This is a whole new team, with three new starters, a makeup very different from last year thus requiring a different approach to offense. Yet people are looking at a single game (Illinois) and projecting that state onto the entire year. . ..crazy. This team has had no time playing together until 2 weeks before their first game. Pitino never even had a chance to see where people are at with their skills, what this mix of players works well together. Then you have a couple of players jumping a level who need to get acclimated to what it means to play at a P6 level. Then they play 6 non conf games basically bumbling and stumbling around working through all those issues and get wins. We all know that nothing teaches like failure; while it was good for the resume and a certain level of confidence to get wins, it lessens the urgency of things that need to be learned.
Then Illinois happens, terrible game, but a major wake up call to everyone and really highlights issues, and gives motivation to focus and get those righted. Then they play St. Louis, played a much better game. You can tell that lessons were learned, it looked like a different team in many ways both offensively and defensively. . .big jump. Next up Iowa, great game, another huge jump with offensive fluidity, they actually look like they are starting to run some sets, knowing when Carr should put it on his shoulders, and seeing some ball movement. Some good stretches of D against a very good offense (like they did with St. Louis). Not a perfect game, but what do you want? They just beat the #4 team in the country.
On the micro level look at Mashburn, every game I see improvement in him, and hopefully that continues. Brandon Johnson, he has gone from looking like an alright B10 player to someone that teams are going to game plan for. The most impressive progression though has been Robbins. This kid went from we can't keep him on the court against Green Bay and North Dakota to 30 min, 4 blocks, 18 pts against the "best" player in the country. There were games where Robbins looked like he was on roller skates on D, but he keeps learning and growing.
Yet people are not seeing the season as a whole and looking at the progression, that is the most important part, not so much one game or the other. Who cares if they lost the Illinois game by 1 or 27, its still a loss. Nobody gives last year's team any credit for close losses, so don't hammer the team for a blowout loss. . . because a loss is a loss, apparently. People need to look at what Pitino is building towards and I really think he is doing a great job this year based on a difficult set of circumstances.
