I really don't get the lack of effort complaint. I know that even the guys who don't play much, like Amar, are amped up all week for the next game, and I am certain are much more focused on upcoming games than on schoolwork.
Now I don't always think energy shows up on the court, especially in away games where a home crowd can just take the air out of you. It's a weird really - like the adrenalin being sucked out of your body when you are not playing well away. I also believe that when a team falls behind, individual players break from the team first mode, not to be selfish, but to try to make something happen. When that happens, guys sometimes start playing outside of their ability and bad things happen.
Flat yes. Air sucked out of the room, yes. Sluggish play as a result, yes. But not trying - I don't buy it.
All you have to do is watch the games instead of Mullin. Trailing cutters, going under every pick, lackadaisical or completely out of control close outs, reaching for loose balls instead of sticking their noses in, lack of boxing out, very sporadic commitment to defense in general. Call it what you want, make excuses as you wish, this group of players are not committed to the tough stuff, except Owens. They generally play hardest when the ball is in their hands. When you are committed to winning on offense, wins are pretty but inconsistent. Defense keeps you in games and gives you a chance to win consistently unless you can just overwhelm with talent and we are not that good. Last point, don't confuse towel waving and cheerleading for hard play; the next time AA boxes someone out will be his first.
A good friend of mine was the long time coach at St Thomas Aquinas. At practice one day, he said to his team, "Here's a scenario for you: We are down 30 points with 8 minutes to play. IF you were on the court, what would you do?"
He expected a bunch of answers such as full court press, shorten our possessions, push the ball, etc, but the first kid who raised his hand responded seriously when he said "Get mine, coach." He thought it was hysterical but that is often the mindset of a kid towards the tail end of a huge loss. In those games, there is often lazy defense at the end and selfish play on offense.
To suggest that our kids do something like that from the get go is insulting to the players. We went in the hole early, and guys like Ahmed, Ponds, and Lovett will sometimes try to do too much, and take ill advised shots, gamble on defense putting them out of position, etc.
You want to be critical of our guys then you had better be critical of our coach, who if he saw what you saw, albeit in person, he should have read his guys the riot act and put in guys who wanted to play. You can't have it both ways. If you think our kids were lazy and selfish, then you had better put that on the coach for tolerating it.
