Always a bridesmaid - Never the Bride!

#51
#51
BernardKingGOAT said:
That's the way it looks when the other team is better sometimes. I've heard too many top of the shelf professional athletes say it when fans bemoan that they weren't ready or prepared. We were ready. They are better. When we got a few open looks from time to time, we looked shell shocked shooting it.
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They are better but they aren't 15 first half points better. They came out more physical and punched us in the mouth. We weren't ready for that. Also missing crucial FTs has nothing to do with Houston being better.
 
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#53
#53
Anti-shunshinepumper said:
We may not have won today but we keep consistently getting closer. Our final 4 is coming in the next 2-3 years. I truly believe that.
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Hope you’re right. It’s difficult to see rt now as we don’t have the players on the roster to advance to a final four.
 
#54
#54
When your not hitting you take it to the basket, in the first half we kept pumping it up. In the second half we drove more and rebounded better. Had we did that in the first half we probably wouldn’t be in that big of a hole. But Houston is a good team, we didn’t play our best today but at least we kept battling in the second half which us a mark of this team we always hustled. GBO
 
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#56
#56
That's the importance of being a #1 seed. You don't have to face the best of the best until the Final Four at that point. I'd much rather have played any other #1 seeds bracket.

That said, I'm more sad about this potentially being the end of several careers than losing this game. We're always prone to an offensive clunker and today was the day.
 
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#58
#58
K-town Vol Fan said:
They are better but they aren't 15 first half points better. They came out more physical and punched us in the mouth. We weren't ready for that. Also missing crucial FTs has nothing to do with Houston being better.
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FINALLY…a post than hits the nail. They were more physical and aggressive. And BTW Houston is a number one seed and good. Granted…we can certainly play a lot better (we did miss crucial FT’s too) and certainly can score more effectively. But CLEARLY physicality won the day! Great season for the Vols!
 
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#60
#60
Bottom line is we spent our emotional energy on the game on Friday. We were glad to beat an arch rival in a tournament game and felt like that was quite the accomplishment. Came out flat, got punched and didn’t have the team energy to recover.
 
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#62
#62
We don't have the brutes inside. Houston gave us fits with their long armed 6'8" athletes. Edey last year with his size.

We aren't getting it done with recruiting solid Centers/Posts.

Our guards have been outstanding.
 
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#63
#63
crucdvol said:
Bottom line is we spent our emotional energy on the game on Friday. We were glad to beat an arch rival in a tournament game and felt like that was quite the accomplishment. Came out flat, got punched and didn’t have the team energy to recover.
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Yep...also about matchups. We'd probably fared better against one of the other 1 seeds...though if we shot like we did against the other teams, it would have been a worse beat down. We faced a better version of ourselves today and didn't know what to do going against a clamp down defense.
 
#66
#66
We played like poop from the start, for sure.

However, just LOOK at the remaining 4 teams. Their size speed and athleticism is just noticeably better than ours.

I love our guys. They play as a team and for the team and that’s why they’re trouble. The elite 8 is great, but for the last two years we’ve seen that there’s just another level that requires bigger faster stronger players.

It’s a Jimmie and Joe issue.
 
#68
#68
CamVol8 said:
Just pathetic performance. Would have sucked losing either way but everything was terrible from coaching, shooting, FTS, turnovers, defense, etc. We didn’t even play our B or C game, that was an F.
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The season ended just like it did for the football team. A good season but got exposed by a better team at the end.
 
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#69
#69
Other_Guy said:
I feel like the seniors wanted to win this one for Barnes so badly they played tight. It was a great tourney up until that point, some of the best I've seen from Barnes squad. Then EVERY SINGLE PLAYER played like trash until Gainey saved them from more embarrassment. ZZ and Maschack was unusually bad. Think the pressure got to them.
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I do believe they looked a little tight, but I'm not sure the pressure got to them. They've played in and won a lot of pressure packed games over the last four years. I think it was just one of those days that shots just weren't falling, and Houston is pretty darn good.
 
#70
#70
LivinginthePast said:
not really. Tony V resurrected from the grave a dead program. Went to the World Series multiple times. Won a Natty quick. He’s in another league of coaching. Barnes is amazing. But don’t know if he will ever win a national championship. He’s been coaching for years. I think he needs to recruit a big post player that you can feed the ball to. 3 balls cold to much as we saw in first half.
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His teams are never deep enough. Always has some good players that play their hearts out, but not enough of them are really good. He doesn’t seem to value bigs but as today showed, you need several of them to make it to the next level.
 
#71
#71
This loss had an eerily similar feeling to the Ohio State CFP loss ….Everybody is talking about us being an “Everything” school and we’re not close to winning a Natty in anything but Baseball !! 🤔
 
#73
#73
General Jack said:
It’s in part because we haven’t had a Grant Willams type who can back someone down and either pass to a cutter for a layup, convert a bucket himself, or get fouled and make the FTs.
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Even with GW we had an off night against Purdue when it mattered most.. It wasn’t as off as today’s game mind you, but we couldn’t maintain the advantage. Today’s was a disaster.
 
#75
#75
LivinginthePast said:
not really. Tony V resurrected from the grave a dead program. Went to the World Series multiple times. Won a Natty quick. He’s in another league of coaching. Barnes is amazing. But don’t know if he will ever win a national championship. He’s been coaching for years. I think he needs to recruit a big post player that you can feed the ball to. 3 balls cold to much as we saw in first half.
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It’s much harder to win a title in basketball than in baseball. There are 11 SEC teams with a baseball natty, but only 3 with a basketball natty.

You can lose up to 4 games in the baseball tournament and still win it all. In basketball you have to go 6-0.

College basketball is the hardest title to win in American sports. Harder than a Super Bowl. Harder than a World Series.
 
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