Why I won't mind when our first loss comes

[GenesChin 9]

I love college sports because at the end of the day the students are barely removed from being kids. Depending on situations, you can see the maturity and how level headed a player is by how they react when they are either losing or winning by a large margin.

With that being said, it scares me that our team's performance once with a decent lead can be characterized as lackadaisical. Tony Barbee openly admits that we looked "sluggish" and from my viewing of the game(and games), it is hard to disagree. We experience our first score deficit of the season to star this game against PineBluff and I had thought we turned a corner after we had a huge run to end the first half. As we have all year though, we had them beat on the ground and decided to let them get up. This has been a consistent trend all year and with teams clearly not at our talent level. What is going to happen when we play a team that is more talented than us for a change that is simply cold in the first half but comes out firing on all cylinders in the second?

That is why I believe that a loss early in the season, particularly one where we blow a huge lead, will be a great learning experience for our team. We can't afford to pull a University of Arizona in the Elite 8 against UIllinois and blow a 15 point lead with 3 minutes left especially in our conference tourney. When I used to play sports I always loved running the score up on other teams and playing hard to the last minute. I took the approach that it is a competitive game and if they did not like losing by such a large margin, they should have practiced harder to get better. It bothers me that our players are seemingly satisfied with simply winning rather than making a statement that they are dominant. Especially when our tournament bid if we are on the bubble will need dominating performances due to our lack of strength of schedule.

Anyone agree or disagree? It is frustrating to me and I want to know I am either not alone or someone please explain to me why I am wrong so I can get a release

[mustache eagle 2,410]

dont worry ... this pope kid from seton hall will put it on us if we play like against them like we did last night.  we go on our first road trip with a perfect record ... sounds like barbee is putting out all the stops to get these guys to understand.  he gave it to them in the press after the game ... heck sullivan was even saying how poorly they played.  i like sullivan and hope his leadership transfers to the team.

gotta play solid D and rebounding is all in the heart/head ... those two can win you games when the O is off.  come on guys, i know you can step your game up and play that way for a solid 40!

[NoALtiger 3,867]

We won the game but Barbee freakin let'em have it. Love this guy!!