Post
by Jackson96 » Thu Jan 12, 2023 11:37 am
I certainly have my concerns and am a bit depressed from the recent stretch but it is halfway through season 1 of a rebuild. I’m going to try and take a longview and hope things get better.
And while I agree that the talent level has gotten better compared to previous years, and haven’t loved a lot of the substitution patterns, it seems like all of the issues this team currently has are being planted solely with the coach.
Yes the coach is responsible for his team. And yes he should shoulder much of the blame for the poor performances, but the players themselves deserve a little of the blame no? He can’t make layups for them. And they were pretty good defensively to start the year for a decent stretch - why are they now struggling? Same players. Level of competition hasn’t really jumped.
Everybody is bemoaning Martin’s lineups (and I don’t love some of his decisions) and his lack of flexibility, well he’s doing the same stuff that had some folks thinking A10 championship just six weeks ago. The truth is it probably was never as good as it was then (and a lot of the wins were close) and it’s not as bad as it is now.
Don’t get me wrong, I haven’t been happy with how we’ve been playing for awhile now, but goddamn there’s a few of us fans who are so DRAMATIC. I know that’s kind of what being a fan is all about, so it’s all good, but I hope y’all aren’t like this when you go to the grocery store and they are all out of your favorite cereal, Cinnamon Toast Crunch. I can’t imagine living on the ledge like a few of us appear to be doing.
I do think we should have a couple of more wins. And I do think RJ and Gapare should play more, not just for immediate results but also for the future as I think it would expedite their development. We all love TJ because of his background and he seems like a good kid. And when he’s on, he’s on. But very rarely has been on this year. I think RJ should get some of his minutes. And I think Gapare should get some of Martin’s minutes (yes this is obvious).
As for the backup point guard, maybe Diggins should get some run there. He hasn’t shown a ton — some good ball pressure at times, a couple of nice passes also but his scoring has been anything but as advertised — but Keon hasn’t shown a ton either.
I don’t know. Maybe I’m the weird one for trying to think more big picture than little picture and preach patience (hard to do when you are trending the wrong way I know.)
And maybe I’m the weird one for thinking the players need to shoulder some of this responsibility as well (and again I know most of it falls on the coach.)
I mean I know I’m weird for other things, but maybe these should get added to the list.
Edited for punctuation which also makes me weird.
"I wrote a column and it went national"