Steppin Off The Ledge

emmitt01 · February 13, 2011

As I watched that debacle yesterday afternoon I was about as angry and disappointed as I have been in a long time as a Mean Green fan. Why? Because there appeared to be no care, no want, in this team. I stayed mad for about 15 minutes after the game ended though. Fifteen minutes. That's it. I've come to realize that this is because I am no resigned to the fact that this team is not what many of us wanted them to be. Some of us looked at them as the aspirin to the headache that was Dodgeball. Some looked at them as the point of pride that we could boast to friends and potential North Texas bandwaggoners about. They are none of the above...and that's strangely settling.

I make no secret of the fact that I believe Tristan should be on the court as much as possible. Is he a defensive liability? Yep. Is he the only consistent scorer lately? Yep. Sure, Josh will have spurts, Holmen will get his and someone else will have the occasional "spurt." But Tristan is the only one who brings his offense consistently...IF you let him play. Do I think TT is perfect? Hell no. His free throw shooting was abysmal last night (just like the team). And I think that even if Tristan were scoring 40 a night it wouldn't make up for the other weaknesses...not completely. I just see him as a Toyota Camry on a car lot of Ford Focuses. There is no Ferrari on this team...sorry.

Josh is who he is. And I truly believe Sun Belt teams have figured it out. Put a larger guard on him and keep him from shooting from the perimeter. If he blows past you, no big deal, just let your bigs take care of the rest. He hasn't been that player that we all remember from the Oklahoma State and Tech games since conference started. I'm not trying to bash Josh. I'm just trying to temper the "he's a first ballot NT Hall of Famer" talk with a little reality. If there is anyone on this team who should step up and be that "senior leader" it's this guy. I haven't seen it.

George does what George can with what he's got. He's a legit double double guy in this league...with zero margin of error this season. Without Tramiel he has to be THE big man. Kedrick isn't the true big man that George needs as a compliment. George also can't get into any foul trouble. Knox isn't even close to being a serviceable stop-gap. So a whole lot falls on Odufuwa's shoulders.

We don't have a bench. That about says it.

I used to talk to Courtland all the time about why USC would blow out ranked teams in the OOC in football...then turn around and lose to a weak Pac 10 school. Same for Duke or UNC or all of the Big East in basketball. Conference teams just plain know you. Whereas Texas Tech came into the Super Pit to play us once and LSU had a visit from us once, FAU, WKU, ULL etc. have played Josh White, Tristan, George, and the rest at least once a year and often twice. Preparation is so much more in depth on the part of their coaching staffs. Because our offense is so vanilla and stale...and our defense so, well, absent...our talent can be overcome by a decent game plan.

I don't believe this team will "turn it on" in the tournament. Not the confence tournament and consequently certainly not in the NCAA tournament.

Fifteen minutes. That's all it took to come down off the ledge because I know now we are who we are.