Is there a silver lining?

[JungleJim]

Other than being young and inexperienced?

 

[CrimsonOberon]

Maybe not, but that should be enough to get you excited - and frustrated that we may have to wait for the cohesion to come into effect.

Every game we see flashes of how good these guys can be. As a fan, it is hard to wait for that time when they play to their potential to arrive, but it will come. We see glimpses of how special these guys could be. They just have to learn to play within themselves and gel as a team. Also, they will need to learn to D up better; that is what took this team to the Elite Eight (We were never flat out explosive last year, we just simply out-hustled people on the defensive end, and the Taylors controlled the boards on both ends of the floor. We were every bit the hustle team.)

When that light comes on and these guys learn each others' games - watch out.

Unfortunately, that won't seem like much of a silver lining to us fans who want it now.:/

 

[MO]

Absolutely. It's much better to learn from coaching that uses the personal on court experience of what works and what doesn't work rather than being beaten down and then built back up. It draws the coach in as an equal with real credibility and maximizes natural talent. The ceiling is much higher.

 

[cfin5256]

The one positive is that for the first 14 or so minutes we got to see what this team COULD become, and it was good. Then we spent the last 26 minutes reminding people what we are at the moment, which isn't very good.

 

[stanley11]

This team will get better as the season goes along. These early losses will allow Capel and staff to be "heard" a little better by some of the newer guys who may have thought things were going to be easy. This should have been expected, maybe just not to this degree. I am certain they are not any happier than we are today.

 

[DenverSooner]

This team will get better as the season goes along. These early losses will allow Capel and staff to be "heard" a little better by some of the newer guys who may have thought things were going to be easy. This should have been expected, maybe just not to this degree. I am certain they are not any happier than we are today.

A loss or maybe even three to this non-conference schedule should be expected. Three losses to mid-majors and not even good mid-majors at that was not expected by me.

 

[AdaSooner]

I expected this team to struggle early on due to their youth. But I don't think any of us thought our defense would be almost nonexistent at times. There is a huge difference between getting beat on occasion and doing it consistently for an entire game. We should have seen this coming, though. Our defense was nothing to write home about, even against the weaker opponents we've faced.

That said, I'm not ready to give up on this team, by any means. I still believe they have the ability to be good, and I'm going to enjoy the ride while I'm watching them improve.

 

[campbest]

The one positive is that for the first 14 or so minutes we got to see what this team COULD become, and it was good. Then we spent the last 26 minutes reminding people what we are at the moment, which isn't very good.

I've seen a few posts referencing the first 15 or so minutes, but just want to caution that Houston doesn't play ANY defense at all.

 

[cfin5256]

I've seen a few posts referencing the first 15 or so minutes, but just want to caution that Houston doesn't play ANY defense at all.

Yeah, my post was trying hard to be positive . The big issues I see are rebounding and D; we have to block out better on the offensive glass, can't keep giving up double digit offensive boards. We also have to get more disciplined on D; we'll set fine in M2M and Zone, but as soon as the other team starts with ball movement we get lost.

 

[MsProudSooner]

If ever Coach Capel wanted some video examples to show his team the reason you must pay as much attention to defense as offense, he has them now. I don't like to lose games, but if this team had scraped by winning these games, they probably wouldn't believe it if someone told them they needed to concentrate on defense. If they don't believe it now, there's not much hope for them. That's the only silver lining I can think of.