After sleeping on it, I still canāt decide who had a bigger meltdown- the team in the last min of regulation, or this board. Obviously was an awful loss and frustrating. But we know the level of the team at this point. And clearly, the collective we seems to constantly make weird assumptions- about heart/toughness of guys on the team, mental makeup, etc. I thought for 39 min, to HGNs point, the team competed really hard and executed. Too bad it fell apart.
Choosing the glass half full- letās pray to get in, and make a first four run. No one is unbeatable this year (aside from probably UConn and Houston). 2021 UCLA energy!
Not saying we shouldnāt have. But our most recent situation in which we did bit us in the ass.
Somehow we have a team that gave up a buzzer-beater to end regulation on Thursday, a buzzer-beater to end the first half on Friday, and a buzzer-beater to end regulation on Friday.
Couldnāt foul on the first one ā could foul on the latter two, and seems we chose the wrong one.
On another matter, we built our lead by keeping NC State out of the paint the last 5 minutes of regulation, forcing them to take jumpers on tired legs. In OT, they were able to bring back Burns and get back in the lane, allowing him to push with impunity and drop his shoulder for 5 more minutes.
It was the epitome of a gut-wrenching loss, so the āmeltdownā was understandable. So many times last night I was gonna post something but thought better of it. Donāt blame those that did though at all. Appreciate your positive take and those of others as keeps me sane lol. I too pray we get in and then maybe surprise some people. I do think we are a better team than we were a month ago. Taine gives us another consistent scorer (Iām done with Rohde sorry not sorry) so was positive to see him start last night. Should start going forward which Lord willing is in Dayton (unless committee wants to give us one of last byes lol).
I kept wanting Minor to pull out the chair on Burns so to speak. Not sure if it would have worked but nothing else was working. Burns was banging and using Minorās body to keep himself under control. I think if Minor would have backed off once or twice then Burns probably wouldāve turned it over.
I donāt disagree. Just thought attacks were very pointed/personal. Reece and iMac in particular were awesome last night, save the missed free throws. Just think the takes could have been much more measured.
I guess my counter would be - 2019 had 3 games which would be considered on the positive side of improbability. So Iām not completely convinced we are some cursed March program that has an unbelievable amount of collapses. Of course there have been upset issues. But again, in this era the majority of NCAAT appearances have been at the 5+ seed level. And weāve made the ACCT semis regularly at this point.
They bank-toilet-bowled in a three at the buzzer (way harder than bank-swish). Iām not excusing our collapseāthe FT shooting and foul-on-a-3 are inexcusableābut we also got massively unlucky at the end in a way that has nothing to do with being cursed and everything to do with āsometimes thatās the way the ball bounces.ā
Obviously @bdhammond28 can speak for himself but I donāt think he was saying we are cursed. I believe he was saying the program has a proven problem closing out games. Even the national title year we lost late leads in the last 3 games before improbable finishes to win
But I think you create your own luck or lack thereof. Furman game and this game shouldāve been closed out. We had them won and gave them away. It required the other team executing, but we still gave them those opportunities they shouldnāt have had.
Regarding the ā19 team, they almost screwed it up, but they sort of created their own luck. They were just super heady and opportunistic in those late game situations. Frankly, that team was just good enough to save it once they basically blew it. No other team is good enough to overcome that.
Another thing to consider on fouling at the end, we were awful defending SLOB and BLOB plays all year, and often had a knack for making contact on long closeouts when screened off.
I remember someone on here calling Horne with a 3 and-1.
Honestly, I almost prefer it would have ended that way.
Thereās plenty of blame to go around for not closing that one out.
No doubt @bdhammond28 - I do think there is some level of gap in late game execution at times. I just wonder if, as a collective fanbase, we sometimes overrate our respective failures compared to other programs. I look at teams like Purdue, Tennessee, Arizona. All which have had multiple massive whiffs/collapses as a top program over the past decade, without the championship. So itās more of a perspective exercise for me. Definitely understand your point though.
Anyone saying theyād rather have another coach or Tony should be fired are delusional, but what frustrates me is that after our natty, I thought we had a top 5 coach in his prime and were position to be a top team for a long time. But itās clear now because of in game management and roster construction, Tony is tier or two below the likes of Self, Hurley, and Drew. The question is he will learn and adapt and get into that tier again or stick to his ways
I think itās less to do with the fact that weāre getting upset but more how weāre doing it and the fact that we havenāt won a single tourney game since 2019. People also just donāt like our brand of basketball and want to see us fail, which I feel like is a big reason we get talked about more as underperforming compared to those other schools
Hate that McKneely missed that free throw because he was unreal down the stretch. I think heās going to get his March moment at some point in his career but he took over when the game was tied and that was really great to see.