I’m as big of a sunshine pumper as there is on this board, but if you’re:
1) a sane, intelligent person
2) with good eyesight
3) who understands basketball
4) and watched the game start to finish,
then you are not “thrilled” with this win. You are relieved. Cal said as much during the postgame presser. We gave up multiple wide-open threes when we could not afford them. We gave up two turnovers against the most predictable traps imaginable (what’s worse is we had the possession arrow during both, and an easy timeout opportunity on the first), and nearly gave up a third turnover off a bad pass to PJ. We committed a blatant foul 70 feet from the ball in the final seconds, where free throws would have killed us, and just got lucky to have it not called. And that’s all just in the last 90 seconds of game clock, without even mentioning free throws or the jaw-dropping lapses of Nick Richards (that were so ghastly Cal couldn’t leave him in for a straight 60 seconds).
Look, I’m happy to win and not lose. And let’s be fair to our own guys, we were playing with seven scholarship players - and only two guards - against a team that finally got all of its players back, and when at full strength, is one of the best in the country. And we got hosed on some egregious calls throughout the game that incensed even Bilas. And A&M started the game nailing a flurry of threes from low-percentage shooters who never even attempt them.
So, us not soaring to a comfortable victory doesn’t bother me. Frankly, I might not even have been upset to lose under other circumstances. The problem is that that we utterly disintegrated when it mattered, in ways that are completely in our control; and when you get down to it, A&M’s final score was more a matter of them missing wide-open shots and not getting a foul call they deserved than it was because we did what we needed to do. If it were for a championship, I’d be elated. But for a home game in early conference play, it just left kind of a bad taste in my mouth.