(01-21-2022 08:11 AM)SadderBudweiser Wrote: Oh..... my virgin ears.
He’s understandably frustrated and pissed but he needs to learn Excuse Bingo from Jank.
Agree. Like a lot of us at some point in our lives, he's got some work to do in the area of adult development.
The expectations on him have been extremely high. It's not easy to live your life in the limelight and then come under scrutiny when things hit a soft patch, or to go through a critical situatio when every move you make is scrutinized.
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We shouldn't forget that the hell that Jackie Robinson had to endure in the 1950s and 1960s is not entirely a thing of the past, nor that Robinson had an amazing ability to maintain his calm when the brickbats came flying at him.
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To this day, when even Asian-Americans and people of color in general are having to deal with unprecedented levels of racial discrimination and hatred, extremely successful African-American men sometimes have to deal with extreme, unjustified criticism.
Coach Hardaway isn't alone in any of this.
Temple's Head Coach has also come under extreme, unjustified criticism this by some Philadelphia sports writers, including yet another vicious attack from the Inquirer's columnist Jon Rothstein this week despite the fact that McKie has turned his injury-beset program around from 4-10 last year to 10-6 this year.
He just happens to be in the klieg lights right now, and like a lot of us, he's got a temper that he's going to have to learn how to control.
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The sharks started to circle when a Memphis team when the team's few Juniors and Seniors and the team's incoming, highly-ranked freshmen had difficulty getting into a consistent rhythm and struggled to gel as a unit.
No one seems to have mentioned the fact that it's not uncommon for there to be some challenges when a group of young hot-shots who've been told they're superstars has to blend in with proud, experienced veterans.
Before they could find their rhythm, they got hit with a long series of injuries to key players. It happens to a lot of teams, and often causes them to fall short of expectations.
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But somehow, because it's "Penny," a certain segment of sports writers and the critics on the message boards with an agenda aren't willing to let him off the hook.
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It would be one thing if he had done a terrible job before this season, but he hasn't. Coach Hardaway has taken a program that had averaged 19 wins under its prior HC up a notch, and led them to a NIT championship last year.
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This year's team has had to play without:
...player (mpg)........games missed
F Bates* (25.6).................3
C Duren* (25.5)................2
G Nolley (24.7 mpg)...........2
G Lomax (24.2 mpg)..........5
F Williams (23.6 mpg)........5
G Timberlake (20.8 mpg).....2
C Dandridge (12.4 mpg)......1
G Hardaway (11.5 mpg)......2
Total.............................22
*starter
Most of these players have had injuries that continued to limit their playing ability even when they returned to the lineup.
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Despite all the injuries, etc., the team is still ranked well in a lot of categories:
#9th in shots blocked
#19th in offensive rebounds
#33rd in free throws made
#36th in steals
#46th in two-point shots made
#51st in rebounding
#52nd in assists
#64th in FG%
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A lot of their losses are attributable to the kinds of mistakes that teams can improve on:
#2nd in turnovers (17.5 TOV/game)
#26th in PFs (19.4 PF/game)
#232 in opponent pts scored (70.6 ppg)
#309th in 3 pt attempts (despite hitting 35.4% of their 3 pt shots)
#311th in FT%
#358th in steals made by opponents.
The Tigers have shown the ability to reduce turnovers and play well on defense. They held VT to 61 pts, WKU to 62 pts, Mississippi to 67 pts, WSU and Tulsa to 64 pts.
Yet, at times, they've given up far too many points to win (82 to Georgia, 85 to Tulane, 80 to Cincy, 74 to UCF, and 72 to ECU.
The good news is that simply cutting down on PFs and turnovers, and tightening up on defense could turn most of their losses into wins.
For that matter, they could be a 13 or 14-win team if they had simply had fewer injuries to key players
Half of their losses have been by only 2 points. If they had won those games, their record at this point would be 13-4, rather than 9-8.
If they were 13-4, no one would be criticizing Coach Hardaway. Yet the fact that they could just as easily be 13-4 as 9-8 suggests that they're probably a much better team than their W-L record suggests.
Moreover, their convincing win vs. Alabama suggests that a healthy Memphis team that plays up to its potential could one of the best in the history of the conference.
All of this suggests that those who write off the team's Head Coach may turn out to be very misinformed.
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Penny cusses out media after last night's home loss to SMU
