Here we go again.
Looking back on this season you'll either remember it as a) one hell of an awesome roller coaster ride or b) the biggest train wreck ever.
Biggest train wreck ever it's not going to be. No season where we make the NCAA Tourney is a trainwreck.
Go rewatch our McDermott years then tell me again that this season where we have been top 15 the entire year may be remembered as biggest train wreck ever
With the onslaught of likes on these posts, obviously I didn't clearly state what I meant.
For starters, by trainwreck I don't mean a failure of a season. So I'm not comparing it to times when we knew we were gonna suck, unranked, just fell flat, or didn't make the tournament (or McDermott).
I think it's fairly obvious that there has been a lot of off the court occurrences and conversations had about this team, moreso than other years. The season begins really where the last one ends. Everyone had huge expectation for this season, every analyst calling us a potential final four team easy. Then we have a legendary beloved by the players coach leave late in the off season leaving little room for recruiting. We get a new coach in and speculation starts if he can control this senior heavy team who is used to playing their way and pretty freely, or if they will accept a new coach. It starts out with them doing this until it's proven it's not working. He then tries to take the reigns back, which he did very successfully it seems. Then throughout the season there's rumblings of issues between teammates or with coaches, the McKay all over the place starting with the Italy trip, and 3 different player meetings. Plus some rumblings of people out to get theirs rather than playing team ball and finding the open guy.
All I'm saying is before Fred left everything and everyone seemed 100% great and it was Final Four or bust. You can't lie that off the court it's been a bit of a bumpy road. All I was commenting on is that it could end with two extremes (which I gave), or somewhere in middle. Sorry I didn't add an option c in there for all of you. I'm optimistic as can be about this team, just saying what my worst fear was as a Clone fan.
No it's not a bad season by any means, but if a few things went differently (not just scores, talking buy-in, defensive fundamentals, team work) we could EASILY be in cruise control for a regular season Big 12 title. We haven't had a lot of chances to do that lately and we screwed it up this year.
I think the season will end up somewhere in the middle, but I could also see those two extremes, the team imploding (hopefully not), or them banding together, buying in, and giving us one of the greatest seasons to ever remember.
I think we will peak at the right time and still make something magical happen.