Moses: “I don’t know why I don’t start the game with energy. Coach got on me at half time”.
Macon: “I am going to keep shooting. I don’t care what anyone says. I am going to keep shooting.”
Beard: “When the shot clock is getting low and I have the ball, I am going to shoot it.”
Barford: “Sometimes I fall asleep in the first half of games. I need to get better at that.”
Those are not winning comments.
The Moses and Barford comments speak for themselves.
However what if Macon and Beard said and acted this way:
Macon: If my shot is not falling I will work to get others open and concentrate on defense.
Beard: When the shot clock gets low I will work to get one of our better shooters a good look then try to get a shot for myself. That’s what a Point Guard does.
To me those are selfish comments. Those are comments that aren’t about team but about themselves! Its all about “me”. Sad.
When this team plays together & plays unselfishly we can beat anyone but when we don’t we can’t. We cannot play one on one basketball & expect to win. And the last 2 games we played one on one. Now the games we won like at Vandy, at A&M, at UT we all played hard as a team.
This team is still missing pieces BUT the effort, heart, and want are all up to you. There is no excuse for not having those three things. Vandy played harder, because they wanted it more than we did last night.
Maybe Mike needs to find 1 thing to motivate this team every night we play. It’s sad to say but maybe they need 1 thing every night to remind them what they are fighting & playing for. You would think the NCAA tournament would be enough but maybe it’s not. Mike Erwin made a good point & I’ve thought about this! At Mizzou “their” motivation was fighting for a cancer patient. At OSU their motivation was fighting for a team that passed away 10 years earlier. So what can our motivation be?!
Believe it or not, I did not dig these up they just stuck with me from the time they were made. Honest
not lying. I am real old school if you catch my drift. Like Mike Irwin old school.
These comments merely point out that we don’t play as a team. All I see is four guys running a weave around a high screen trying to go one-on-one. Not seeing any passing, just hand-offs and let the next guy try. And I think there is competition for playing time, instead of putting the team first. The “antithesis” of no “i” in team.
Think a lot of these comments go back to chemistry. And I heard one post game comment after the Missouri game that really disturbed me, did not have team ready to play. Really??