Quote Originally Posted by Ari Gold View Post
Shhhhhh. Don?t let facts trump the narrative... before too long some will blame CBH for baseball or football losses
I see you take a lot of personal defense of Howland which is similar to a lot of Leach-truthers. The difference is that one just finished year 2 and one has only had one season where he at least matched his talent or punched above it (and to howland's credit, regular season wise we punched above that year. postseason we snapped back to reality.)

He's constantly under punching his talent. Which, while yes, he's a great recruiter and has brought great talent to this school, it's just frustrating to be punching so low. With our schedule we should be at worst 15-1 right now. We've had it very very easy. And Alabama was the best team we've played. You could chalk the Louisville loss up to injuries, but the Minnesota / CSU / OM games should have been wins and we lost to a team worse than us. No ifs ands buts. Kermit constantly brings his best against us and we don't bring our best. If we lose the Egg next year then Leach is going to have the same issue there. Regardless of sport, State fans view losing to OM as 4+ losses in weight. Doubly so when they are less talented than us. It kills fan momentum for an already tough sell basketball wise.

(I generally would rather watch my Pelicans more than watching State because the brand of basketball is such a slog and the effort that is displayed isn't a normal State team).

All that to say, a win like this, a win over OM, and a win over UK (the Florida / TT are gravy but ultimately irrelevant to fanbase perception comparatively) and after the UK game, the fanbase will be ALL IN. And it's doable. Top 25 talent. We could very well go 4-0. But win the two important ones and the fans will be in it.

Case in point, getting the kentucky monkey off of our back made the fan base energized last year through the NIT run. Howland has a golden opportunity to do so again. I personally think even just the kentucky win will be huge. But an OM loss would make the week preceding that game to be difficult. But looking at it, 9-10 wins locks us solidly in. Win against OM/UK and make the tourney and he's earned himself two more years.