Post Your Best Excuses Here

[KansasCityCats]

Everybody is spot on.  Arizona played poorly and deserved to lose...but Stanford deserves credit for shooting better than they've shot in their entire program's history.

to LCC's point, check out the bad losses this season:

Purdue lost to Northwestern, who lost by 30 last night to Illinois (without their best player).

Kansas lost by 14 to Marquette, who lost by 11 to Wisconsin, who Arizona destroyed by 25.

UNC lost to Nova, who lost to Penn, St. Joe, Drexel and K-State. 

This year is an anomaly because transfers provide inconsistencies in college basketball.  It makes the game more unpredictable, yet Arizona has a good chance to make a deep run in the tournament because our depth includes young players that are developing their game.  KJ & Krivas will likely be bigger contributors by the end of the season.

Looking forward to the conference slate.  The Pac-12 is surprisingly good, which is unfortunate because most of the schools underperformed in the OOC schedule.

[Deb]

Let's see, we lost because:

1) we played a day game, all our losses are early games
2) guys were sick of hotels for 3 weeks
3) someone's gf dumped them
4) Bill Walton on call is bad juju
5) Tommy was thinking about pickle ball
6) Murph ran a gameplan from his days at NAU
7) too much goofing off at the Warriors game the night before
8  we struggle to beat nerds
9) they changed the motto from #RunWithUs - to #RainOnUs
10) mostly cuz I forgot to wear my lucky tshirt

There, I think that covers it. 

[FOOS]

Let's see, we lost because:

1) we played a day game, all our losses are early games
2) guys were sick of hotels for 3 weeks
3) someone's gf dumped them
4) Bill Walton on call is bad juju
5) Tommy was thinking about pickle ball
6) Murph ran a gameplan from his days at NAU
7) too much goofing off at the Warriors game the night before
8  we struggle to beat nerds
9) they changed the motto from #RunWithUs - to #RainOnUs
10) mostly cuz I forgot to wear my lucky tshirt

There, I think that covers it. 

Deb FTW !!

[arxpert]

Interestingly enough, a lot of agreement on the subject across the cbox.

[Lutesguitar]

It's REALLY HARD to not sneak in some superstition...we are prone to find patterns, we are actually predisposed by evolution LOOK for patterns...its how we survived not stepping on snakes that looked like sticks...

Was this a snakebite or just a stick we slipped on?

Well it's possible it was a little of both...

I think Stanford playing their brains out was a bit of a fluke, but there was a perfect storm of probably too long of a road for the cats and them having all season to game plan for the one Superbowl game they were going to get all year...they found a groove and were hitting ridiculous shots that their own record proves they never hit...EVER. Most made three's in their history.

I honestly do not believe they would have had that night if they had played any other pac 12 team, we were part of the recipe and another team would not have had enough "importance to beat" quotient.

I do think it was partially Tommys fault...he made no real halftime adjustments that I could see, but to be fair what could he have done differently?

I don't know.

There's probably a rare condition where primary players on one team are a bit slow, perhaps tired, and the opposing team is just quicker...I don't know if oyu can be faster when you're tired.

I do know that Ballo's foul in the 1st half impacted his play, my son was at the game and he told me later that after that foul Ballo went really soft like he was afraid of picking up another foul...it was an offensive foul so he kinda played weaker after that...

This was one of those games when we needed an experienced player or two to really lick up the team and carry them and I think Love has been that guy, but he needed some help especially after the FAU game where it all pretty much came down on his shoulders...

This was a game when we needed Boswell to step up and he ghosted a lot of the action...him and Pelle combined for 11 points...5/6...that way under-representing what we normally need from them...so Pelle and Boswell under-performed to about 30% of their norm...and Love's tank was probably a bit empty as well...and Ballo is not going to step up when he's timid...

So we had Stanford performing at 150% of their normal and half our team at about 30% of normal and Tommy a bit out of his water as well with some ridiculous Jack Murphy scheme that should be burned and buried in a volcano somewhere.

So we have a very good Colorado team coming in (as much as I hate to admit it)...but this is really going to be a REAL road game for them...kind of their first...their other road games were  either tourneys or within the State...I don't expect it to be a blowout...but I also don't expect the cats to lose...

[arxpert]

them having all season to game plan for the one Superbowl game they were going to get all year...they found a groove and were hitting ridiculous shots that their own record proves they never hit...EVER. Most made three's in their history.

Your thoughts are a good take, but I just want to remind you and everyone what Tommy said ---> Stanford could have hit 6 less 3's and we still lose by 2. The effort all around was simply not there by anyone.

Stanford preparing for their Superbowl... Great comment.

This is what I said. Every team sees us as their Superbowl now. This is the Conference Slate and no one else is Ranked that I know of. We are the only team that will help anyone's resume. We are the hunted. If we don't start bullying these teams then we will get a very bad reputation very quickly.

The pundits are now on the fence about us for very good reason. It's not always going to be about seeding, but if Tommy squanders a Pac12 Title with THIS team vs THIS competition then I think the torches and pitchforks need to start being forged. Winning the Pac12 should be something this team can do without blinking. The Pac12 Tournament seems to have been something Tommy could get this team to win even with the annual Kerr injuries due to poor level of opponents. Our effort always diminished going into the Big Dance because Tommy loses the locker room due to not playing guys who could help instead of watching the "Kerr Boswell 1-9 3pt show with 0 FT's". Enough is enough.

These are now trends to look for.

We need to recognize that there is some hypocrisy brewing when looking at Tommy's accomplishments with such an easy road setup for him to start off his HC Career. He cannot bring this JV level soft mentality with him into the Big12 so this may be the last time he has a chance to navigate this team to the place that we all know that it can go which is the distance.

[Lutesguitar]

We need to recognize that there is some hypocrisy brewing when looking at Tommy's accomplishments with such an easy road setup for him to start off his HC Career. He cannot bring this JV level soft mentality with him into the Big12 so this may be the last time he has a chance to navigate this team to the place that we all know that it can go which is the distance.

Yea I'm hoping Hopping Mad Tommy is also gonna ACT when players are underperforming and not just leave them in the game...Lute would have sat their asses on the bench, even Miller sat players who missed defensive assignments...