Tweet
O.K., so the regular season is over & we are waiting for the MVC tournament. Time for some off the wall personal opinions.
We finished with a 9-9 conf. record, 5th place - which was the preseason prediction for the Panthers. Bradley made the top 4, not WSU.
I think the way we got to 9-9 was unusual. Road wins at Wich + Miss and then home losses to them. Sweep Bradley & get swept by Drake.
Here is the question: If our record had to remain 9-9, would some other combo of wins & losses made you feel any better about this season?
That win at Wichita sure got our hopes up. Would home & home wins with WSU & MSU felt "better" in the long run? We would not have had such a long losing streak that way.
I sure don't like Jim Les, and it was great to win in Peoria again; but would you trade a win against the Braves for one against the Bulldogs? (Would mean a State of Iowa co-championship) How about two BU to DU wins?
With what we did in Wichita, Springfield & almost at Carbondale, you could see that this team had a reasonable ambition to be conference champs. In fact, if we were always playing at 100% of our potential, I could make a case for us being almost undefeated. (Except for those dirty birds from Omaha - when will we solve that puzzle?)
The season started out great. But then you won't be at your unconscious best every night, and other teams have talent, and sometimes it will tell. The MVC is a grind. SIU has a great ranking after a full season and they didn't go unscathed. And you can't just put the close wins you got out of your mind as "gimmies." If you get good luck somewhere, you deserve bad luck somewhere else - it tends to even out. In my opinion, the Hawkeyes helped us back in the game, to use a non-conference example, or we were too far back to catch them.
So, 9-9, what do you make of the highs & lows? Could we be entering post-season play "better"?
We finished with a 9-9 conf. record, 5th place - which was the preseason prediction for the Panthers. Bradley made the top 4, not WSU.
I think the way we got to 9-9 was unusual. Road wins at Wich + Miss and then home losses to them. Sweep Bradley & get swept by Drake.
Here is the question: If our record had to remain 9-9, would some other combo of wins & losses made you feel any better about this season?
That win at Wichita sure got our hopes up. Would home & home wins with WSU & MSU felt "better" in the long run? We would not have had such a long losing streak that way.
I sure don't like Jim Les, and it was great to win in Peoria again; but would you trade a win against the Braves for one against the Bulldogs? (Would mean a State of Iowa co-championship) How about two BU to DU wins?
With what we did in Wichita, Springfield & almost at Carbondale, you could see that this team had a reasonable ambition to be conference champs. In fact, if we were always playing at 100% of our potential, I could make a case for us being almost undefeated. (Except for those dirty birds from Omaha - when will we solve that puzzle?)
The season started out great. But then you won't be at your unconscious best every night, and other teams have talent, and sometimes it will tell. The MVC is a grind. SIU has a great ranking after a full season and they didn't go unscathed. And you can't just put the close wins you got out of your mind as "gimmies." If you get good luck somewhere, you deserve bad luck somewhere else - it tends to even out. In my opinion, the Hawkeyes helped us back in the game, to use a non-conference example, or we were too far back to catch them.
So, 9-9, what do you make of the highs & lows? Could we be entering post-season play "better"?
Comment