The knife blade

[ABC]

I am not trying to spin positive, but just point out how thin the margin of success and defeat is.

This team is likely to finish only two games behind the 2006 Sweet 16 in the MVC.

Just a reminder that that 2006 team beat Creighton with a last second shot in OT. We beat SIU in TWO OTs, and beat Bradley by two in OT. (We also lost to CU by only two on the road.) And we beat Drake on the road with a Paul Miller tip-in with 10 seconds left.

And we lost twice to UNI that year.

Take all that for what it is worth.

[capnkirk]

And the same year, WSU was behind Northwestern ST most of the game only to take the lead in the final minute to win.

[Kung Wu]

Re: The knife blade

I am not trying to spin positive, but just point out how thin the margin of success and defeat is.

That you have to be defensive about being positive says a lot about the few posters here who have recently just spewed unrelentless negativity. It's amazing what a few negative nancies can cause.

Good post.

[Ricardo del Rio]

Re: The knife blade

I am not trying to spin positive, but just point out how thin the margin of success and defeat is.

This team is likely to finish only two games behind the 2006 Sweet 16 in the MVC.

Just a reminder that that 2006 team beat Creighton with a last second shot in OT. We beat SIU in TWO OTs, and beat Bradley by two in OT. (We also lost to CU by only two on the road.) And we beat Drake on the road with a Paul Miller tip-in with 10 seconds left.

And we lost twice to UNI that year.

Take all that for what it is worth.

And the highlight above pushed JJ Clamdip right over the edge.

[WSUShokker]

i heard or read that we lost 4 road games by a total of 9pts..9 freakin pts.

[t7017s]

If we don't lose to Evansville, creighton, and Drake This year we could be looking at a regular season conference championship. I suspect without the above loses happening that our guys would not have played as poorly over the last 12 or so games.

[Rodya RR]

If grandma had wheels, she'd be a kart and we could ride her down the hill.

I, for one, have had a really great time following this team this year. Yeah, there were were a couple of losses that were hard to stomach, but a heck of a lot fewer than there have been over the past several seasons.

It's always tempting to glance over at the L column and languish over how a lucky bounce, bad foul, (mis)call, or bricked shot could have swung things to the good guys. It's much harder to examine the our W column with the same critical eye. That's a job for fans of the other teams.

I appreciate the slim margins that make all the difference. That's just me as a fan. If I wanted to be the sort of fan that can only get up for a team capable of thrashing almost every opponent by 15+ points, then I know of a shop where I could easily buy a Jayhalk jersey for basketball season, a Sooner jersey for football season, and a Shocker jersey for baseball season.

Yet another great day to be a Shocker.
:wsu_posters:

[The Mad Hatter]

If we don't lose to Evansville, creighton, and Drake This year we could be looking at a regular season conference championship. I suspect without the above loses happening that our guys would not have played as poorly over the last 12 or so games.

Actually, in my mind, it was the game at UNI that sent us into this funk. We played well and almost won. Had we won, we would have been right in the race for a conference championship and I think we would have been playing with a lot of confidence. Losing seemed to really demoralize us.

The good news is that we really are a hairsbreadth away from being conference champions and the other 2 teams that will finish in the top 3 in the Valley lose a whole lot more than we do (Clevin's impact notwithstanding).

I hope that the team can mentally put some of these tough loses behind them and not let it affect the way they play against SIU and in the Valley Tourney, because if we can regain our form, we could still claim the auto-berth into the NCAAs.

[vbird53]

It's time to move on from the negativity: it really starts to drain. I thought we played well for much of the Bradley game. Just a few changes here or there, and we walk out of Carver with a win. The ball just bounced the other way (literally).

[spinner]

What a great year we had and its not over. All this team needs one player to start playing over his head. The rest keep playing the same. The games are just so close. This team deperately needs a beast, 6 pts. 4 rebounds is not a beast. I heard the big time leagues say over and over again what a beast is. The top teams all have one thing a true beast. Their definition is different than ours. Its 20 pts. ten rebounds every night. A true top 100 player, why we would love to have even a top 150. One of these days its going to happen. Just one player the others can follow like in the old days. Go shocks!

[podunkboy]

If grandma had wheels, she'd be a kart and we could ride her down the hill.

Dibs on "shotgun"!

I, for one, have had a really great time following this team this year. Yeah, there were were a couple of losses that were hard to stomach, but a heck of a lot fewer than there have been over the past several seasons.

It's always tempting to glance over at the L column and languish over how a lucky bounce, bad foul, (mis)call, or bricked shot could have swung things to the good guys. It's much harder to examine the our W column with the same critical eye. That's a job for fans of the other teams.

I appreciate the slim margins that make all the difference. That's just me as a fan. If I wanted to be the sort of fan that can only get up for a team capable of thrashing almost every opponent by 15+ points, then I know of a shop where I could easily buy a Jayhalk jersey for basketball season, a Sooner jersey for football season, and a Shocker jersey for baseball season.

Yet another great day to be a Shocker.
:wsu_posters:

It's the unreasonable expectations of the true fan that keep them in perpetual torment (see: Chicago Cubs fans, Detroit Lions fans, etc.) You know there are some fans who actually believe they can affect the outcome of a sporting contest being played hundreds of miles away simply on the basis of a "lucky shirt"?
If we didn't really love our Shockers, we wouldn't be so upset when they disappoint us on a last-second shot that clangs off the rim. It's simply the nature of fanaticism.
When the end comes this season, I'll do what I always do: shriek my torment to the heavens, rip my shirt off and jump up and down on it, put it in the dirty clothes hamper, and get out my baseball jersey. :cry:

[Ricardo del Rio]

If we don't lose to Evansville, creighton, and Drake This year we could be looking at a regular season conference championship. I suspect without the above loses happening that our guys would not have played as poorly over the last 12 or so games.

http://www.shockernet.net/sn/viewtopic.php?t=16219

[Aargh]

If WSU gets any post-season play this year, isn't that going to be 5 out of the last 7 years we've had post-season play?

Look at one recruiting class that just didn't work out (Brown, Butler) and one that never showed up due to a coaching change and it's hard to do better than that for at least getting to post-season play.

If CU fails to get into post-season play this year, I believe that puts them in post-season play 5 out of the past 7 years. CU could make one of the minor tourneys.

In any case, 5 or 6 years ago we were chasing CU. Now we've virtually caught them and appear to be in the process of moving past them. We're over half way to a decade of being among the elite of the Valley except for 2 years that involved a coaching change.

In a couple years, we're likely to be the only team to be consistently near the top of the league in the last 10 years under two different coaches. The search for perfection makes it very easy to overlook real achievements when they are staring you in the face.

[ShockerFever]

The Valley sent 4 teams to the NCAA that year, 2 more of which were strongly considered, and 1 one of those 2 completely snubbed.

You can't seriously be comparing the Valley of 06 to the Valley of 2010, can you? :roll:

[BostonWu]

The Valley sent 4 teams to the NCAA that year, 2 more of which were strongly considered, and 1 one of those 2 completely snubbed.

You can't seriously be comparing the Valley of 06 to the Valley of 2010, can you? :roll:

Valid point. Taking nothing away from this young team I doubt they finish in the upper half in 2006.