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Amieable wins again, Booooo!
It was another wildly entertaining Senior Night on the Palouse, but this time round, the Cougs could not pull out the victory for the near sell-out crowd. From my usual perch way up in the cheap seats, it was an electric big-game atmosphere. But in the end the raucous crowd was left to file out of Beasley with our collective tails between our legs after enduring the requisite Venoy Overton jersey popping parade of classlessness, the purple faithful woofing their approval from the rafters and the fulfillment of Quincy Pondexter's guarantee of victory.
Read on for more...
I'll get to my actual basketball-related thoughts shortly, but first I want to talk about what it looked and felt like inside Beasley Coliseum on Saturday. As I said before, the atmosphere was great and I believe the crowd was a major factor in helping the Cougs overcome their 14 point halftime deficit and cruise to a lead mid-way through the 2nd half. Things started off with the reinstated tradition of turning down the lights for the pre-game fan fare. This time a drum-line along the student sideline banged out a cadence to Glenn Johnson's announcement of the starting lineup. It was by far the best pre-game I have seen all year, and the energy it created in the crowd carried over well into the tip-off. Of course the Cougs proceeded to suck the life out of the building by shooting 18% in the first half.
In the second half the crowd rebounded along with the team and at the height of the Cougs comeback bid, it got downright LOUD. There was a big assist from Bill Moos, who while the Cougars were getting their halftime speech in the locker room, delivered one to the crowd. Then a bunch of karate kids from Spokane came out and nun-chucked, judo-chopped and flying kicked their way to a huge ovation.
There is no doubt a lot of the energy in the building was due to the opponent. I must admit, when I see those purple jerseys on our floor it awakens something primal in me and I don't need a lot of fanfare to get fired up. But despite the unique circumstances of a rivalry game I still think this is what Beasley should be like every night. Unfortunately we can't play the Huskies every night, so it is going to take some vastly improved play to inspire the kind of fan support we saw Saturday. Ken Bone commented recently that he'd like to see a little better crowd support. Well, coach, when you are drawing around 7K fans to watch the last place team in the Pac-10, you really don't have much to complain about.
Now about the basketball stuff; is anyone else out there as embarrassed as me that we spent all that time complaining about being picked 8th in the Pac-10 this pre-season and now we are in LAST PLACE? What a waste of breath that was. Now don't get me wrong, I don't actually believe the "experts" were right. I stand by my conviction that this is not an 8th place team and certainly not a last place team or worse. I have seen a lot of Cougar teams in person since George Raveling was patrolling the sidelines and the cold hard truth is that this is one of the most talented teams we have had, and it is competing in one of the weakest Pac-10's ever. So, yeah, if you are asking me; this season is a complete disaster. So, this is what it feels like to be a UW, or Oregon and have the players, but not the results (seriously, can we stop making fun of Ernie Kent now?).
Unlike some folks, I am not going to provide any cover for coach Bone here. There are no excuses for what has transpired on the court. We are simply a team with a lot of talent that does nothing well on a basketball court. No excuse for that. We are a gawd-awful defensive team, and that's a bitter pill to swallow after the pride we took in our tenacious D during the Bennett years. But the spoon full of sugar to help that pill go down was supposed to be a more exciting, effective and entertaining offense. Well, that sure didn't happen. We are dreadful, in fact, unwatchable on offense. No, the "flashes of brilliance" don't count for me, sorry. Inconsistency = crappy. In other words, you do not get any credit for a decent offensive half of basketball when the other half was so poor you have no chance of winning the game.
It is a monumental failure that at this stage of the season we completely lack any identity as a team (except that we can't hold leads and we can't play for 40 minutes). It is a further failure that our best player, and a one time conference POY candidate, has regressed to the point where he is an offensive liability. In fact, is anyone on this team improving? Is anyone really "coming along?"
Now there was a point during the first half of Saturday's game (and during the entire UCLA game) where I would have volunteered to pack Coach Bones duffel bag and drive him to the airport myself, but that's the passion of a fan in the heat of the moment. The truth is, I don't think Bone is a bad coach, or that this is a lost cause. I believe coaches have learning curves just like players and that their failures are the foundations of their successes if they choose to learn from them. I'm just saying that this season is a major failure for coach Bone, and we'll see what, if anything is learned from it. In the meantime, here we are... in last place.
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Away from the hoops, Bill Moos certainly knows how to work a room. His speech was well timed, well delivered, and hit all the right notes.