A User's Guide To How I See Games (a corollary to the aTm post-mortem)

I start with an anecdote that I will tie in later:

During a University Symphony rehearsal a number of years back, the director was discussing vibrato and intonation with the string sections.  "My father wasn't a musician," he said.  "He had no classical training in any form.  He doesn't know when a note or a passage is out of tune.  He does, though, know when something 'sounds sour.'"  The object lesson was that vibrato can mask a "sour note"... which clearly doesn't apply to basketball.  The tie in is how my director's father's relationship is like mine with basketball.

Disclaimer:  You will not see any numbers in this post.  They're pretty to look at, but I don't know what they mean.

I have watched college basketball for a long time, though not intensively and not obsessively, and not with the critical eye of "watching tape."  Every now and again I see something happen and understand the chalk, and it pleases me... but this is the exception as opposed to the rule.  I know when I like what I see... and I know when I don't like what I see.  It frequently doesn't get any deeper than that.  For whatever reason, this is how I enjoy watching basketball and football.  Soccer is another matter, which I bring up solely to exhibit the point that I can wrap my head around theory and chalk if I want to.  I know that last night we lost a game we shouldn't have, and it's frustrating.  A couple of years ago (during the Brad Smith era of football, say), a loss like this would have had me kicking inanimate objects and swearing to end my allegiance to Tiger Athletics.  Either I'm older and mellower, RMN has had a positive influence on my outlook or the encouraging signs (to the way I see basketball) outweigh the disappointment of the winning streak being snapped and dropping another game that we had in our clutches.  I'm willing to buy the concept that it's all three.

Tying back to my original anecdote, I don't always know why an idea is the right idea (sour note/non-sour note), but I can identify what I feel the right idea is and appreciate seeing it, even when it fails to be executed (beautifully performed passage that may be a little pitchy to the trained ear).   I saw a lot of good ideas last night.  I saw JT, who is justly maligned in some ways, have some serious "JT moments" last night.  Take out a couple of ill-advised shots in the first half and early in the second, and it was almost like watching the relaxed, effective JT from last year.  Motor, smarts, movement, motivation... all the hallmarks of last year's JT were there.  This is good.  They've been missing this year.  I saw Justin Safford using his body with confidence to get toward the hoop on more than one occasion.  He mishandled the ball on one notable occasion, but the idea was there... and it was a good idea.  Yes he got creamed on the boards, but the whole team got creamed on the boards.  I remember specifically Coffee ball watching and not blocking out on a free-throw attempt. . . uncontested rebound- slam dunk.  I saw a long stretch of time where the press had teeth.  Serious teeth.  Judging from my seat in section 109 viewing on the same end of the floor, we got called a couple of times for getting hands in for steals that just weren't fouls (one for Taylor and one for Dixon in particular stand out in my mind...), but our understanding of the press and the trap looked and felt better to me.  Steeeeeeeeve is getting better.  It's frustrating that the progress is slow, but he's not looking lost out there as much. 

I know that this game (and possibly this season) are going to be marked with these frustrations... but I think that if the magic genie came to most of us before the season and offered: "If you split your final 10 conference games, you shall make the NCAA Tournament," most of us would have jumped at it in a heartbeat.  I would have.  What I know is that, on a personal level and despite the loss, I feel better about this team today than I did yesterday.  I don't have the warm fuzzies around this time of year that I did about last year's team... I'm probably not going to fill my bracket out with Mizzou going to the Elite Eight like I did last year... but to paraphrase Strother Martin, "They're [finally getting] their mind. right."