We've Been Spoiled

[Rollo83]

I guess I’ve expected this team to be invincible. This stems from all the past success we’ve had. The Prochaska, Pontius and Uhl class has won two straight MAC regular season championships and with a win today have gone 75-19 in their careers so far. Yet when they lose a game, especially to a weaker opponent, we tend to look at them as underachievers.

I guess we have Mann, Achter, Horne and Liz to blame for setting the bar so high. Anything short of a MAC Tourney championship and a NCAA appearance is a sub par season. This probably says as much about where Curt has taken this program than anything else that can be said.

The fact that it’s Saturday afternoon and I am sitting on my couch following a women’s basketball game on my computer also speaks volumes. I have to admit that the only women’s game I watched when I was at BG was at the end of a game if it was part of a double header with the men’s game.

[BigGibber]

We have been spoiled indeed and like all spoiled kids, we do a lot of whining.

I liked the decision to get Papenfus more involved. Her game reminds me of Mann in many ways, her intensity, her ability to just get the job done even though its not always pretty, the way she steps it up when she does make a mistake and does something to make up for it, often in the ensuing 20-30 seconds.

Remember how both Ali and Kate used to let loose with animal like screams of intensity after taking a charge or getting a basket and foul late in a close game? We're missing that, we see it occasionally from Jen but that's about it.

It's not something you can fake, it's a natural fire, Allison brings that.

[musicman2343]

I liked the decision to get Papenfus more involved. Her game reminds me of Mann in many ways, her intensity, her ability to just get the job done even though its not always pretty, the way she steps it up when she does make a mistake and does something to make up for it, often in the ensuing 20-30 seconds.

It's not something you can fake, it's a natural fire, Allison brings that.

I definitely agree with that comment. Actually, as one of few people in the band who has been here long enough to remember that era, we were making that same "Mann" connection today. She really does have that similar intensity and I remarked at least twice how I can't wait to see her senior year down the road.

[Falconfreak90]

Won't hear any whining from me. 20-6, 10-2 MAC is still a hell of a record. So this team isn't the dominant team like the Ali, Mann and Co. teams. I mentioned in another post how this team lacked the killer instinct of the past and stand by it. But this is still a very good team with a great chance of winning their 6th straight regular season title. It's difficult to win 1 title let alone 5 in a row. The rest of the MAC is tired of seeing BG dominate the league and has improved. GO FALCONS!

TOGETHER WE ATTACK!!!

[Falconboy]

Won't hear any whining from me. 20-6, 10-2 MAC is still a hell of a record. So this team isn't the dominant team like the Ali, Mann and Co. teams. I mentioned in another post how this team lacked the killer instinct of the past and stand by it. But this is still a very good team with a great chance of winning their 6th straight regular season title. It's difficult to win 1 title let alone 5 in a row. The rest of the MAC is tired of seeing BG dominate the league and has improved. GO FALCONS!

TOGETHER WE ATTACK!!!

Agree with you too Freak. We do for tend to for get that we still have a very good record and a chance at a 6th straight Mac regular season title if UT lose one more time and we win out. Yeah, this team doesn't have the same type of players that great team had with Liz, Ali, Carin, Kate and so on. We don't have the same fiery players at least not who are starting anyway. Jess Slagle has some of Kate's intensity in her and Papenfuss does seem to have some although I wouldn't put it in Mann's category. We're probably missing that fire and intensity at the pg position the most. No disrespect to Tracey , she just isn't the kind of fiery emotional floor general that Kate was. We probably have more individual talent at guard than those past teams but we might be missing particular skills sets at other positions as well. What comes to mind more me is the forward and center positions during the NCAA tournament years we had a 3pt shooting 4 in Ali and a very good deep 3pt shooting center in Liz. Those skills sets at those positions gave us advantages that rarely did teams match up well against. We never matched up well size wise with big and athletic teams but we could compete with anyone because of what our front court could do shooting wise. I think we're missing that dearly. In reverse the last 2 years or so we've had better than average guards who can shoot extremely well in Pontius and LP but dont' have particularly great 3pt shooting in Breske , Uhl or Zuercher and marginal at best in Hennegan. Papenfuss has no 3pt shot to speak of, Geise does have one but not sure how good it is and the jury is out on Havel's skill set. So we are now still undersized at pf and c but have no dependable outside shooting to lure other teams big centers away from the paint, possibly making things a lot tougher on our guards to get penetration to the basket. Hopefully Curt has recruited some more good 3pt shooting forwards and centers to bring back that matchup advantage we used to have at the post positions. Just some things I think are a factor to describe our lack of extreme dominance we've had in the past. Also not to count out what Freak said is just that the Mac as a whole seems to have gotten the message get better or else.