However, I started having my doubts this morning when I saw they were about 4 inches taller than us at every position. Then I saw the teams warming up, and we looked like a high school team compared to them. Then the game started and they were hitting from all over the court and went up by 15. At that point, I thought we'd be lucky to lose by only 30. Like LaTech, Tulsa was a bigger and more athletic team that jumped out to a double digit lead on us. Somehow, we made adjustments and our kids "willed" themselves to a win. This team is starting to take on the demeanor of their coach. They won't out "talent" anyone (oh, maybe Philander), but if they play with the scrappiness and intensity they did today, the will win a lot of games. Incredible effort against a team that will be in postseason come March.

(12-05-2010 06:14 PM)mjs Wrote:  However, I started having my doubts this morning when I saw they were about 4 inches taller than us at every position. Then I saw the teams warming up, and we looked like a high school team compared to them. Then the game started and they were hitting from all over the court and went up by 15. At that point, I thought we'd be lucky to lose by only 30. Like LaTech, Tulsa was a bigger and more athletic team that jumped out to a double digit lead on us. Somehow, we made adjustments and our kids "willed" themselves to a win. This team is starting to take on the demeanor of their coach. They won't out "talent" anyone (oh, maybe Philander), but if they play with the scrappiness and intensity they did today, the will win a lot of games. Incredible effort against a team that will be in postseason come March.

Speaking of talent, there's a pecking order in recruiting and all things being equal, teams from higher ranked conferences are going to get better players than we can get. SMU, LaTech, MoState, Illinois State, Tulsa, and St. Bonaventure (teams from Conference USA, MoValley, WAC, and Atlantic 10) are typically going to have better athletes than us and I think they all did. We have beaten 4 of them so you have to feel pretty good right now. I would think we should get better players than a Summit League team in most cases. ORU maybe an exception, because of the Sutton family connections and their long basketball tradition. I'm actually not convinced they're better than us, but we'll find out on a neutral court in Las Vegas. Regardless, we have more than held our own against a very competitive schedule.

+1 on both posts.