The answer is that it depends on what recruiting strides Trent makes in the next couple of years to make the team competitive in this league and in a position for tourny runs. It's not fan restlessness that we need to worry about. That shows your fans still care about the program. It's when they don't show up anymore that you've got problems. That's where defending your home court is important. Keeping the game close in the 2nd half like they did in the 1st against #1 would have done the job in that regard today. Notching another blowout does not.
The talent Kentucky has showed. We just couldn't sustain a run and after that dunk Kentucky just calmly hit two threes in a row on the way to a 19-2 run. Calipari did say that was the best they'd played all year. Of course we pick this day to play one our worse...
It should be. It only takes five minutes to see that this team is much better than it was last year. While it hasn't necessarily translated to the W-L record yet, this team that has improved a lot over the previous year. The effort has been there all season, and the talent level is slowly getting back to where it needs to be. Trent has the team playing defense and fighting for every loose ball. Can't ask for much more at this point from a young team. I expected a better showing in conference play so far, but things are still looking up long term. Hope we can put together a nice back stretch.
i think they have improved. Defense is much better. O is marginally better. Rebounding (though we are at or near top of conference) has struggled lately...badly. But most of all, i'm very tired of seeing Tigers run down floor and jack up a shot, particularly when they are not open (see Hickey's performance yesterday). Hamilton (and O'Bryant, of late) don't even get touches on the ball when they are clearly our most effective asset. I'm quickly losing my confidence in Trent Johnson...and thinking really hard if it is worth my hard earned $615 each year for two tickets.
Trent's not going anywhere unless someone makes him a better offer. Thanks to Alleva, he'll be here at least through the 2014/2015 season making $1.2M/yr. We couldn't afford to fire him even if we wanted to, from both a financial and program perspective. We're improving slowly, but we need a solid win streak to finish middle of the pack, which is what I was aiming for pre-season. I expected to see significant improvement from last year, and in some ways we have, but it's such a mixed bag. And for the record, the "young team" excuse is getting so old it's going to need adult diapers soon. We've been hearing this for 2 seasons now, and it's past worn out. If we don't finish 2012 strong and make some serious waves next season, then it's time to seriously think about moving on. By then Trent will be 5 years into his tenure, and that's enough time for a head coach to take ownership of a program.
The thing that disappoints me the most is the lack of ball movement with the offense. Florida and Kentucky has much better ball movement and shot selection than we did. Unfortunately, the basketball team has the same offensive philosphy as the football team....Offense is just a luxury. We don't need it. Let's focus on defense and rebounding (special teams for football).
Agreed. Hope we can finish at .500 in the conference and have a nice run in SEC tournament. Perhaps an NIT berth at least. :geauxtige
lsudolemite is correct that we are not a young team anymore but we do have young players playing key roles this season like Hickey, JOBIII and Isaac. With the exception of Hamilton, none of our upperclassmen are impressive players who are long time impact types. Warren has his moments but he also takes a lot of ill advised shots IMO. KingEmeritus mentioned that the lack of ball movement hurts us and I couldn't agree more. The overall lack of offensive patience is self defeating because it usually ends with a less than ideal shot and lets the defense off the hook by not having to play defense for very long. IMHO, the lack of offensive patience coupled with poor defensive rebounding are the major impediments to this becoming a Top 25 team. We have size so their is no excuse for the rebounding. The lack of offensive patience can somewhat be explained by the youth of our key players but some of it comes from guys like Storm Warren. The last three games have been tough to watch but I still think we will surprise some folks before the season is over.
