I hope that those “That’s it, I’m outa here for the rest of this year” guys who posted on this forum a week or two ago had something good to do tonight while I watched the game, because it was the best played team game (on both ends of the floor) that the Hogs have played in the past couple of years! Great game! Well spent evening!! Keep it up Hogs!!! WPS!!!
Your right Baton Rouge hog I enjoyed it very much. And your correct it’s the best they have looked against a quality team in several years. Made me think of the good ole days.
I’m one of those guys and I enjoyed a wonderful, stress free night with my family. Much laughter and fun. Checked the score later and glad to see they won. There are actually other things to do, and we’re not bad people for not watching.
It’s funny because if you listened to the “Mike ain’t getting it done crowd” you would think he was doing a horrible job here. He’s only second to Cal in SEC wins the past 3 years. That’s an impressive stat if you ask me.
The MAGID crowd is fixated on one thing – the NCAA tournament, and our lack of participation therein and lack of success when we do get in (no S16s since '96). If we had gotten to the SS or EE two years ago, the wolves would be a lot less noisy.
I don’t do it a lot on here but I spend a lot of time balancing debate on CMA’s overall performance. There are extremists on both sides of the ball, more negative. That said, NCAAT’s are what matter at this stage of our program. Every major stakeholder, including Jeff Long, has acknowledged that.
So, some context from the wolves should be dismissed, but not the part about CMA leading us to a NCAAT only one time in the last five years. Citing records is faulty because it doesn’t tell the whole story due to strength of schedule. NCAAT appearances does.
BTW, I’m not talking AT you Fusion even though I quoted you. Just adding to the discussion.
Hopefully, we make the tournament and the debates about CMA’s performance simmers.
Isn’t that reasonable? Shouldn’t Hog fans be concerned about tournament appearances? After 5.5 years, what else should fans be fixated on? No offense, but people don’t buy tickets because of GPAs.
Funny thing is (sorry BLU, Swine, and Razor have to get this in) that according to many on here Cal is a sleaze ball and a horrible coach. If that’s true, why is CMA second to him? Shouldn’t he be better?
You’re right context does matter. And it’s really hard these days to make the tournament from the SEC, you can be a top 4 team in this league and not make the tournament. And making the NCAA tournament doesn’t always tell the whole story, it just sometimes means you played the RPI game better than some other teams in the non-conference. Who do you think was the better team last year between Vanderbilt and South Carolina and who do you think fans felt better about as their coach at the end of the season?
And I don’t care what anybody says, I watch a lot of college basketball and the quality of play in the SEC is not much worse than any other power conference. Scheduling and poor non-conference performances have been this leagues problem, not the quality of play or lack of talent on the teams. Frank Martin was on Bo’s show yesterday and did an interview. Bo asked him was it different standards for making the tournament in the Big 12 than making it in the SEC. He mentioned how you could finish top 3 in this league and miss the tournament and you can be in 5th place in the Big 12 and make it in, and how good and talented the league is and how challenging it is to get teams in the tournament. And Frank Martin isn’t a guy that’s going to give you coach speak, he’ll tell you exactly how it is. And if he says it’s very challenging to make it in from the SEC, I’ll take his word for it. Think about this, it’s taken Frank Martin 5 years to make the tournament in the SEC, and he was known as one of the better coaches in the country before he went to South Carolina.
No hostility here brother, as I too (along with the many others) have been very disappointed during and after many of the games of the past few years, and (as you stated) there are many other ways to enjoy “a wonderful, stress free night with the family.” But you did miss a really good game!
When grease ball Cal finally get Kentucky on probation like he has everywhere he has coaches we will all be able to laugh. The fans in Kentucky will get restless if the NBA training camp that Cal is running isn’t able to hang a banner from the dance. We are fine with MA and he has my support and hopefully yours too!
All of us want more wins, in December, February, March, and eventually in April. That’s a given. There’s no disagreement there. To win in April, you have to make the Dance. Again, that’s a given. (The NIT ends at the end of March).
NCAAT bids can be faulty too. As we’ve discussed, the bubble is an unforgiving place, and sometimes deserving teams are left out. In 2014, the last year we fell on the wrong side of the bubble, the four Big 6 teams sent to Dayton for the First Four were RPI 55, 56, 60 and 37. And a few teams in between 37 (which happened to be Tennessee) and 55 (NC State) went to the NIT. So why did Iowa (RPI 60) and Xavier (56) get in and SMU (45) and Minnesota (34) get left out? Obviously somehow Xavier’s 20-13 and Iowa at 19-13 were deemed superior to Minny’s 24-13 or SMU’s 27-10. And Minny had the #30 nonconference SOS, so it wasn’t a case of being punished for playing cupcakes. (Xavier’s NCSOS was #94, Iowa was #172; looks like the Hawkeyes were rewarded for their pastry). Minny did finish one game behind Iowa in the Big Ten standings, so that may help explain why the Hawks got in instead of the Gophs.
Our RPI that year was #67, so we weren’t that far below Iowa at #60.
But yeah, our program should be getting into the Dance more than one in five or six. No question. And if we don’t make it into the bracket on the 12th, those eggs we laid at CoMo and against Vandy, possibly along with future eggs yet to be laid, will be the sticking point.
Considering that we had the rare trifecta of tragedy last summer of 1) transfers (common nowadays), 2) two players declaring early (uncommon except at blueblood schools), and 3) two projected starters with legal problems (uncommon), it’s a surprising accomplishment that we survived last season well enough to be second on that list. Throw in graduation, and we were without a single returning starter for half the season plus one of their slotted replacements.
CMA is certainly responsible for the state of the program, but it was unreasonable for fans to continually gripe throughout the season last year once the games started as if CMA should have been able to recruit us out of the mess in the spring and summer. Kruger and every recruit in the nation knew for certain that OU was losing three quality senior starters for this season. He still has two starters from a FF team. They are 9-16 this season, and a lot of fans would have thrown a party if he had been named the new coach at the end of last season.
I’ve seen this argument lately, and I fundamentally disagree with it. It’s over-analysis, and this is coming from a guy that naturally over-analyzes.
Weaker league equals more opportunities for wins. Schedule appropriately (which we did enough this year), do what you’re supposed to do and you’ll make the tournament.
I like Frank Martin but let’s not act like good, smart coaches don’t bend logic or the truth at times to back their team or the league. We’ve listened to Nick Saban pump every team up each week, talk like it’s going to be a hard-fought game and then they go out embarrass them. Coaches do this.
You fundamentally disagree that better teams miss the tournament over lesser teams sometimes because they didn’t play the RPI game as well? That’s interesting considering it happens every year. So, I take it you thought Vanderbilt was a better team than South Carolina last year? You can be a mediocre team and catch fire in your conference tournament and make the NCAA tournament, we seen it with Ole Miss a few years ago. You also can be like South Carolina last year and have a really good team, but if some of the non-conference teams you scheduled didn’t perform well you can end up with a bad non-conference SOS and miss out. Making the tournament doesn’t always tell the whole story, you have to look at everything the coach has done.
