Ok, I love the "whoa! hold your horses" guys and the "let's not get too excited" guys and the "these teams sucked" guys, but come on folks. We've all been watching college basketball all our lives and we know what we're seeing. It's ok to be excited about this group. No, we shouldn't be talking national title today, but we can talk about this team being well ahead of many recent UK teams at this juncture.
1. It's ok to say that this Bahamas tour puts our Cats ahead of many other teams in terms of chemistry and defining roles.
2. The jitters are out of the way for many of these guys now, which is a big step.
3. There are some seriously talented players on this team.
4. The shooting is better than recent teams.
5. The desire to play defense (with the exception of the end of yesterday's game) is better
6. The offense of Herro is special.
7. The strength of Travis and Washington is rare.
8. The high flying and intensity of Johnson is impressive.
9. The defensive intensity of Hagans is exceptional.
10. The steady hand of Quickley has been a pleasant surprise.
And yes, perhaps these teams weren't as good as we thought they'd be, but they weren't filled with scrubs, either. We MADE these teams look pretty weak. But these teams were better than the ones we played 4 years ago on the same floor. There were some NBA prospects on a couple of these teams. There were some high D1 players on some of these teams with experience. I know of some UK teams that would have laid down when Mega Bemax started the physical play. They would have wilted and it would have taken them out of their game, but this team handled it better than anyone would have predicted.
Here you go: you have permission to be excited.