Glass half _____

[salim'sheadband]

Optimism:

This team has the two or three best players, at least, every time it steps on the court. We are still an elite defensive team and a good-to-elite offensive team, even though it doesn't seem like it (FWIW I consider top 10% of anything elite). I would take this squad over any team it plays in any game for the rest of the season.

Pessimism:

Damn the metrics, we just don't look like a very good team. Stevie Wonder can see this team has problems. Our center appears to be regressing, our power forward can't stop a nose bleed, our small forward can't shoot and exists in foul trouble perpetually, our shooting guard is a mercurial freshman who has looked like both the best and the worst player on the court at different times this season, and our point guard is a two-star mid-major transfer who is an average defensive player (okay, that one was a joke). We have no bench. Our coach is a tight-ass who refuses to play the only form of defense that would mask this team's deficiencies, and won't exploit matchups where we have a distinct advantage for any sustained period of time.

Optimism:

Lute always used to say win at home and split on the road. We do that and we're 14-4 and end the season with no more than 5 losses and almost certainly a protected seed. The worst RPI team left on our schedule is Washington St. at 150ish, and we only play them once. This helps us.

Pessimism:

You can probably kiss a 1 seed goodbye assuming the rest of the season plays out as we would expect it to, with at least a few more losses. We have two bad losses already this season. UNLV is at least a top-60 RPI team but who knows if they'll sustain that. Oregon St., while not the RPI anchor they were in years past, is still a 125-ish team. Our OOC is not helping us at all, and yeah, we're 9th in the RPI right now but that's going to drop, because there are just too many 100ish RPI teams left in the Pac for us to improve our situation much. Remember, in 2013 we were 15th in the RPI, and although we lost to a 100ish RPI USC team we beat two top-10 RPI teams but still ended up with a 6 seed. So you know what the committee's going to do to us if we drop a couple more, especially if Gonzaga blitzes the WCC, which is perversely what we need to keep our metrics up? Yeah.

Optimism:

This is what you came for, isn't it? How does our postseason project? Well, I can tell you that in recent years Final Four teams have had some terrible losses and uninspiring records going into the tournament - especially terrible road losses in conference. Last year UCONN lost at Houston (125 KenPom) and got incinerated by Louisville in the last game of the regular season, and Kentucky lost at South Carolina (115 KenPom) after losing at home in OT to Arkansas. Wisconsin lost AT HOME to Northwestern (131 KenPom) in the midst of a stretch in which they lost five of six. In 2013 Michigan lost at Penn St. (148 KenPom), and Wichita St. lost to a slew of bad teams, including an away loss at Southern Illinois (171 KenPom) on their way to a 9 seed. In 2012 Louisville lost by THIRTY-ONE away at Providence (112 KenPom) in the midst of a stretch where they lost five of seven, and Ohio St. lost away to an Illinois team that finished 17-15 (82 KenPom). 2011 was such a crazy Final Four it shouldn't surprise you that all of those teams but UConn had "bad" losses, of note Kentucky's away losses to Ole Miss (79 KenPom) and Arkansas (111 KenPom); Butler and VCU had too many to name. Duke in 2010 got a 1 seed and won it all, but lost an away game to a decidedly mediocre NC State team (70 KenPom) that went 20-16 and missed the NCAA tournament.

These teams were led by good, if not great, coaches and almost all of them had many future NBA players on them. So to put a ceiling on our team's postseason potential solely because of these losses is myopic and baseless. Moreover, even the good teams this year have been tested by mediocre or bad teams, to say nothing of the number of totally inexplicable losses this year by otherwise decent teams, more than any I can remember.

Pessimism:

Yeah, but they're still our losses, and we can't take too many more if we want a protected seed. That, given the nature of conference play and the mediocre nature of the Pac-12 this year, is probably going to be close to impossible if the product resembles what was put on the floor on Sunday night. These were the games we couldn't afford to give away, and we did, and we will pay for it on the back end.

[Airizona]

It is definitely frustrating to lose a game like that, but the positives are in how close it was despite how bad we played. If you were to show me the stats from the game and asked how much OSU won by, I would have said at least 10, probably more like 15-20. Hopefully someone like Nick will emerge this season who will be able to make big plays down the stretch... We have the players, just need them to make the plays.

[WildcatStunner]

SHB, thank you for some perspective. I flew off the deep end last night. I feel like a wounded animal today. Your post definitely helps paint a bigger overall picture. Nothing good ever comes easy. Time for the team to nut up and bear down.

[CalStateTempe]

SHB: Awesome stuff man.

[Olsondogg]

I am optimistic that the Cats can defend home court, and take over the lead in the PAC by this time next week.

[Puerco]

Come back to me after the Utah game.

[Olsondogg]

Come back to me after the Utah game.

I'll let you follow me, it's your specialty.

[Puerco]

Personal attack!

EDIT: by the way, comments like that are starting to make me think you're Farva's sock all over again.

[Olsondogg]

Puerco being Puerco

[Puerco]

I never have understood that reference of yours. Is it good or bad? But anyway, I invite you to stop polluting SHB's excellent thread with your tiresome little jibes. Perhaps my post had nothing to do with yours at all, eh?