- Joined
- Jan 16, 2013
- Messages
- 172
- Reaction Score
- 380
I've read many posts since well before Ollie took over. This board has, collectively, multiple personality disorder. We're all emotional about UConn. If your heart wasn't racing when Kemba dropped the Pittsburgh Predator by moving the floor underneath him then you're no kind of fan I ever heard of.
But lemme get to the point.
Ever read the book The American? It's about a guy from America in the 1800s who has made a lot of money recently and he goes to Europe [spoiler alert
] and falls in love with a French woman, but the problem is, see, her family is really old money, and they don't like him because he's new, gauche money, and, as you can probably imagine, it doesn't work out for him and he doesn't get the girl.
That's UConn. We're new money. We can play at the poker table with UK, Indiana, UCLA, and so on, but, when the room clears, we're not quite the same status. Our current lack of a discernible DI football program makes this more poignant. Louisville is old money. That's why they got the girl, and we did not.
But we will. UConn and Connecticut has too much going in the right direction, IMO, with too much impetus, to prevent a continuation of growth in athletics. Just my opinion, but it's not the tail wagging the dog here. We are a big dog. We wag the tail. We're the ones who knock.
But lemme get to the point.
We're in a transition. A Major transition. Not quite a get-your-privates-whacked-and-have-a-groove-put-in transition, but a midlife crisis transition that makes us want to drive a porsche and take a chance with a 20-something.
This transition has led to the following: we are playing a backup power forward as our starting center, and 5th year transfer from a local college as our first guard off the bench. Did I mention that our back up center was seen less last year than Te'o's girlfriend, before her tragic death, and that's only because one NFL player, just to make the bizarre surreal, spent some quality time with her before her passing?
And we have some dude named Tolksdorf or something. And Phil Nolan, who is raw like Tokyo Sushi. And Ryan Boatright, who played only choppily last season.
Oh. And there's this new coach. It's his first year, after getting smacked around by a system that had him on a 240 day contract to start. Not first year at UConn. First year anywhere.
And our best two inside guys left. And they were damn good and they played on a national champion team.
But lemme get to the point.
Keep it in perspective. For now and for the rest of the season. And probably some of next season too, because you don't brake a runaway train in an instant.
The perspective is this. With a rag-tag-fugitive-fleet (including the robot dog) Ollie has pretty much done this: Won the games he was supposed to win. And. He's got the kids playing very hard. And he won at least one, and probably two, games that he was not supposed to win. He lost to 25, 19, 14, and 1.
So, when we play the #1 team in the country, 28 hours after a gutted out win in a hostile environment against a good team, and that #1 team has two very quick, very good guards, and very good athletes at every position, and we are winning at the half, and we lose by less than 20, the perspective is that that result is pretty damn good. It means, if you keep it in perspective, that Ollie has gotten a team that most would not have considered a top 40 team (not even Casey Casum) at the start of the year and has got them playing top-25 type ball. After losing 4 starters to the draft and transfers and having only one significant recruit joint the team. That's pretty damn good.
So, two face board, if possible, resist all urges, after the several to many more losses that will come, to post comments devoid of all perspective, and that may have a hint of unnecessary cruelty or anger or personal attack - such as - comments about Olander not being _______ enough. Or RJ being out of place in the BE. Or Wolf being such and such. Yes, yes, and yes. It's all true. But so what? If your wife has a giant, ugly mole on her ass you don't have to point it out every time you're riding Seatle Slew down the home stretch of the Belmont.
These kids are busting their asses. Sure, they were whooped in the 2nd half against Pitino's team. Somebody posted something about "we we're outcoached." Jesus. I hope so. Pitino has had three decades to work on it. If he can't outcoach a guy coaching his 14th game as a head coach, it's time to make banging skanks on red and white tables more than just an occasional hobby. What was the point of the post?
Being a fan means being emotional. Being a great fan - and I hope the praetorian guard posters on the Boneyard each and all strive to be that - means keeping it in perspective, and understanding that . . .
. . . expecting more than maximum effort out of the kids, and degrading them, insulting them, personally attacking them, and so on when they are giving maximum effort but not winning is not being a great fan. As far as I can see, these kids are busting ass virtually every play of every game, and I am thrilled to watch what I consider to be the instant revival of the program.
Keep it in perspective. For at least another year or two. Then, I'm confident, we can all revert be being the very spoiled products of the Jim Calhoun era that we all are.
But lemme get to the point.
Ever read the book The American? It's about a guy from America in the 1800s who has made a lot of money recently and he goes to Europe [spoiler alert
] and falls in love with a French woman, but the problem is, see, her family is really old money, and they don't like him because he's new, gauche money, and, as you can probably imagine, it doesn't work out for him and he doesn't get the girl.That's UConn. We're new money. We can play at the poker table with UK, Indiana, UCLA, and so on, but, when the room clears, we're not quite the same status. Our current lack of a discernible DI football program makes this more poignant. Louisville is old money. That's why they got the girl, and we did not.
But we will. UConn and Connecticut has too much going in the right direction, IMO, with too much impetus, to prevent a continuation of growth in athletics. Just my opinion, but it's not the tail wagging the dog here. We are a big dog. We wag the tail. We're the ones who knock.
But lemme get to the point.
We're in a transition. A Major transition. Not quite a get-your-privates-whacked-and-have-a-groove-put-in transition, but a midlife crisis transition that makes us want to drive a porsche and take a chance with a 20-something.
This transition has led to the following: we are playing a backup power forward as our starting center, and 5th year transfer from a local college as our first guard off the bench. Did I mention that our back up center was seen less last year than Te'o's girlfriend, before her tragic death, and that's only because one NFL player, just to make the bizarre surreal, spent some quality time with her before her passing?
And we have some dude named Tolksdorf or something. And Phil Nolan, who is raw like Tokyo Sushi. And Ryan Boatright, who played only choppily last season.
Oh. And there's this new coach. It's his first year, after getting smacked around by a system that had him on a 240 day contract to start. Not first year at UConn. First year anywhere.
And our best two inside guys left. And they were damn good and they played on a national champion team.
But lemme get to the point.
Keep it in perspective. For now and for the rest of the season. And probably some of next season too, because you don't brake a runaway train in an instant.
The perspective is this. With a rag-tag-fugitive-fleet (including the robot dog) Ollie has pretty much done this: Won the games he was supposed to win. And. He's got the kids playing very hard. And he won at least one, and probably two, games that he was not supposed to win. He lost to 25, 19, 14, and 1.
So, when we play the #1 team in the country, 28 hours after a gutted out win in a hostile environment against a good team, and that #1 team has two very quick, very good guards, and very good athletes at every position, and we are winning at the half, and we lose by less than 20, the perspective is that that result is pretty damn good. It means, if you keep it in perspective, that Ollie has gotten a team that most would not have considered a top 40 team (not even Casey Casum) at the start of the year and has got them playing top-25 type ball. After losing 4 starters to the draft and transfers and having only one significant recruit joint the team. That's pretty damn good.
So, two face board, if possible, resist all urges, after the several to many more losses that will come, to post comments devoid of all perspective, and that may have a hint of unnecessary cruelty or anger or personal attack - such as - comments about Olander not being _______ enough. Or RJ being out of place in the BE. Or Wolf being such and such. Yes, yes, and yes. It's all true. But so what? If your wife has a giant, ugly mole on her ass you don't have to point it out every time you're riding Seatle Slew down the home stretch of the Belmont.
These kids are busting their asses. Sure, they were whooped in the 2nd half against Pitino's team. Somebody posted something about "we we're outcoached." Jesus. I hope so. Pitino has had three decades to work on it. If he can't outcoach a guy coaching his 14th game as a head coach, it's time to make banging skanks on red and white tables more than just an occasional hobby. What was the point of the post?
Being a fan means being emotional. Being a great fan - and I hope the praetorian guard posters on the Boneyard each and all strive to be that - means keeping it in perspective, and understanding that . . .
. . . expecting more than maximum effort out of the kids, and degrading them, insulting them, personally attacking them, and so on when they are giving maximum effort but not winning is not being a great fan. As far as I can see, these kids are busting ass virtually every play of every game, and I am thrilled to watch what I consider to be the instant revival of the program.
Keep it in perspective. For at least another year or two. Then, I'm confident, we can all revert be being the very spoiled products of the Jim Calhoun era that we all are.
haha
