CSNbbs

I wrote this somewhere else but I think it bears repeating.

Before I say what I need to say, let me first provide a little background information. I am a college basketball fanatic. I love everything about the sport. I'll argue till I'm blue in the face to defend how great it is. I'm currently a Sophomore at TU. In the last year and a half, I have attended 27 CBB games, 22 of which have been at TU. I've loved every second of it until I left just a few minutes ago.
I'm not a fairweather fan. I have my teams and I stick with them through thick and thin. The most St. Louis Rams games I ever watched in one season was the 1998 season when they went 4-12. The point being that I'm very loyal. I have until this point stuck with TU while they have been struggling. With each loss, I kept saying to anyone who would listen that they would recover. Coach Phillips knew what he was doing. They would keep fighting. And they would never quit. Or so I thought.
The TU-Nevada game was the first game since I've attended TU that I didn't go to that I could have. They lost by a lot but I still remained confident even through their losses at Boise St. and UTEP. But then came the game at Rice. I looked at the box score in disbelief. It appeared that John Phillips had given up on the season. What other reason could there be for starting a walk-on and playing him for 34 minutes. (I must clarify here that I have nothing against Kyle Blankenship. I have never met him but he seems like a really nice and respectable guy. That is probably why he is a favorite among the students. He's also a really talented basketball player) I must say that I just don't see the logic in starting someone who, over the last 2 and a half years, has played roughly about 30 minutes unless phillips has adopted a "let's prepare for next year" mentality. Now I know Kyle red-shirted last year but my point still remains. If he was the savior of our program, why did he not start or even play significant minutes before the Rice game? If he had the talent to start, how come he hasn't started until now? Was Phillips holding back on us? I doubt it.
Let me take this moment to clarify the preceding and following remarks by saying that I have no discernable basketball skills whatsoever. You can find 12 year olds who are more talented than me. But I don't think that should prevent me from criticzing a team that I so dearly love. Now I could pick on specific players but I don't want to. I just want to focus on the overall package that was presented tonight.
In the 12 minutes of game time I watched tonight, I witnessed a team that had given up on their season. Their opponent tonight was a Fresno St. team that has lost 3 players to suspension in the last couple weeks. Had the TU of November played them tonight, TU would be up by 20 tonight at half. Instead, it was 17-6 in favor of Fresno when I left. Why is that? Well, it's simple actually. TU made the classic mistake of playing down to its opponents. That is a signal of a team that lost its way.
The 12 minutes I watched was by far the worst college basketball I have seen. I have seen over 70 games live and watched hundreds more on television. It was pathetic. TU didn't care. They had given up. And who can blame them? I don't know what the situation in the locker room is like. I'm not blaming anyone. I'm just stating the facts.
Anyway, i could write a lot more but I'm not going to bother. I hope all of you reading this understand how hard it is for me to write this. Last year, TU basketball gave me some of the happiest moments of my life. What that says of me as an individual, I don't know but it's the truth. I just want to see a TU team that embodies all the love i have for college basketball. That's all I want.

There were two reasons JP played Blankenship: Kyle came on very strong in practice the two weeks leading up to the Rice game; and the team needed someone willing to run the actual offense, instead of having five individual 1-on-1 games on offense.

The team still seems to play better with Blankenship in the game, IMO. Last game, (in the Rice game of which you speak), the offense tallied 20 assists, the most of the entire season. Tonight, even Parker was playing more team ball.

I'm not going to comment too much on the rest of what you had to say, except that I'm equally depressed right now.

I am not a brilliant basketball tactician, but I do understand a lot about human emotions. When one overhears the "bluehairs" comparing JP to Dave Rader, then it is evident that the program is not only in trouble on the court but off the court as well.

TU72N76 Wrote:I am not a brilliant basketball tactician, but I do understand a lot about human emotions. When one overhears the "bluehairs" comparing JP to Dave Rader, then it is evident that the program is not only in trouble on the court but off the court as well.

It's not just the blue-hairs. I'm 30 years old and this whole situation is starting to smell of Dave Rader syndrome. He's a good man, but didn't deserve 10 years to prove he couldn't coach worth a damn. I don't think that JP does either. The BB program can't take the hit of waiting 3 or 4 years to rebuild. I said it at the beginning of the season and I'm saying it again now, it's time to start looking. The season is almost over and we are still trying to figure out who our starters are going to be? Come on people. They don't get to practice "in the off season" do you really think they are going to be that improved next year? If he is allowed to stay, I'm saying it now, mock my words if you will, but next year is going to be a whole lot more of the same.

This is a point where ASH and I differ, I think we have enough talent to at least be in the upper echelon of the WAC. I also think that talent, plus Gonzo, is more than enough to be near the top of the WAC next year. I've seen some of these guys play against other blue chip players in high school and come out on top. I have a feeling, the players are as lost as we are about what is going on and that isn't a good sign. If on Jan 1 we had stayed with the starting line up, which I proposed for a month before it happened, of Parker, Collins, GT, Price and Glenn, and they all played 30+ minutes, with a consistent 6th and 7th man, our season wouldn't basically be over!!!!!!!!!! :bang:

I tend to agree, Jon. Sometimes, subtraction is the best way to add.

I too thought we were on the right track with Jason, Jarius, Seneca, GT, and Price. i thought if Oswaldo became eligible, we might have a shot. I think Kelly has incredible talent but Cardwell and Wallace definitely need to go somewhere else.