Post by FLHoya on Jun 8, 2010 17:17:12 GMT -5
Last year was uneven, and you're picking the worst possible spin.
We did finish 8th in the BE, but with the toughest schedule.
We did lose in the first round.
Of course, none of that jives with a 2 seed, BET finalist and computer rankings in the 10-20 range.
We were a Top 20 team last year which was inconsistent, played in a really tough conference and ran up against a team that couldn't miss in the NCAA tournament.
Were we great? No, not at all. But let's not paint the team as mediocre by a couple of carefully selected results. It wasn't.
Maybe you think we'll be better relative to me because we have entirely different views of last year.
Cleaning this up a bit to further the point...all of the following are true about last year's team:
--#3 seed in the NCAA Tournament
--8th place in the Big East
--Wins over Duke, Butler, Syracuse, Villanova, Pittsburgh, etc.
--Losses to South Florida, Rutgers, and Ohio
--Reached Big East Tournament Final and lost in last possession
--Routed in NCAA first round by a 14 seed
What this says to me:
1. This was always going to exacerbate the problem of selective sampling when Hoyatalk gave its varying accounts of "what happened" this past season. Not that we don't do it every offseason, as previously noted: why, in 2008-09 we beat FF teams UConn and Villanova on the road and routed Syracuse, but lost to.............
2. More to the heart of the matter, it would seem the problem is one of consistency from game to game.
The real question then becomes: what are the foundational things lacking from the past two seasons that were present before?
How was it that the 2007 team could rip off 11 straight (and 19 of 20) wins between mid-January and April while the 2009 team lost 9 of 11 in BE play*? How did the 2008 team never lose a last possession game, and (almost) always come up with defensive stops in close games, when the 2010 team's defense kept letting it down?
(*Interestingly, both of those streaks started on the same day--January 17th)
We've provided any number of answers over several threads lately: better defense, a taller more versatile front line, a more assertive star player,
Which is the right one? Who knows. Could be all of them.
If describing last season has become Choose Your Own Adventure on Hoyatalk, might it just be the same thing for what will become of 2010-2011? And I don't mean for Hoyatalk on that front.
One upside I see is that many of the members of this team strike me as very hard workers who will work (and are working) hard in the offseason to produce the kind of improvement that no doubt is necessary in their individual skill sets to keep the team on the happier side of those tandems I listed above.
That improvement, coupled with an influx of young players that are...what's the word...let's say "intriguing" has me interested.