That’s dumb. This team had pulled out more hard fought close games than cal in his last three years. Fragile is not the right word. More like unstable or volatile.
You must not have seen the walk abouts against Mich St and Gonzaga? Really more no shows than walkabouts. Just embarrassing games. Or the walk thru against Bellarmine because our players were affected by Christmas and theirs weren't? Or the Forst half against St John's and IU where they were boo'ed off the court.
Or maybe the games against Ohio St, Arkansas, Auburn, Alabama in the SEC quarters and UT in the NCAA? Maybe fragile is not the right word for those. Quit? That's what it looked like.
No preparation for any game. And fragile is the word for our conditioning. If we even have a conditioning program?
The team is coming out with effort now. And the wins are a reflection of that. These have not been scheme wins. The team should be applauded for effort wins. No one was down on the team or the coach for the losses. They were down on the team and coaches for how they lost. Even undermanned you can play hard. Maybe the record would have been the same? Doubtful though. We probably only have 3 losses with the effort of the last 3 games. Save for the effort in the first half against UT. We win against UNC had we tried to win. We win against Mo had we tried. Maybe even against UL had we tried to play?
The players deserve all the credit. They are having to overcome the coaching as well as the opponent. We were back to our hope we make it offense yesterday and our hope they miss defense too. Fortunately for us Miss ran the same offense as us. Just dribble around and finally go one on one. We were more aggressive to stay with the man. And Miss made that easy to do. The couple times they did set a screen they were wide open. They never took advantage of our overplaying defense. Two poorly coached teams playing ugly basketball. Someone had to win and I'm glad it was us.
Pope's anal-ylitics probable show we played well. So he will do more of it.
What's "dumb" is to not have questions about this team. A five game win streak is great. It's also very possibly fool's gold. But even if it's not it will never erase what they did this season in MSG and Bridgestone.