Troy (1/15/11)

[Eagle1855]

So I was holding this thought after the SHSU blow-out and loss at MTSU... but now I'm ready to share this likely unpopular thought I've been kicking around in my head:

Is it possible this team isn't that great. A good team, for sure... but not anything more or less impressive then some of the other squads we've had under JJ?

[CMJ]

So I was holding this thought after the SHSU blow-out and loss at MTSU... but now I'm ready to share this likely unpopular thought I've been kicking around in my head:

Is it possible this team isn't that great. A good team, for sure... but not anything more or less impressive then some of the other squads we've had under JJ?

I guess it depends on your expectations.

For me - I was thinking a 12-4 type of league record before the season started, so we're only slightly underperforming to my expectations - with plenty of time to turn it around. For people who thought we were only gonna lose 1 or 2 league games at most - then I'm sure this is very disappointing.

[greenminer]

So I was holding this thought after the SHSU blow-out and loss at MTSU... but now I'm ready to share this likely unpopular thought I've been kicking around in my head:

Is it possible this team isn't that great. A good team, for sure... but not anything more or less impressive then some of the other squads we've had under JJ?

Tasty threw that out weeks ago. Entirely possible, and not new to those paying attention.

Still, this squad will be successful and a joy to watch.

Edited January 16, 2011 by greenminer

[UNT90]

It appears that we have gone back to defending the way we did before the blowout loss to SHSU.

With Tristan getting kicked out of practice for a lack of defensive efffort, this concerns me going forward. Even in the win against FIU, there was a lot of points surrundered and many uncontested looks for FIU. Thank God they were even less interested in playing defense than UNT.

[FirefightnRick]

How many road winning records have we had under JJ?

Hey, Hey, Hey!!!!! What are you doing? There's no criticizing the coach here. He's absolutely untouchable. It's the players, not the coach, get it?!!!

Rick

Edited January 16, 2011 by FirefightnRick

[CMJ]

I did a quick look (so these might be wrong) of true road games since the SBC title season in '06-07.

2007: 7-7

2008: 4-8

2009: 7-6

2010: 9-6

[Dr. Seuss]

I think im blaming JJ on this one, you cant put your best shooter on the bench because hes in the dog house. Our bench is weak as is butslightly improving. I can understand doing this for one game but now were on two, really?? I know its still early in conference and last year we won our final 10 or so

[greenminer]

I don't agree or understand everything JJ does, but handing out a discipline card at the possible expense of a W has my support.

These student athletes will graduate as some of the winningest players in school history because of expectations they already are aware of.

Edited January 16, 2011 by greenminer

[TheTastyGreek]

I think I'm dealing with this better than a lot of people, because I had a lot of pie-in-they-sky hopes (not expectations, just hopes) extinguished after the MTSU loss.

SUMG put it best when he said that this loss means we're not going to get the magical season we were crossing our fingers for. We can still have a great record, we can still win the conference, we can still go to the NCAA tournament, we're still in position to potentially earn a 14 seed... But the once every 50 or 100 years season isn't going to be this year.

That's not necessarily a shock... I was realistically expecting before the season started that we'd finish something like 22-7 in the regular season, maybe 23-6 if we had a very very good year. It was nice to start fantasizing about continuing the OOC run and winding up with 28 or more wins after the SBC tournament... But even with the 11-2 head start, that was little more than a very unlikely fantasy.

On the other hand... We're still sitting at 14-4. If we go 12-4 (11.5 Sun Belt wins would equal last year's all time best SBC win percentage), we'll finish at that 23-6 regular season record that many of us thought (before the season started) would be very, very good. And we'll probably at least tie for the regular season championship. If we go 11-5, we'll finish 22-7, we'll still have a Sun Belt bye (I will bet that 11 wins gets a bye on either side, and at least one bye team has a 10 win record).

Even in the worst possible case, I can't fathom us finishing worse than 9-7, even if someone gets hurt. That would mean going 6-5 through the rest of the conference slate. That's terrible. And it still gets us to a 5th straight 20 win season. I know it would be a brutal let down after our start this year, but remember that we're at a point now where we'd be looking at another 20 win season as our nightmare scenario.

The list of non-BCS teams with longer 20 win streaks is tiny (either 8 or 9, I don't remember off the top of my head) and stacked with perennial powers. And it's probably going to get shorter by at least one when this year is over.

Don't get me wrong, I'm very bummed that this won't be a once in a lifetime season. I was hoping for top 25 votes, an undefeated conference season... A lot of that miracle stuff was dancing around in my imagination two or three weeks ago.

But we're still in a position where a conference performance just slightly below what we did last year will give us a very good season, by any preseason measure.

I'm not saying lets just try to stumble our way to another 20 win season and call it a year... But it is pretty amazing, when you stop to think about it, that finishing with only 20 wins would be such a brutal letdown. It says a lot about where we are as a program and how far we've come from the turn of the last decade.

Other bright spots to ease the pain- Finishing with 6 or 7 losses instead of 4 or 5 makes it likelier by almost an order of magnitude that JJ will be back to coach the incoming class of recruits. He's shown in the past that he's savvy about picking the right opportunity to grow his career and continue to be successful, and he won't just jump at a higher dollar offer. He probably won't get offered a cushy seat, and he may just figure on staying another year to wait for LSU to potentially open up.

And, for anyone who measures program success by postseason wins (even though it's a terrible measure and you really, really shouldn't...), we've still got the 2 main things that history shows to be critical in getting those kinds of victories: exceptional guards and a lot of tenured veterans.

[TheTastyGreek]

I don't agree or understand everything JJ does, but handing out a discipline card at the possible expense of a W has my support.

These student athletes will graduate as some of the winningest players in school history because of expectations they already are aware of.

Agree 100%.

JJ does discipline right. Nobody gets a pass... Not Sturns, not Colin Dennis, not the leading scorer in the conference. I think Keith Wooden even spent some time on the bench after his parking tickets arrest, and that didn't even have anything to do with basketball.

He doesn't throw guys under the bus, he doesn't handle it stupid and splatter private business across the New York Times... But he runs a good, clean program and he obviously doesn't make exceptions even for stars.

JJ knows what Tristan means to this team. If JJ decides Tristan needs to sit, then I totally support him even if I have no real idea what offense was committed.

[GrayEagle]

I think im blaming JJ on this one, you cant put your best shooter on the bench because hes in the dog house. Our bench is weak as is butslightly improving. I can understand doing this for one game but now were on two, really?? I know its still early in conference and last year we won our final 10 or so

Your best shooter just scored 25 off the bench but I don't know if it improved his defense. This team is too poor defensively and Josh White had a horrible off-night. This team does not appear to be the equal of last year's team. However, the rest of the league is rather weak and I still feel that we can win the tournament.

[CMJ]

Your best shooter just scored 25 off the bench but I don't know if it improved his defense. This team is too poor defensively and Josh White had a horrible off-night. This team does not appear to be the equal of last year's team. However, the rest of the league is rather weak and I still feel that we can win the tournament.

Granted last year we were 2-3 in conference at this point.