<font size="2"><span style="font-family: Tahoma;">Brian Brian Brian,</span><br style="font-family: Tahoma;"><br style="font-family: Tahoma;"><span style="font-family: Tahoma;">It’s Friday afternoon, the holiday season, and we’re bowl eligible. I didn’t want to have to stop and make you look stupid, but now I have to.</span><br style="font-family: Tahoma;"><br style="font-family: Tahoma;"><span style="font-family: Tahoma;">First, your theoretical 4-26 season that ends with an NCAA birth has never happened. There have been a handful of small conference teams that won their tournament and got in with records well below .500. Georgia is about the only one I can think of that comes close to that in major conference basketball. If we’re going to have this debate, let’s at least ground it in reality.</span><br style="font-family: Tahoma;"><br style="font-family: Tahoma;"><span style="font-family: Tahoma;">Second, the point is we should not have gone into last season’s SECT on the bubble. If we were a true tournament team, we had five months to prove it. We didn’t. One non-whistle in the last four seconds in Nashville didn’t wipe out five months of inconsistent, underachieving basketball. I point you again to the list I posted earlier. We are also fortunate there are not more games on that list, as we could have easily dropped several more games, including at LSU, at Houston, and Auburn at home. True tournament teams don’t drop that many close games and scrape by in a few others.</span><br style="font-family: Tahoma;"><br style="font-family: Tahoma;"><span style="font-family: Tahoma;">Third, the refs didn’t cost us the game against Kentucky. One call made in a vacuum rarely has that much impact on a game. Did they blow the call? Yes. Did it suck as a State fan? Of course. But it was also as much our fault that it got to that point.</span><br style="font-family: Tahoma;"><br style="font-family: Tahoma;"><span style="font-family: Tahoma;">1:41 to go, up five.</span><br style="font-family: Tahoma;"><br style="font-family: Tahoma;"><span style="font-family: Tahoma;">1:28 Dodson misses but Patterson gets the rebound and scores. Up three. With the ball.</span><br style="font-family: Tahoma;"><br style="font-family: Tahoma;"><span style="font-family: Tahoma;">OPPORTUNITY #1: GET THE REBOUND, GET FOULED, MAKE FREE THROWS AND YOU WIN THE GAME.</span><br style="font-family: Tahoma;"><br style="font-family: Tahoma;"><span style="font-family: Tahoma;">1:06 Cousins fouls Jarvis. Our senior All SEC center steps to the line. Misses the first. Misses the second.</span><br style="font-family: Tahoma;"><br style="font-family: Tahoma;"><span style="font-family: Tahoma;">OPPORTUNITY #2: MAKE THE FREE THROWS AND YOU GO UP FIVE AND PROBABLY WIN THE GAME.</span><br style="font-family: Tahoma;"><br style="font-family: Tahoma;"><span style="font-family: Tahoma;">But it gets worse, as you know.</span><br style="font-family: Tahoma;"><br style="font-family: Tahoma;"><span style="font-family: Tahoma;">0:51 Cousins misses a jumper and Bost gets the rebound. Bledsoe fouls him with 43 seconds left but that’s the sixth team foul, so we are not shooting. Stewart, another senior, and Benock turn it over on the inbounds, Wall scores, and now we are only up 1 with 40 seconds left.</span><br style="font-family: Tahoma;"><br style="font-family: Tahoma;"><span style="font-family: Tahoma;">OPPORTUNITY #3: DON’T TURN IT OVER, GET FOULED, HIT FREE THROWS AND YOU WIN THE GAME.</span><br style="font-family: Tahoma;"><br style="font-family: Tahoma;"><span style="font-family: Tahoma;">0:27 Bledsoe fouls Dee. He misses the front end of the one and one.</span><br style="font-family: Tahoma;"><br style="font-family: Tahoma;"><span style="font-family: Tahoma;">OPPORTUNITY #4: MAKE THE FREE THROWS AND YOU WIN THE GAME.</span><br style="font-family: Tahoma;"><br style="font-family: Tahoma;"><span style="font-family: Tahoma;">0:12 Wall misses. Stewart get the rebound, is fouled, and hits both free throws. So now we’re up three again.</span><br style="font-family: Tahoma;"><br style="font-family: Tahoma;"><span style="font-family: Tahoma;">0:07 Kentucky calls timeout. We also have the chance to talk to our team, not that you can tell it. </span><br style="font-family: Tahoma;"><span style="font-family: Tahoma;">0:04 Bledsoe gets away with a walk on the inbounds, then gets fouled too early, goes to the line, makes one, misses one, Wall misses a three, but Cousins rebounds and puts It in to tie it.</span><br style="font-family: Tahoma;"><br style="font-family: Tahoma;"><span style="font-family: Tahoma;">OPPORTUNITY #5: DON’T FOUL SO QUICKLY, REDUCING THE CHANCE FOR A PUTBACK.</span><br style="font-family: Tahoma;"><span style="font-family: Tahoma;">OPPORTUNITY #6: GET THE EFFING REBOUND AND YOU WIN THE GAME.</span><br style="font-family: Tahoma;"><br style="font-family: Tahoma;"><span style="font-family: Tahoma;">So if you want to blame the ref for missing the FT call, fine. The walk on Bledsoe was MUCH more blatant. But the bottom line is we had six opportunities to win the game in the last 100 seconds, and didn’t get it done. I give us full credit for playing a great 38 minutes, but the last two minutes cost us that game, not the last four seconds.</span><br style="font-family: Tahoma;"><br style="font-family: Tahoma;"></font>