We NEED to lose

[creatorsgam]

Straight from the proverbial "horse's mouth." This is from SWC75, his always awesome summary of "The Jim Boeheim Show." I believe this was posted Thursday. I've never used the "follow" feature before, but SWC is going to be my first in about 4.4 seconds after I post this.

Rob in Liverpool was “not quite sure how to ask this question”. JB: “Don’t worry. There’s no punishment here.” Rob: “It seems we don’t’ want to lose. When does it get to the point where you want to see how we will react?” JB: If you don’t lose, you don’t have to find out. If we do lose, we have to be grown up about it and get back to practice and try to get better. We don’t’ allow conversations about being undefeated. We are just thinking about NC State. Most players might have thoughts of other things but at game time it’s all about NC State.”

Later a caller named Joe “thought it was so bad that people want this team to lose.” They do? JB: “You won’t gain confidence, you’ll lose confidence. We don’t’ feel pressure. The NCAA is one and done. That’s the pressure. We may as well get used to it. We’re not uptight. We just want to keep winning.” Gomez asked if the player listen better after a loss. “We point things out after every game. They may listen more after a loss.” I remember Coach Mac saying that players listen better after a win. This team must have their ears wide open. “You have to play well to win and get into the tournament. Play 30 games and you should get better. That doesn’t mean you can’t stumble in the tournament. The more difficult games you have, the better prepared you are. This has been a good group to coach and they work and play very hard and people should be proud of them.”

Stefan said “I wish every game could end like that one” Jim: “I don’t.” Stefan wanted to know if the team thinks about the undefeated streak or do they focus on one game at a time? Guess what the answer was. “They have confidence they can win because of the games they’ve won but they don’t think about streaks or rankings because that doesn’t help them. No matter how much you win, you make mistakes and we work on the mistakes. They know by game time that they are playing NC State.”

*edited to tag

 

[orangetrojan]

My high school has a motto: Succisa Virescit

Translation: Cut it down, it grows back stronger

I think we need to turn it up a notch or two if we're gonna win the games that ultimately count in March. I think complacency is seeping in.

Complacency is very much seeping in when you beat a middle of the pack acc team by 1 point, at home. Something is clearly wrong if you plan on manking a deep run on the NCAA. Otherwise you're only fooling yourself. If you can't see an issue with beating a team that should be no issues for SU on home court, you're nothing more than an ostrich

 

[slidingdown]

My high school has a motto: Succisa Virescit

Translation: Cut it down, it grows back stronger

What I've learned from this thread: PoppyHart is in school to become a Mohel.

 

[SaltLakeOrange]

We played like crap and won...I'm pretty sure they realize how lucky they were...losing won't teach them anything. Ennis and CJ played AWFULL!

 

[Crusty]

Nobody ever NEEDS to lose - ever. John Wooden must be spinning in his grave.

 

[jordoo]

My high school has a motto: Succisa Virescit

Translation: Cut it down, it grows back stronger

I think we need to turn it up a notch or two if we're gonna win the games that ultimately count in March. I think complacency is seeping in.

We will turn it up either way win or lose before the tournament. Every team does because they all know a loss then is the end of the road. We won't lose for lack of effort in the NCAAT.

 

[jordoo]

That team had 9 single digit victories all year. 6 were to ranked opponents (they only had top-20 back then). We've had 10 already, 2 to top-20)

That team was loaded with Pro's and it was a different era. There were maybe 8 teams that had any chance to win it all in those days.

 

[jordoo]

That late season tailspin last year prior to BET really did nothing for us, right? :crazy:

Well this team is winning through that tailspin which is better. :crazy: :bat: :bang: . . . . . . . .

Losing doesn't help it may take some pressure off of being #1 and undefeated but we will have to play under pressure in the NCAAT so how does that actually help?

 

[jordoo]

No, the last Georgetown loss absolutely was a turning point. Sure, nobody wants a tailspin but I suppose I have to spell it out for you. Winning nail biters like in this fashion tonight is not necessarily a good thing. Cowtown could be right, though. The schedule, no bench, etc. could be major factors. But, even Boeheim mentioned tonight that the offense has been bad outside of the Duke game the past month or so.

So how does losing make the offense better? Are you suggesting we should get our a$$'s handed to us and that will help? How does it help exactly? What does losing do to make the team better? NOTHING its what you do after the losing that makes you better which you can do after winning as well. You simply do not get better from losing it doesn't happen. You may do something different or refocus which leads to the team improving but the loss itself does not make you better. These same things can happen after a win. The biggest thing last night was that we missed good looks a majority of the game.

 

[jordoo]

I'm willing to bet dollars to donuts that if and when we lose, JB will talk about how it was a good thing and now we can "refocus". Some here will call BS, some will accept it at his word. Others will simply call it a political response.

Of course he's the coach, lol. He will say we were tired and playing tight and the loss allowed us to loosen up a bit. That's what coaches say.

 

[tptcuse]

So help me to understand this. We need to lose, because that will motivate us to improve? That implies that this team is unmotivated. I see no signs of that. They never speak to the press of being undefeated. They always talk about continuing to work hard, and they keep focusing on getting better. Just from my own observations, Roc and CJ take a bunch of free throw shots before the game, Grant gets more and more rebounds. Cooney is constantly moving off the ball. Ennis takes the blame for his charge by saying that he should have known better.

Where is the lack of effort to improve that people think would be helped by a loss? Maybe it is us, the fans, that can't handle the pressure of not losing a game.

 

[jordoo]

So help me to understand this. We need to lose, because that will motivate us to improve? That implies that this team is unmotivated. I see no signs of that. They never speak to the press of being undefeated. They always talk about continuing to work hard, and they keep focusing on getting better. Just from my own observations, Roc and CJ take a bunch of free throw shots before the game, Grant gets more and more rebounds. Cooney is constantly moving off the ball. Ennis takes the blame for his charge by saying that he should have known better.

Where is the lack of effort to improve that people think would be helped by a loss? Maybe it is us, the fans, that can't handle the pressure of not losing a game.

You would think from the board that we are a lazy team, loafing it up and down the court who doesn't even give a sheet until it looks like we might lose. Then they use their superior world beating talent and physical gifts for a few seconds to win.

 

[LennX6]

I think it goes without saying that it's best to peak in March. The way the team is playing, it's hard to see them being at their best without taking a step or two back, and then a few steps forward. We need a wake up call. Otherwise we're treading water and hoping we can stay afloat long enough.

Thing is, we are getting everybody's best shot. We do not think like these kids think. I know how I think I would react in these situations and its nothing like these kids think. Everybody we play thinks they are the ones to beat our lucky a**es. And they are sure they can do it. NC St probably thought it was BS the spread was twelve and it fired them up. Tha'ts how they think. I doubt we get anyones off night from here on out.

 

[orange79]

You see that little '0' in the 25-0? That means we have played 25 games and lost...wait for it...none. None. Nada. Zip. Zilch. Absolute zero. My God, it seems half this board is not happy unless they are unhappy about something. I know this is what some fans do, but jeez.

Enjoy the ride. :bang:

 

[LennX6]

Huh??? You really want Syracuse to lose? Not the problem. Problem tonight was four of syracuses best players didn't show up and yet they still won

I still think there was afterburn from the physical pounding taken Wednesday night. Remember Tyler got his arm hurt pretty good. And Grant spent half the night getting trampled on.

 

[LennX6]

You see that little '0' in the 25-0? That means we have played 25 games and lost...wait for it...none. None. Nada. Zip. Zilch. Absolute zero. My God, it seems half this board is not happy unless they are unhappy about something. I know this is what some fans do, but jeez.

Enjoy the ride. :bang:

It is interesting on this side of the top.
In the past when it was us on the wrong side of a near-upset against a Top 5 team, I imagined the team that vanquished us, and their minions were going "Take that suckah, thought ya had us eh??? Hahahaha"
Can we do that?

 

[LennX6]

You would think from the board that we are a lazy team, loafing it up and down the court who doesn't even give a sheet until it looks like we might lose. Then they use their superior world beating talent and physical gifts for a few seconds to win.

Tell you both second halves v Pitt and NC St , took a lot, I mean a lot of mental toughness to scratch into it . The 2-5 pt games where it takes 10 min to close the gap are character builders.

 

[KCJax03]

So the best description one could give for yesterday's performance is listless and uninspired. They play 30+ games a season, I suppose these things will happen.

Folks have for years lamented over the annual February swoon, which is typically followed by a peak in performance during tournament time.

If they are now in the midst of the customary swoon, why should anyone assume they need to lose one or more games in order to peak later?

The fact that this team could sleep walk for 35 minutes against a conference opponent and still win speaks volumes about the character of this team.

Regardless of W's or L's over the upcoming weeks, I have no doubt they will be playing at a high level come tournament time.

 

[alphaorange]

I don't see the listlessness or lack of effort. I see occasional fatigue but never lack of effort. Like others have said, if the guys had their normal success shooting the ball, we would have won going away. Lack of focus and effort shows on defense, first. That is clearly not the case.

 

[OrangeDW]

I reject your hypothesis.

 

[GoSU96]

I'm not suggesting throwing a game. But a loss or two could really light a fire under our ass. Kinda like last year. You don't think regrouping helped Louisville in recent years?

Yeah, because lack of effort is the issue.

If a team looks like they are not reacting well to the pressure of undefeated there might be a point to this. But these last two games show these guys want to win. It's been the other teams, and in particular the other coaches, losing the games. JB just out coaches and these guys find a way to make a game winning play.

What's great about this is that these games in the tourney will just be another game.

 

[Charco]

No, the last Georgetown loss absolutely was a turning point. Sure, nobody wants a tailspin but I suppose I have to spell it out for you. Winning nail biters like in this fashion tonight is not necessarily a good thing. Cowtown could be right, though. The schedule, no bench, etc. could be major factors. But, even Boeheim mentioned tonight that the offense has been bad outside of the Duke game the past month or so.

Mmhmm. Well let's hope if we do lose it's one of those good losses where apparently we learn valuable lessons, like that georgetown loss. And not one of the losses like the 6 losses before the georgetown loss which apparently didn't teach us not to get whooped by georgetown.

I hope we don't meet up with Depaul in the NCAA tournament. They've got a ton of losses, so they're probably really good at this point.

 

[JarHeadJim]

Is Arizona better now they have lost two games?

 

[DoctorBombay]

Poppycock

I'll see your poppycock and raise you some balderdash, by gum!!! :bang:

 

[SoBeCuse]

So how does losing make the offense better? Are you suggesting we should get our a$$'s handed to us and that will help? How does it help exactly? What does losing do to make the team better? NOTHING its what you do after the losing that makes you better which you can do after winning as well. You simply do not get better from losing it doesn't happen. You may do something different or refocus which leads to the team improving but the loss itself does not make you better. These same things can happen after a win. The biggest thing last night was that we missed good looks a majority of the game.

I wouldn't completely disrespect and discredit my post when MCW and others last year said that after Georgetown their "refocus" started. I think there is a correlation sure. I don't like the way we are winning and even Boeheim said in that presser last night that he does NOT view this team as 25-0. He said specifically 20-5. Again, I don't want a tailspin at all but I do think a loss or two could help "refocus" the team when it worked last year. You are happy with the offense? It needs quite a bit of work if we're going to win a title no matter how good the defense is, imo. If it takes a loss or two for the improvements to start happening then sign me up.