UrinalCake
04-08-2019, 09:36 PM
As the pain of the final game starts to slowly wear away, I've been thinking about how this season compares to last. At a glance, there are a lot of similarities:
- we picked up a late, unexpected recruit who turned out to be our best player (Bagley and Zion)
- we started four freshmen and one upperclassman for basically the whole season, except during injuries
- we started off the season with a really impressive win over the nation's #2 team (2018 - MSU, playing mostly without Bagley; 2019 - UK dismantling) which caused expectations to go through the roof
- we pulled off an impressive comeback win (2018 - Texas, 2019 - Louisville)
- we started off sharing and moving the ball well, but as the season wore on we resorted more and more to iso ball centered around our key players (Bagley, Allen/Zion, RJ)
- we had an injury to our star player, they missed a handful of games and then came back looking fine, but the team never seemed to completely gel the same afterwards
- great interior scoring, but the lack of reliable three point shooting meant defenses could collapse the paint and we never made enough adjustments
- we had one freshman exceed expectations (Bagley/Zion), two freshmen basically meet expectations (Carter, Trent/Barrett, Tre) and one freshman fall short of expecations (Duval/Reddish)
- we lost in the Elite 8 by essentially a bucket. We had a three point lead with less than a minute left, but our opponent hit a big three after a defensive mistake (Duval going for a steal, Tre/Zion failing to communicate on a switch). Playing as the last team to potentially reach the final four, on Sunday afternoon, we fell just short.
So, despite all of this I have to say that my level of enjoyment for this season's team has been much higher than last year. And I wasn't as disappointed about the final loss. I'm having a hard time understanding why this is. I think the style of this year's team was much more fun. The fact that they played so hard on defense made a big difference. And obviously Zion was such a joy, not just for the dunks but for how much he loved playing. Seeing him dive on the floor in Canada when we were up by 80 was something I never forgot. But I also really liked watching Bagley, especially when he would get three offensive boards in one possession and then dunk it. I liked having Grayson around for his senior year, and the way that last season's team dominated on the glass and inside was so unusual for us and something I really enjoyed too.
Coming into the season I think my expectations were lower this year than last. But then the Kentucky game threw everything out of whack. I actually find it hard to enjoy watching the team as much when we're ranked so high, because there's enormous pressure not to lose and then have to hear crap from all of my friends. Anyways, I'm curious what others think about last year compared to this year in terms of overall fan enjoyment.
- we picked up a late, unexpected recruit who turned out to be our best player (Bagley and Zion)
- we started four freshmen and one upperclassman for basically the whole season, except during injuries
- we started off the season with a really impressive win over the nation's #2 team (2018 - MSU, playing mostly without Bagley; 2019 - UK dismantling) which caused expectations to go through the roof
- we pulled off an impressive comeback win (2018 - Texas, 2019 - Louisville)
- we started off sharing and moving the ball well, but as the season wore on we resorted more and more to iso ball centered around our key players (Bagley, Allen/Zion, RJ)
- we had an injury to our star player, they missed a handful of games and then came back looking fine, but the team never seemed to completely gel the same afterwards
- great interior scoring, but the lack of reliable three point shooting meant defenses could collapse the paint and we never made enough adjustments
- we had one freshman exceed expectations (Bagley/Zion), two freshmen basically meet expectations (Carter, Trent/Barrett, Tre) and one freshman fall short of expecations (Duval/Reddish)
- we lost in the Elite 8 by essentially a bucket. We had a three point lead with less than a minute left, but our opponent hit a big three after a defensive mistake (Duval going for a steal, Tre/Zion failing to communicate on a switch). Playing as the last team to potentially reach the final four, on Sunday afternoon, we fell just short.
So, despite all of this I have to say that my level of enjoyment for this season's team has been much higher than last year. And I wasn't as disappointed about the final loss. I'm having a hard time understanding why this is. I think the style of this year's team was much more fun. The fact that they played so hard on defense made a big difference. And obviously Zion was such a joy, not just for the dunks but for how much he loved playing. Seeing him dive on the floor in Canada when we were up by 80 was something I never forgot. But I also really liked watching Bagley, especially when he would get three offensive boards in one possession and then dunk it. I liked having Grayson around for his senior year, and the way that last season's team dominated on the glass and inside was so unusual for us and something I really enjoyed too.
Coming into the season I think my expectations were lower this year than last. But then the Kentucky game threw everything out of whack. I actually find it hard to enjoy watching the team as much when we're ranked so high, because there's enormous pressure not to lose and then have to hear crap from all of my friends. Anyways, I'm curious what others think about last year compared to this year in terms of overall fan enjoyment.