Joe21
03-15-2009, 12:50 PM
All year long, even before and after the season, we analyze our athletic teams successess and failures. It is difficult for die-hard Tiger fans to truly eliminate any bias for our Tigers. We Tiger fans are all over the spectrum. Some of us tend to base our pre-season predictions on hope, some of us on a few selected facts and some of us on gut feelings. We're happy when he Tigers win. Oh, there will be a few who are dissatisfied for various reasons and will voice their opinions, some with valid points. But when we lose, arm chair QBs come out of the woodwork with all of the answers plus a plea to fire the coach. From our seat in the stadium or in front of the TV we can see everything that is wrong. And, yes, there will be mistakes, some obvious and some perceived. I've yet to see a team play a perfect game. Unlike many of us fans, even the best coaches and players are sometimes prone to make a mistake.
Optimism is a desirable trait but it must be tempered with facts. We sometimes forget the objective of our opponent is he same as ours, and that is to win. Often times it is more than talent that wins the game. There are numerous factors that come into play and it is difficult to pinpoint just how much each of these factors plays in the outcome of the game. Any attempt to list those factors here would be a no-brainer. Surely there are some of which I am not aware and the interaction of two or more is beyond my ability to comprehend.
Let's look at our current basketball team. We're having a pretty good year. Before we lost our first game there were some predicting we would go undefeated, or, at least, win the ACC regular season title. Others had us on a par with the elite programs. Went we routed Duke 74 - 47 we thought our team had arrived but when we lost to lowly Virginia, we asked ourselves, "what happened"? We expected the Tigers to continue to play as they did against Duke, not as they did against Virginia. The truth is there were probably some of those elusive unknown factors involved in both games on both sides of the ball. We were not truly as good as some thought we were in one game and not as bad as some thought we were in the other game. It's human nature to expect our favorite team to always play at the highest level but never at the lowest level. A true measure of our team is probably somewhere between the two and that's about where we ended up in the conference standings. Even though we are proud of the talent on our team, it does not compare with the talent level of North Carolina, Duke, Wake Forest and probably Florida State.
The elite programs are not immune to upsets but their overall records each year testifies to their level of talent, coaching and other factors. We have not reached that level as yet but OP has us headed in that direction. Yes, we are disappointed but if we step back and take a realistic view of our program we can see progress. Progress may be incremental, but we need only open our eyes to see that progress. The talent level is improving each year and we have seen evidence that OP can upgrade that talent after being under his wing for awhile.
As the pundits of Pumpkintown would say, "Peoria was not built in two hours and 27 minutes, but it got built".
Oh, the perfidy of it all !!!!!
Optimism is a desirable trait but it must be tempered with facts. We sometimes forget the objective of our opponent is he same as ours, and that is to win. Often times it is more than talent that wins the game. There are numerous factors that come into play and it is difficult to pinpoint just how much each of these factors plays in the outcome of the game. Any attempt to list those factors here would be a no-brainer. Surely there are some of which I am not aware and the interaction of two or more is beyond my ability to comprehend.
Let's look at our current basketball team. We're having a pretty good year. Before we lost our first game there were some predicting we would go undefeated, or, at least, win the ACC regular season title. Others had us on a par with the elite programs. Went we routed Duke 74 - 47 we thought our team had arrived but when we lost to lowly Virginia, we asked ourselves, "what happened"? We expected the Tigers to continue to play as they did against Duke, not as they did against Virginia. The truth is there were probably some of those elusive unknown factors involved in both games on both sides of the ball. We were not truly as good as some thought we were in one game and not as bad as some thought we were in the other game. It's human nature to expect our favorite team to always play at the highest level but never at the lowest level. A true measure of our team is probably somewhere between the two and that's about where we ended up in the conference standings. Even though we are proud of the talent on our team, it does not compare with the talent level of North Carolina, Duke, Wake Forest and probably Florida State.
The elite programs are not immune to upsets but their overall records each year testifies to their level of talent, coaching and other factors. We have not reached that level as yet but OP has us headed in that direction. Yes, we are disappointed but if we step back and take a realistic view of our program we can see progress. Progress may be incremental, but we need only open our eyes to see that progress. The talent level is improving each year and we have seen evidence that OP can upgrade that talent after being under his wing for awhile.
As the pundits of Pumpkintown would say, "Peoria was not built in two hours and 27 minutes, but it got built".
Oh, the perfidy of it all !!!!!