These guys are semi-professionals

#1
1

1200DPI

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#1
When you attend one of their games you expect to see a team competing at a high level, playing smart, and representing their school and coaches well.

You, as a fan, have spent your money and have often made a significant effort to attend the game and support the team and program.

There is a bargain between the players/coaches and the fans who attend the games. We'll attend the games, hopefully enjoy the entertainment, but we expect a good showing from the players and coaches. There's no shame in losing a game to a better team if you've made your best effort to win. I don't believe we saw that yesterday.

If a team can't meet this expectation why would any fan ever make the effort to attend a road game?

What we saw yesterday was similar to attending a road game of an NBA team and the stars, who you expected to see, sat out the game and didn't participate.
 
#2
#2
1200DPI said:
When you attend one of their games you expect to see a team competing at a high level, playing smart, and representing their school and coaches well.

You, as a fan, have spent your money and have often made a significant effort to attend the game and support the team and program.

There is a bargain between the players/coaches and the fans who attend the games. We'll attend the games, hopefully enjoy the entertainment, but we expect a good showing from the players and coaches. There's no shame in losing a game to a better team if you've made your best effort to win. I don't believe we saw that yesterday.

If a team can't meet this expectation why would any fan ever make the effort to attend a road game?

What we saw yesterday was similar to attending a road game of an NBA team and the stars, who you expected to see, sat out the game and didn't participate.
Click to expand...
Hopefully this team will reset and play up to their potential Thursday- April 8th.
 
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#3
#3
1200DPI said:
When you attend one of their games you expect to see a team competing at a high level, playing smart, and representing their school and coaches well.

You, as a fan, have spent your money and have often made a significant effort to attend the game and support the team and program.

There is a bargain between the players/coaches and the fans who attend the games. We'll attend the games, hopefully enjoy the entertainment, but we expect a good showing from the players and coaches. There's no shame in losing a game to a better team if you've made your best effort to win. I don't believe we saw that yesterday.

If a team can't meet this expectation why would any fan ever make the effort to attend a road game?

What we saw yesterday was similar to attending a road game of an NBA team and the stars, who you expected to see, sat out the game and didn't participate.
Click to expand...
Not to make excuses, but this team seems to do better when they continue to play. Their level of play dropped a bit at first I think when they had an off week and I think the gap between their last game and this game with all the hype of awards and winning the reg season really got them out of focus. I’m hoping that’s all it was and that we get in a groove during the first couple of games during the NCAA without dropping them and back to playing to our full potential and with physicality by the Sweet 16.
 
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#4
#4
I don't doubt Barnes is a great teacher of the sport. I just don't think he does much to inspire his players. And tough games in March are when they need inspiration
 
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#9
#9
TJSVOLS said:
Oh, now he doesn’t inspire his players? Just keeps getting better and better.😂😂😂
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That's right, giggles. These guys just go through the motions. And that's probably what you want typically. You don't want players to get emotional. But this time of year you'd like these players to be hungry, and gritty, and nasty. Anyway, just an observation. I certainly don't see flashes of Coach K or Bob Knight.
 
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#10
#10
1200DPI said:
When you attend one of their games you expect to see a team competing at a high level, playing smart, and representing their school and coaches well.

You, as a fan, have spent your money and have often made a significant effort to attend the game and support the team and program.

There is a bargain between the players/coaches and the fans who attend the games. We'll attend the games, hopefully enjoy the entertainment, but we expect a good showing from the players and coaches. There's no shame in losing a game to a better team if you've made your best effort to win. I don't believe we saw that yesterday.

If a team can't meet this expectation why would any fan ever make the effort to attend a road game?

What we saw yesterday was similar to attending a road game of an NBA team and the stars, who you expected to see, sat out the game and didn't participate.
Click to expand...

I don't know about the "bargain," to use your analogy, but I do think the more these players are given upfront large sums money to play, the far less forgiving fans and schools will be with their performance. Which, frankly, is deserved. If you're getting six figures or more to play a sport, you better damn well play it. There's no room for forgiveness or excuses when it's big money and pay-for-play. You either put up or shut up.
 
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#11
#11
TnVol! said:
South Carolina lost by 31, Alabama lost by 14. Kentucky lost by 10 and we lost by 17. These tournaments are becoming meaningless to many.
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I have to agree with you. I doubt that anyone outside of the core fan base even remembers who wins the SEC tournament or regular season championship.
 
#12
#12
TnVol! said:
South Carolina lost by 31, Alabama lost by 14. Kentucky lost by 10 and we lost by 17. These tournaments are becoming meaningless to many.
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Conference tournaments need to go. They’re just a money grab (which is why they aren’t going anywhere). Makes so much more sense to give the automatic bid to the regular season champ and start the ncaa tournament a week earlier.
 
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#13
#13
1200DPI said:
When you attend one of their games you expect to see a team competing at a high level, playing smart, and representing their school and coaches well.

You, as a fan, have spent your money and have often made a significant effort to attend the game and support the team and program.

There is a bargain between the players/coaches and the fans who attend the games. We'll attend the games, hopefully enjoy the entertainment, but we expect a good showing from the players and coaches. There's no shame in losing a game to a better team if you've made your best effort to win. I don't believe we saw that yesterday.

If a team can't meet this expectation why would any fan ever make the effort to attend a road game?

What we saw yesterday was similar to attending a road game of an NBA team and the stars, who you expected to see, sat out the game and didn't participate.
Click to expand...

Good grief…can we file this in the “entitled fan” folder?

Posts like these are exhausting.

It just floors me how many folks think that Tennessee athletic teams control everything about every game they play…and the other team’s play is irrelevant to the outcome.

So, when Tennessee loses, it’s never because the other team kicked our arses. It’s because the coach “didn’t have them ready to play,” the players lacked effort, the coach tanked the game to rest players, etc.

Vols obviously played poorly in this game. MissSt took full advantage and kicked our arses all the way back to Knoxville in embarrassing fashion. But to insinuate that the coaches and players didn’t care, didn’t play hard, mailed it in or the like is just ridiculous IMO.

I can promise you that the Vol coaches and players gave 100% effort. The players just couldn’t buy a shot, and that was the main factor in the game.
 
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#14
#14
BisonVol said:
Conference tournaments need to go. They’re just a money grab (which is why they aren’t going anywhere). Makes so much more sense to give the automatic bid to the regular season champ and start the ncaa tournament a week earlier.
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Or maybe the SEC is just a deep league this season.
 
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#17
#17
BisonVol said:
It is, but that really doesn’t matter in terms of the point I was making.
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It has everything to do with it.

When a tournament is a dog fight, it absolutely is worth playing. Hell, I bet the players absolutely love it. Competitors want to compete … and if you win it, you’ve really accomplished something.

The regular season champ in our league is going to get an invite to the dance anyhow.

I personally love the conference tournaments. Even more so now that we have more parity in all of college basketball.
 
#19
#19
joshwa said:
That's right, giggles. These guys just go through the motions. And that's probably what you want typically. You don't want players to get emotional. But this time of year you'd like these players to be hungry, and gritty, and nasty. Anyway, just an observation. I certainly don't see flashes of Coach K or Bob Knight.
Click to expand...

If you haven’t seen a lot of emotion out of Barnes then you haven’t watched very much.
 
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#20
#20
1200DPI said:
When you attend one of their games you expect to see a team competing at a high level, playing smart, and representing their school and coaches well.

You, as a fan, have spent your money and have often made a significant effort to attend the game and support the team and program.

There is a bargain between the players/coaches and the fans who attend the games. We'll attend the games, hopefully enjoy the entertainment, but we expect a good showing from the players and coaches. There's no shame in losing a game to a better team if you've made your best effort to win. I don't believe we saw that yesterday.

If a team can't meet this expectation why would any fan ever make the effort to attend a road game?

What we saw yesterday was similar to attending a road game of an NBA team and the stars, who you expected to see, sat out the game and didn't participate.
Click to expand...

I would advise that fans stop attending conference tournaments. They are freak and, mostly, pointless: a lot of the favorites are already in the NCAA and tend not to perform well--look at the top teams in the SEC save Auburn. There seem to be motivation problems because for the top teams the tourney just doesn't mean much, and meanwhile the bottom tier teams are super-motivated by a last chance to get in the dance--though nobody deserves a last chance after playing 20 conference games and 32 games (or whatever the total) overall. Nobody needs more games after 32 to prove themselves.
 
#22
#22
TnVol! said:
South Carolina lost by 31, Alabama lost by 14. Kentucky lost by 10 and we lost by 17. These tournaments are becoming meaningless to many.
Click to expand...

Houston lost by 30, Purdue got beat, UNC just went down, Duke lost in the 1st round - conference tournaments are superfluous after the grind of the season and with the 64-bid NCAA's. They're only important to teams that have to win to get in.
 
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#23
#23
joshwa said:
That's right, giggles. These guys just go through the motions. And that's probably what you want typically. You don't want players to get emotional. But this time of year you'd like these players to be hungry, and gritty, and nasty. Anyway, just an observation. I certainly don't see flashes of Coach K or Bob Knight.
Click to expand...
Minus a full blown, melt the wax in your ears, cussing out…
 
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