I bought in like most of the rest of you. The way last season ended, how could you not? The returning players, the incoming recruits, UK being suspect for once, the SEC not being good. It was easy to get excited about this year. The players thought the same thing.
The reality has hit hard.
Our players try hard, but so far into this season it looks like DJ, Luke, and WB IV are our best players, and it's not even close.
That said, DJ rarely plays to his potential, whether it's bad fouls, bad refs, lack of effort, whatever, the results are the same. And this team doesn't seem to play well without him. At all. And he's missing half the games in foul trouble.
Luke has been injured. He was good pre-injury. Now he's playing hurt and doing a hell of a David Przybyszewski impersonation.
Because WB IV is our only option after the above mentioned two, he feels like he has to do it all since no one else on the team can do anything to pick up the slack for DJ or Luke. This causes him to do unnecessary things.
Riley and MFD are my two biggest disappointments this year. After last year, I thought these two would be destroying teams from outside this year. They obviously are not.
And our freshmen show promise, but none of them are ready for major minutes.
I'm not even going to talk about Cressler. Makes my head hurt.
Bottom line is, I think we put to much expectations on a team dominated by sophomores and freshmen. And the pressure to live up to said expectations are crushing them. We underestimated how losing a backup point guard would effect this team ( WB IV playing to many minutes, Riley trying backup PG and not being good at it, and it hindering his SG development), not having any upperclassmen leadership, because it usually takes an upperclassman to provide a calming influence when things get tough on the court. The upperclassmen we have are (DJ, and not on floor because of foul trouble, Luke not on floor because of injury, Cressler not on floor because not any good). So, no upperclassmen leadership when needed.
With all of the above going on, the preseason expectations weigh on these guys more and more with each loss, causing them to put more pressure on themselves.
Just my take on this team, I'm sure many disagree. Whatever. I'm just trying to make some since of it all.
The reality has hit hard.
Our players try hard, but so far into this season it looks like DJ, Luke, and WB IV are our best players, and it's not even close.
That said, DJ rarely plays to his potential, whether it's bad fouls, bad refs, lack of effort, whatever, the results are the same. And this team doesn't seem to play well without him. At all. And he's missing half the games in foul trouble.
Luke has been injured. He was good pre-injury. Now he's playing hurt and doing a hell of a David Przybyszewski impersonation.
Because WB IV is our only option after the above mentioned two, he feels like he has to do it all since no one else on the team can do anything to pick up the slack for DJ or Luke. This causes him to do unnecessary things.
Riley and MFD are my two biggest disappointments this year. After last year, I thought these two would be destroying teams from outside this year. They obviously are not.
And our freshmen show promise, but none of them are ready for major minutes.
I'm not even going to talk about Cressler. Makes my head hurt.
Bottom line is, I think we put to much expectations on a team dominated by sophomores and freshmen. And the pressure to live up to said expectations are crushing them. We underestimated how losing a backup point guard would effect this team ( WB IV playing to many minutes, Riley trying backup PG and not being good at it, and it hindering his SG development), not having any upperclassmen leadership, because it usually takes an upperclassman to provide a calming influence when things get tough on the court. The upperclassmen we have are (DJ, and not on floor because of foul trouble, Luke not on floor because of injury, Cressler not on floor because not any good). So, no upperclassmen leadership when needed.
With all of the above going on, the preseason expectations weigh on these guys more and more with each loss, causing them to put more pressure on themselves.
Just my take on this team, I'm sure many disagree. Whatever. I'm just trying to make some since of it all.
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