Post by FLHoya on Mar 10, 2005 23:20:45 GMT -5
Anyone who reads my recaps of games knows I'm fond of asking myself rhetorical questions during the game as a way of trying to get to the bottom of this team. Also, I'm quite fond of the notion of looking long-term with this young team of ours, as opposed to getting bogged down in the happenings of one game or a player's performance on a given night--you know, the volumnious posts and evaluations notwithstanding!!!
The most important of these rhetorical questions is one I've been asking myself throughout the conference season. I wrote about it in my most recent recap, as I had a conversation with CAHoya and 007 at halftime of the Providence game.
Essentially, at halftime or at the end of a game, I like to look back on what's happened with our offense during the game and ask:
“What could you take from the parts where the offense performed well in this game and say–okay, let’s do that and we’ll be successful next time?"
It's an important question when you look at the team over the long term. It was never going to be easy to implement this new offense of ours, and consequently I felt that it was going to take a long time (and a long-term view) to properly evaluate where we've come as a team.
I felt it was a mistake to hand-wring during the five-game losing streak to close our season about "how far we'd fallen" since we hit 8-3 in the Big East. Because that obscured the larger point--the point that should really be the focus of what we take away from this season:
How far we've come since we lost to Temple by 18 on the opening night of the season.
It's simply too long of a season, with too many hills and valleys, to reduce it to the final five games of the regular season. Not that I don't understand the motivation behind all of the frustration--apparently there's this tournament or something that comes around every March that's supposed to be really hot.
This is the same group of players that beat Pittsburgh, Villanova, and Notre Dame in thrilling finishes in January. It is the same group of players that lost listless outings to St. John's and Providence in February and March. It's the same group of players that Norfolk State took to overtime and Long Beach State stayed within single digits of in December.
But it's not the same TEAM.
Luckily, there's sort of a common element that the team had in January, February, and March this year--a game against UConn.
If anyone needed any perspective on tonight's game, they would do well to go back to the threads from a few weeks ago when we visited Storrs. There was, amidst all of the bluster and anger that I can't necessarily say I don't understand, a common theme running through many of the postgame comments:
The talent gap is too big.
Same group of players. Different TEAMS tonight.
If you look at this game in the short-term, and again I can't blame anyone for doing so, there's reason to be frustrated and sad. Barring a miracle of benevolence, Georgetown will be headed to the NIT this season. We'll never know whether Jeff Green would have hit that three pointer, and whether that would have made all the difference.
But I can't be upset about tonight. In fact, I'm encouraged more than anything else. Finally, we answered that rhetorical question.
All too often, I've said before, when I asked myself what we could take from our offense and replicate in order to be succesful, all I could respond was: "Hope the three point shooting is blazing hot from everywhere on the court again." What was most frustrating at times during our struggles was that we never seemed to be building a basis with our offense to grow from and truly make teams think.
Tonight, we built that basis against a team that three weeks ago most of us never thought we could stay in the same building with. I write a great deal about my impressions of this team on our message board. I've done it for five years now since I came to Georgetown. Having given myself a grace period after the end of the game, I can say with confidence and without hyperbole: what I saw in the last 10 minutes of tonight's game offensively, and even beyond that, was the most encouraging thing I've seen from this team the entire year. And, to be honest, several years.
Too often this year, the jump shot has been our only friend, as we rode the three pointer like we rode the broad shoulders of Mike Sweetney in years past. My one constant wish this year was for us to develop a variety of offensive options from each of our players that would make defenses think.
Tonight, our four main offensive players each gave UConn a reason to think.
Brandon Bowman mixed authoritative drives at the rim with deadly and timely shooting. Good Brandon really makes you think.
Ashanti Cook took the initiative--and the tough shots--like we've wished our guards to do all season, mixing in every brand of shot imaginable.
Darrel Owens WOKE UP!! And rediscovered the form that made him the fans' favorite sparkplug from his most famous moment in Cameron Indoor Stadium, all the while providing the three-point daggers that we sorely needed in our arsenal in second halves all season.
Jeff Green was bottled up in the post for most of the game. He responded with five assists. When Charlie V and Josh B won't let you get your points, why not share the wealth to the tune of 10+ points with others.
And though he scored only two points on the night, can anyone deny the contributions of Ray Reed were enormous tonight?
So now when I ask myself the question, I can pull out the tape of tonight's game, fast forward to the second half, and say...THAT'S what we can do. THAT'S what this team is capable of!!
The posters were right three weeks ago--on talent alone, there isn't a reason in the world we should have been in the vicinity of UConn. We certainly weren't in January or February.
The talent's the same in March. The TEAM is much different.
Too many times, in the wake of tough losses, we look for salvation in the arms of incoming recruits. Surely, they will be the answer to our talent gaps. We often forget that an infusion of new talent is by far the only way to improve as a team. I think if our fans take a good look at what we accomplished tonight, even in defeat, they'll feel much better about what we can accomplish the NEXT time we see UConn. The talent gap may not be so big.
After I wrote my final recap of the season, a poster (I won't say which one) wrote me and said they wished they were as optimistic as I was about the future of our team.
In the short-term, tonight was devastating.
For the long-term...well, now you know why I'm so optimistic.
The most important of these rhetorical questions is one I've been asking myself throughout the conference season. I wrote about it in my most recent recap, as I had a conversation with CAHoya and 007 at halftime of the Providence game.
Essentially, at halftime or at the end of a game, I like to look back on what's happened with our offense during the game and ask:
“What could you take from the parts where the offense performed well in this game and say–okay, let’s do that and we’ll be successful next time?"
It's an important question when you look at the team over the long term. It was never going to be easy to implement this new offense of ours, and consequently I felt that it was going to take a long time (and a long-term view) to properly evaluate where we've come as a team.
I felt it was a mistake to hand-wring during the five-game losing streak to close our season about "how far we'd fallen" since we hit 8-3 in the Big East. Because that obscured the larger point--the point that should really be the focus of what we take away from this season:
How far we've come since we lost to Temple by 18 on the opening night of the season.
It's simply too long of a season, with too many hills and valleys, to reduce it to the final five games of the regular season. Not that I don't understand the motivation behind all of the frustration--apparently there's this tournament or something that comes around every March that's supposed to be really hot.
This is the same group of players that beat Pittsburgh, Villanova, and Notre Dame in thrilling finishes in January. It is the same group of players that lost listless outings to St. John's and Providence in February and March. It's the same group of players that Norfolk State took to overtime and Long Beach State stayed within single digits of in December.
But it's not the same TEAM.
Luckily, there's sort of a common element that the team had in January, February, and March this year--a game against UConn.
If anyone needed any perspective on tonight's game, they would do well to go back to the threads from a few weeks ago when we visited Storrs. There was, amidst all of the bluster and anger that I can't necessarily say I don't understand, a common theme running through many of the postgame comments:
The talent gap is too big.
Same group of players. Different TEAMS tonight.
If you look at this game in the short-term, and again I can't blame anyone for doing so, there's reason to be frustrated and sad. Barring a miracle of benevolence, Georgetown will be headed to the NIT this season. We'll never know whether Jeff Green would have hit that three pointer, and whether that would have made all the difference.
But I can't be upset about tonight. In fact, I'm encouraged more than anything else. Finally, we answered that rhetorical question.
All too often, I've said before, when I asked myself what we could take from our offense and replicate in order to be succesful, all I could respond was: "Hope the three point shooting is blazing hot from everywhere on the court again." What was most frustrating at times during our struggles was that we never seemed to be building a basis with our offense to grow from and truly make teams think.
Tonight, we built that basis against a team that three weeks ago most of us never thought we could stay in the same building with. I write a great deal about my impressions of this team on our message board. I've done it for five years now since I came to Georgetown. Having given myself a grace period after the end of the game, I can say with confidence and without hyperbole: what I saw in the last 10 minutes of tonight's game offensively, and even beyond that, was the most encouraging thing I've seen from this team the entire year. And, to be honest, several years.
Too often this year, the jump shot has been our only friend, as we rode the three pointer like we rode the broad shoulders of Mike Sweetney in years past. My one constant wish this year was for us to develop a variety of offensive options from each of our players that would make defenses think.
Tonight, our four main offensive players each gave UConn a reason to think.
Brandon Bowman mixed authoritative drives at the rim with deadly and timely shooting. Good Brandon really makes you think.
Ashanti Cook took the initiative--and the tough shots--like we've wished our guards to do all season, mixing in every brand of shot imaginable.
Darrel Owens WOKE UP!! And rediscovered the form that made him the fans' favorite sparkplug from his most famous moment in Cameron Indoor Stadium, all the while providing the three-point daggers that we sorely needed in our arsenal in second halves all season.
Jeff Green was bottled up in the post for most of the game. He responded with five assists. When Charlie V and Josh B won't let you get your points, why not share the wealth to the tune of 10+ points with others.
And though he scored only two points on the night, can anyone deny the contributions of Ray Reed were enormous tonight?
So now when I ask myself the question, I can pull out the tape of tonight's game, fast forward to the second half, and say...THAT'S what we can do. THAT'S what this team is capable of!!
The posters were right three weeks ago--on talent alone, there isn't a reason in the world we should have been in the vicinity of UConn. We certainly weren't in January or February.
The talent's the same in March. The TEAM is much different.
Too many times, in the wake of tough losses, we look for salvation in the arms of incoming recruits. Surely, they will be the answer to our talent gaps. We often forget that an infusion of new talent is by far the only way to improve as a team. I think if our fans take a good look at what we accomplished tonight, even in defeat, they'll feel much better about what we can accomplish the NEXT time we see UConn. The talent gap may not be so big.
After I wrote my final recap of the season, a poster (I won't say which one) wrote me and said they wished they were as optimistic as I was about the future of our team.
In the short-term, tonight was devastating.
For the long-term...well, now you know why I'm so optimistic.
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