I imagine Bearcats fans woke up today feeling a lot like some New Orleans residents. Wondering what happened last night and wishing the pain would go away.
Feel free to proceed to the Low-5 portion of the blog for all the Bearcats breakdown. I don't think we'll be finding any silver lining in that performance.
1. DeMarcus Cousins. OK, I know this is three days in a row he has been in the H5, but you have to give him credit for snapping back and still outclassing the Mississippi State fans on Tuesday.
They got his phone number from signs like this, but he struck back on Tuesday.
2. Kentucky. Let's be real, UK got lucky. They got some help.
From the point MSU led by 5 with three minutes remaining there were 10 fouls called on Mississippi State and zero on Kentucky.
And of course some tough calls on Jarvis Varnardo changed the complexion of the game.
Two nearly identical control violations were called a charge on MSU and block on MSU. There was a missed goal-tending call. And I am still trying to see the contact on a 15-foot John Wall jumper and another one in the lane that counted as an and-1.
And I urge you to check out MSU coach Rick Stansbury's conversation with reporters about the officiating. My favorite line came after a third consecutive quastion about calls where the reporter began, I don't want to belabor the officials...:
"We won't belabor them. I know you want me to say something. We won't belabor them. Huh? Will you pay my fine? You pay half of it? We'll belabor the heck out of them. (Laughter.) How much is my fine? How much is it? Anybody in here? How much is it? You pay half? I'll pay half, and we'll let them have it. Y'all gonna pass that cup around?"
All of the above is true
After all of that, the Wildcats still won -- against a good team in a hostile enviornment. Isn't that all that matters? It's what great teams do.
3. Temple. There is some thought that Temple may be able to run the table to an A-10 title. Xavier begins its quest for that tonight against St. Joe's, which shouldn't be a problem. But to beat the better teams on the rest of their schedule they are going to need Jamel McLean to keep playing like he did agianst Florida. He thinks it can happen.
4. Jeff Bridges. I just envision every great speech he makes to be as Jeffrey Lebowski.
This one wasn't, but it doesn't sound far off.
That director really tied the movie together, did he not?
5. NBC. It's cute how they try.
1. Accountability. I feel like Mick Cronin takes a lot of undeserved heat. Much of the expectations are unrealistic and much of his accomplishments are unappreciated. But what has been shocking to me being at all these press conferences this year is how little accountability he takes in team failure.
I can remember one time last week hearing him say, "I need to get Deonta Vaughn playing better." Honestly, that is one of the only times I can remember hearing accountability.
The mantra of most coaches is that team problems start by looking in the mirror. Yet, never after any game do we hear from Cronin, "I didn't do a good enough job of having this team prepared to play tonight." Or "I didn't do a good enough job of devising an offensive gameplan that would score more than the St. Susanna 8th graders."
It is typically a long list of excuses that throws the players under the bus.
Last night we heard more of them. I will list off the ones Cronin said from the postgame press conference on WLW.
1. "We missed layups and free throws." (UC came into the game shooting 63 percent from the line -- are we still surprised they missed key free throws?)
2. "This was Lance's worst game of the year. He is a freshman, it happens."
3. "Anybody who watched the game on TV can see I wasn't very happy with the officiating."
4. "Yancy is a sophomore. He is not yet to where he is a dominant player."
5. "We rely on a lot of young guys." (For a breakdown of whether this is even legit, read my blog from earlier this year)
6. Mo Egger made this great point on his blog today:
"What bothers me about Mick Cronin postgame shows...last night I hear how "South Florida needed to win that game or they were dead in the water." After Louisville it was "they needed a quality win." Post-UAB it was "that was their biggest non-conference game." (I'm paraphrasing) Why are these games always so huge for the other team but seemingly never that big for our men?"
From my perspective, I could even live with those excuses if they were followed by, "but it starts with me." At least outwardly, to this point, that is not happening.
My biggest point is this:
If young players don't think that you are trying as hard as they are to correct mistakes -- or at least are as aware that there are some -- then they lose faith in you. And they give uninspired performances like we saw on Wednesday.
And they will go to the NIT. Maybe.
2. Deonta Vaughn. He finishes with 14 points but it is almost all in garbage time. The bottom line, when this team was trailing 49-33 with six minutes left and in dire need of a bucket, Vaughn had been nowhere to be found.
For all the excuses we hear about youth, he is supposed to be the veteran to pull the team out of the rut. He airballed one 3-pointer and missed a layup.
3. Five assists, 15 turnovers. When your offense revolves around four guys watching another try to beat his man, then not even looking to pass if he comes close to doing it, that is what you get. The only other time UC had this few assists the past two seasons was in a 60-45 loss to Memphis last year.
How many times this year have I heard that the offense is getting better "because we are getting better passing the ball."
None of it on Tuesday. Even if some of the missed layups would have gone in, they don't touch double digits. That's a sign of a confused offense with no rhytym. (Not that you needed those stats to know that)
4. The road ahead. This has been well-documented and there was a reason why this team had to beat South Florida. They now are faced with not only having to beat Marquette, winners of five straight, but find a way to win two of three games at WVU, home vs. Villanova and at Georgetown. Or make some kind of deep run in the Big East tournament.
As Scott Springer at Bearcat Lair says, technically, they are not dead yet. And shouldn't be pronounced as such considering how crazy the Big East has been this year.
But what reason do we have to believe this team will jump off the mat and make a charge?
5. The Hippies are coming! Next, Marquette is coming to town on Sunday. How do you win? Hide the shampoo in the team hotel!
The Bearcats were disgusting last night. That team is poorly coached, period.
Why was Wilks on the floor last night? He came into the game, made a few stupid plays, gave his trademark sheepish look, then returned to the bench. Why?
Why can't anyone on the team besides Vaughn and Stephenson shoot free throws?
I agree with Mick that the officiating was absolute garbage last night, but it was the utter inability to score the ball that sunk us. This team is completely inept on offense. Vaughn is going through probably the worst shooting stretch of his career and there isn't a single player that can pick up the scoring slack in his absence.
Stephenson was not Born Ready. Or, if he was, he has regressed. Mick has not done anything to improve that kid's game. He probably should have gone to St. John's for his own sake. He might be on the first round NBA radar at this point in the year if he played for a coach who could teach him anything.