Happy Presidents Day to you all. Hopefully you are enjoying a three day weekend as we honor the great leaders of this here nation.
So, Presidents – who ya got? I’m an Abe Lincoln guy myself, you know, the underdog who fought his way to the top while the decks were stacked against him. The log cabin origin and reading by the light of the fire, losing a couple of runs at public office, but the man just kept fighting. He’s easy to root for.
I know we generally don’t talk politics around here as it happens to boil the blood of our lefty/righty friends in cyberspace. It’s cool. But some interesting points of interest on Lincoln:
- His wife was called Mary Todd Lincoln, who was brought up into a very wealthy family. Mary’s parents disagreed with her marrying Abraham because he had a poor background.
- Abraham was an unaffiliated Christian as he never officially acquired church membership.
- He was the tallest U.S president at 6ft 4 inches.
- He was the first president to have a beard.
- Lincoln, one week before his death, had a dream of someone crying in the White House. When he found the room, he looked in and asked who had passed away. The man in the room said the President. When he looked in the coffin it was his own face he saw.
Spooky.
I also have a fondness for all things JFK. Yeah, he rubbed people the wrong way with his prep school, privileged upbringing. He wasn’t the most perfect President, far from it actually. And he messed around on his lovely wife, which is pretty sad. Joe DiMaggio hated his guts for the Marilyn Monroe stuff, and in fact refused to shake JFK’s hand on the field at Yankee Stadium during an old-timers game. But they’ve been running these JFK home movies on TLC, and I tell you it’s fascinating to see all the behind-the-scenes stuff of the Kennedys! And even with all the privilege, such a tragic family filled with loss. Not just JFK, but his brother Bobby, wow. You remember the celebrity-like status Obama enjoyed during his 2008 run at the White House? Go watch the video of RFK’s campaign, and he was a total ROCK STAR!
Young and old, rich and poor, black and white, they loved Bobby. But what’s weird about him is that he only liked to have one bodyguard with him when he went into the masses, and that bodyguard was unarmed! Can you imagine a candidate like that today, going into the crowd with a goal to shake every hand, with just one bodyguard who wasn’t packing? Amazing. Who knows, maybe if he had more security detail we wouldn’t have ever even heard of Sirhan Sirhan.
Alright, enough of that stuff. Thanks to all the Presidents of the United States for the three-day weekend! Moving on…..
I know a lot of people are bent out of shape over the lost weekend in Arizona for our Cougs. The Arizona loss was disappointing, but hardly unexpected. Arizona is ranked for a reason and clearly the best team in the conference right now, so there is no shame in losing down there. But the ASU loss? Yeesh.
Forgive me as I am just a hoops “rube”, and I couldn’t tell you how to interpret the Kenpom.com stuff out on the Interwebs nor could I decipher the rotations and strategies and whatnot from Ken Bone. And even if I did get my hands on the Kenpom.com stuff, I would be the proverbial mule with a pinwheel – No one knows how I got it, and danged if I know how to use it! (You can thank the Simpsons for that one, the monorail episode to be exact).
ANYWAY, even to my uneducated Basketball Jones eyes, I see a team that is inconsistent at best, dysfunctional at worst. I see a couple of really good, all-conference types in Klay Thompson and DeAngelo Casto…..and right now, I don’t see much else to be honest with you. Reggie Moore opened a lot of eyes last season, but this year seems like it’s just been a lost season of struggles and inconsistency for Mr. Sky Blue. Faisel Aden is a nice third wheel, but it seems to come and go with him, and he hasn’t been all that healthy lately either. I love the athleticism of Marcus Capers, but we can’t count on him to deliver offensively on a nightly basis. And despite the success of Casto, where’s the help along the front line? Motum? Abe? Anyone??
One thing that really sticks out to me? I still remember the Gonzaga loss from last year. Remember that game? The Cougs were up big early, and even held a double-digit lead into the second half. But it all fell apart down the stretch, as the turnovers began to pile up and the frustrations set in. But you know what I remember more than anything about that game? It was late in the game and the Zags had the lead and the momentum. It was early in Bone’s tenure, so we really hadn’t seen him work the sidelines. But during a timeout as it was all slipping away, Bone was really lighting up his players on the sideline. He was yelling and getting in their faces, trying to push their buttons. And you know what? It appeared that half of the players were just looking up into the stands.
I know that it’s a different era, and the days of the coach screaming until they are purple in their faces are few and far between. But when I saw that, I saw a team that simply didn’t look like they were buying what Bone was selling. They didn’t look like a team that believed they were going to come back. And of course, they didn’t.
What’s weird is that I am totally sitting on the fence on this. I don’t fault Bone for where we are right now. I think he’s trying to do different things, and some games things really seem to click (see UW @ Pullman for example). But the success has been fleeting.
However I don’t really blame the players either. They are who they are, pretty much, and that’s the best way I can put it. Would I love to have Tony Bennett come back and have the team up their defensive intensity, all the while valuing possessions? Sure. But that ain’t happenin’. This isn’t a Bennett ball team anymore, and what it boils down to is that they have two really good players, and then a big mystery after that. Teams like that don’t finish in the top of the PAC, period.
And let’s also remember one thing – this team finished LAST in the conference last season. Not seventh, eighth or ninth, but LAST in a down year for the PAC-10. They have largely the same cast of characters back from a 10th place team last year. They showed promise early, and we all believed this was going to be a big step forward. And in some ways, hard as it is to admit, 2010-11 HAS been a success. At least when you compare it to last year, a 10th place team, to this year, a team flirting with postseason play of some kind, it definitely is a step forward. But is it realistic to say that this team has so much talent, and they are underachieving?
Enough of hoops. Meanwhile, Cougfan ran a quick spring football post the other day, which you can see right here. Among the things they cover is that the spring game is in Spokane on 4/16, we’ll see the new uni’s unveiled on 4/11, also in Spokane, and Paul Wulff will conduct a coaches clinic….in Spokane.
I don’t know about you, but one of the biggest things we like to bitch about is the lack of support from Spokane! Here you have the biggest population area in Eastern WA 80 miles up the road from Pullman. Yet we see lousy attendance numbers for football games, and it’s quick and easy to blame the lack of support from the Lilac City.
As much as I love Pullman and all that goes with it, I really believe like many of you, that this is a great move by Bill Moos to try and engage the area. But this is really just part of his continuing efforts to get his claws into the market.
During football season, Moos not only does his weekly radio show from there, but Paul Wulff does his Monday luncheon where they show film from the prior game. All that stuff is great and all, but it’s a really good idea to move the spring stuff to Spokane and make an event out of it. it should draw much better than it does down in Pullman in April, as you have a much better chance of a casual “walk-up” to take in the game when they just have to drive to Joe Albi compared to making the trek to Martin Stadium. And who knows, maybe the local high school football talent will be more willing to come out and see what’s up with the Cougs if you make it easy for them to take it in? Maybe you get your hooks into some young kids who get to see a BCS football program on display?
We hope to see some of you there by the way, if you aren’t doing anything April 16th. We whiffed on the tailgate party last fall, and there are many reasons for it that I won’t get into right now. But we WILL be there for the spring game, and we hope to see some of you in the flesh!
All for now. Enjoy your day off (for some of you anyway), and as always, GO COUGS!
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