It's taken a long time, and probably a lot of coaching and instruction for IW's game to come along. There is NO WAY anyone considered IW one of the Top 6 players on this team, early in the season. No one really filled in and contributed like a 6th man should or normally does. But Harris got 2 starts and Fitz got 1 while IW had zero, going into the Michigan game. Fans were questioning whether IW would be able to take over for Mason next year and were already speaking doom and gloom and how next year's team wouldn't be any better than this years hobbled squad is playing. They were talking down Hurt, no one was even talking about Fitz, partly because most games he simply didn't contribute anything. In our losses to Miami, Neb and Ark, Fitz had a grand total of 0 pts, 0 rbs, 0 assts, but 5 PFs.
Washington was throwing up 3 ptr after 3 ptr with only a few ever going in. He was starting to show some ability to get to the basket, but not an ability to dish it to an open guy. Very few were bragging about IW's play, most were criticizing it or just talking about how they hoped he'd get better come next year. But I WAS talking him up. I saw his potential, and I posted about it here. I posted about how before Lynch and Coffey went down, I was seeing progress in his game. And in Hurt's and Harris' as well.
Then the injury/suspension, followed almost immediately by a run of 6 games in 14 days, 4 of them road games, so no time to get in the gym and figure out how best to manage the situation. Yet all of you brilliant coaching geniuses, from your armchairs, not a one of you that I remember was suggesting to cut the roster down to our best 6-7 players and go for it. Pitino is the one who figured that out, once he had time to get into the gym and work with the team.
As soon as the suspension happened, our next game was the home gave vs IU, a game that was only lost by 4 points. Not a ton of time to prepare for that game and to play without 2 of our best players.
Then 5 games in 11 days, 4 of them road games, the only home game vs arguably the #1 team in the country, Purdue, the road games vs Maryland, OSU and NW, none of whom are too shabby, and we had leads at halftime vs 3 of those 4 teams, but got tired and gassed and faded at the end. Simple as that. We did get a road win vs PSU.
Not sure when McBrayer aggravated his leg and stopped practicing, but that couldn't have helped in anyway.
So going 1-4 over that 5 game stretch may have happened even if we had Lynch and Coffey? Maybe we go 2-3? 3-2 possibly? But without those guys and with McBreyer hobbled as well, how hard is it to understand that they could lose 4 of those games?
We started out 2-1 in conference, those are the only 3 games Lynch played in. Coffey played in 2 of the next 8 games, and shouldn't have. He wasn't being allowed to practice, and wasn't supposed to come back until Feb 2nd. But he tried playing in those 2 games and ended up aggravating his injury, so was he even close to 100% in the 2 games he played? And Dupree hasn't been practicing, just playing in games, and he's clearly not even close to 100% and just can't defend well right now. If you watch him, you can see he's in pain and slowed down by his injury. Those are 3 of our Top 6 players. Add Curry not playing and that is 4 of our Top 6. 4 of our Top 7 if you must insist on IW being in the mix, or maybe 3.5, since Dupree at least contributes some on offense.
Coming home from the 5 games in 11 days mostly on the road stretch, we still had to play a NW team that isn't the pushovers they used to be, either, just 3 days after playing OSU in Madison Square Garden.
So the first time the team had time to rest and then get a couple practices in, were the week leading up to the Iowa game. And who knows, maybe Pitino just didn't feel ready to make the switch yet, maybe he felt that it wouldn't work vs Iowa? I've read people mention how Michigan had the perfect team to try it out on, that if it would work, it would work vs Michigan but that it won't or wouldn't work vs other teams, like Purdue especially. So just because it almost worked vs Michigan, doesn't mean its the key to beating other teams. Does it make me think that maybe we can win a few of our remaining games? It does. But now teams might prepare for that and figure out a game plan and a way to beat it. Michigan probably didn't see that coming.
And the Michigan game was the 1st game of a 3 games in 7 days stretch, and we'll finish the season with another 3 games in 7 days. All so that we can cram in our Conf tourney a week early.
Not the best season to pick to lose 3.5 of our best 7 players, while only starting with 12 before the Curry injury, because of Stockman.
So yes, dpodoll68, losing 3.5 of your Top 7 players WILL make any team drop from top 1/3-1/4 of the conf down to bottom 1/3-1/4 of it.
Especially when going on little 11 day runs with 5 games, 4 of them on the road right after first losing 2 of those 3.5.
And some say that Mason might be playing in some pain?
Murphy twisted his ankle in a game, did that affect his performance that game or maybe even in the next game? Harris missed at least one game. Gaston was out for 6 of the first 11 conf games. Not saying he was a big contributor, but even a minute or two once or twice in a game can help the guy he's going in for.
Your trying to minimize the extent of this situation is laughable and kind of pathetic and makes it look like you just hate Pitino and are trying to make up ways to criticize him.
Great post!