I've been hearing Vandy fans use "heartwrenching" and "heartbreaking" to describe Saturday's two-point loss to Kentucky.
Give me a break.
Yes, it would have been nice to see the Dores win, and yes, we came pretty darn close.
Yes, I was doing what all fans do, and that's second-guessing our coach and players. Why wasn't Jenkins in the game longer? Whoops, why did Jenkins take that three-pointer and get packed? Why can't AJ catch the ball? Where was Dolla? And yes, I thought more calls should have gone our way.
But we were in it at the end. Don't tell me we have more talent and a better team than Kentucky. We don't. You need a great point guard and a great big man to survive the NCAA tournament, and the Cats have arguably college basketball's best of each.
But we have a better team than anybody else in the SEC, and when could you say that? I'm not frustrated at all.
This is not heartwrenching. Heartwrenching is when you beat the No. 1 team at home and then a month later you lose to Siena 80-66 in the first round of the tournament. Remember that?
Our performance Saturday certainly didn't hurt our seeding in the tournament. What impresses me about this team is our defense and our ability to stay in games when in years past we would have folded.
This is not heartwrenching or heartbreaking. This is encouraging. Our guys our hungry and getting ready to make a run in the tournament.
In football terms, this could have been a body-bag game, where we get stomped and leave the game physically and mentally beaten down, and then we go on a losing skid. That happens when you've got inferior talent and zero margin for error. That doesn't apply to this year's Vanderbilt basketball team.
And while we're on the topic of football, I'll tell you what's really heartwrenching.
Rajaan Bennett.
Kind of puts things into perspective, doesn't it?
3 comments:
Good Point on putting things into perspective. Most bracketology sites have actually moves us up to #3 seed. Our rpi didn't move anywhere by losing. A win would have been real nice but this lost reassures me that we can stick with the #2 ranked team on a night where we shoot 10% from three with over half the misses being from wide open shots. Not heartwrenching at all, but probably more encouraging.
Would like to see outcome if we had DUKE on the front of our jerseys....historically better teams don't get some of the calls we got, i.e. Taylor's back, and any of the last three fouls on Festus. I love this team....great fun in Vandyland this winter!!
Yes, we should have gotten at least a little bit of home cooking but didn't.
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