I Dont Know What Most Of You Expected From This Season

[white10]

I'm so glad we're not in Arkansas's shoes 👟 🙃

Go Cats! Mark Pope is the right guy and he knows the mission!

 

[kats23]

That's exactly it. Pitino's first team here was a wild success. Not because of the record. They went 14-14. Got killed at Kansas by 50. But there was a never a minute that that team didn't play hard. There was never an instance where that team's conditioning was in question.

That is not too much to ask.

That was just a different era. The 40 minutes of night in and night out just doesn't exist anymore in college basketball. Too much money, too much exposure, too many post college opportunities. And I would bet you there were nights where that team didn't bring it. I was 8 years old for Pitino's first team so I can't remember much from then, but I know we weren't on TV every night. I know message boards didn't exist; social media didn't exist. Locker room cameras didn't exist. People like to romanticize that team, and I can't blame them but if that team had the same exposure as today's college scene, I bet it wouldn't come out as rosy as some folks want to try. Plus, you were playing with a different crop of athletes. Pitino's conditioning program was ahead of its time.

As far as this current season, I guess I don't get as upset because this is what I expected. I thought we would have 10 losses or more. I knew we were going to be out athleted some. My hope was that the coaching would prop us up on the nights we didn't have the horses. And for the Pope haters here, I hate to break it to you but he's done that a lot this year. He's outcoached a lot more than he's been out athleted. I know fans think theyre not trying but I don't see it like that. You have guys playing a lot more minutes than they have ever been used to playing. Playing better athletes. You ever wonder why Pope is subbing like he is. He's trying to keep their legs under them. We have run out of gas in several games this last few weeks esp since the injury bug hit. The last 15 years here we've grown so accustomed to pure athletes that we can't wrap our brains around what we see on the floor this year compared to the raw athleticism that was under the previous admin.

 

[FurdTerguson]

And I would bet you there were nights where that team didn't bring it.

Everyone remembers that team beating Shaquille ONeal and Chris Jackson 100-95. They have forgotten (perhaps as a defense mechanism) giving up the last 18 points to lose by 55 to Kansas and then one week later falling behind 49-19 to North Carolina.