls over the loss. You have energy to waste that I don't have. As someone smarter than me once said, "youth is wasted on the young." Either way, we all have to deal with it however we need to. I choose to move on and look forward to what happens next year, with or without a boat load of McD AAs.
As for the game, I think our execution and shot-making was impressive in the first half, despite Swanigan being overwhelmed in the low post, Vince Edwards' drives and contributions all but disappearing, and the minimal open opportunities for Mathias and Cline. Yet we moved the ball around well, and hit some big shots at an even better clip than KU. The defense played fairly well, but as the half wore on, our legs just couldn't keep up with their knifing drives, kick-outs, and rapid ball reversals.
So bottom line is that we wore out trying to play at KU's pace, and made too many dumb mistakes, and missed too many shots in the 2nd half. Even young people get tired! Especially when the other team is that good and essentially playing on their home court. Oh well.
As for our team, yeah, sure, we have two physical low-post players, neither of whom can jump all that well, neither of whom are all that quick, and have real problems with quick-hand defenders and athletic leapers. But all in all, Painter used them all season as best he could.
In addition, we have some really good shooters in Mathias and Cline, and even PJ and VE. CE will no doubt come around as well. But most of all, all of those players, with the exception of VE & CE, are not exceptionally quick on their feet, and none of them have anything more than average hops. So if we play against defenders who are quicker and can elevate, it is really tough to find open looks and get off good shots. With what Painter has been able to recruit, he used a good formula: huge, physical post players who could muscle into deep low post position so we could find our open perimeter looks when opponents had to double down on our bigs.
The problem was - and it showed last night - when the opponent has a tall, athletic big that can block our post player shots, as well as tall, athletic perimeter players who play aggressive IYF defense, we didn't have the quicks to penetrate and make them play far enough off for us to get off clean looks, even when running off screens. Add in the converse issue of us trying to deny penetration on defense without an effective shot blocker, which causes us to have to collapse a perimeter defender to close the lane and thereby leave someone open on the perimeter, and you have the recipe for what happened last night.
Finally, what always makes me chuckle around here, is the constant banter about how we should get ourselves some McD AAs! As if we just need to have Coach Painter walk over to the McD AA vending machine and drop in a few quarters. And because Painter doesn't get them, then it is apparently clear to quite a few people that we should get a coach who can! Hmmm... sounds easy enough.
But considering there are only 24 McD AAs, and there are 65 different colleges in the Power 5 conferences alone, by my math, there are a LOT of other coaches who appear to be in the same boat as Painter. And when you consider that the historically elite teams, like KU, UK, Duke, UNC, and UCLA often land more than one, there are as many as 60 other Power 5 coaches who find themselves on the outside looking in each recruiting season. And that is not counting the other 282 Division 1 college basketball coaches. Slim pickings for a lot more coaches than Matt Painter.
So I guess if an up and coming coach at a directional school happens to land 2-3 top recruits over a few years - due to their parents having played at the same school, or it's nearby where they live, or for any other temporal reason - and they make a few ncaa runs - that means we need to dump our current coach and go grab the guy, cause surely HE will lead us to the promised land of an ncaa title, or even a final four, where there are only one (or four) teams out of 347 that make it every year.
Now, probability was not my strong suit in my engineering education, but swapping coaches every few years to land the latest and greatest recruiter at up and coming programs still doesn't seem to be the answer to 1:347 or 4:347 odds every year.
But what the heck do I know?
So party on, Garth! lol
