Not for the Tennessee Volunteers. A week ago it looked like Bruce Pearl would need to spend the remainder of the season explaining that "volunteer" only equated "community service" if is wasn't court ordered. Post season? Hell, who was going to post bail!
Then a funny thing happened on the way to the wayside. Tennessee didn't implode. They actually got better. Thursday night they hammered a good Charlotte team in their first test. Then they got a lot better. Like 76-68 over #1 Kansas better.
I think I can explain it too. Dean Smith famously said that for one game, the absence of a great player can actually be a positive as it makes you more unpredictable to defend. It is in the after where the problem lies. If that were true, it could explain the impressive Charlotte win. Either way, the quote never went as far as to address combing the campus for walk-ons in order to avoid a Hickory Huskers, "my team is on the floor" playing with four scenario...
Back to my explanation. I call it the Eric Gordon Theory. Our long time readers will recall several columns questioning the heart and hustle of the Hooiser's ballyhooed freshman several years back. I questioned his NBA readiness, his focus, basically his entire game. Then Kelvin Sampson's cell phone bill came due and IU dismissed the coach amidst controversy and NCAA heat. Things got worse, rumors, lots of them, began to surface regarding many of his teammates "extra-curricular" activities that were a little more serious than some underage beers. By all accounts, Gordon was a fairly reserved, polite, and non-drug using kid (all speculation - no factual evidence to substantiate my theory for my litigation-skewed readers...).
Maybe he was "pouting" and "losing focus" and "forcing shots" not because he was selfish and stat-hungry. Maybe he was just genuinely miserable. Think about it. You're 18 years old. Your coach and mentor was fired. Your teammates; your new family, engage in illegal activities you want no part of and that would jeopardize your NBA career. Ever since you were a little kid, you dreamed of playing for the crimson and cream of Indiana...
And this is what you get. You can't complain publicly because you'd be betraying your team, your school; your state. You can't; hold on, you won't quit. But you don't really want to play either. You just want this experience, this season to be over.
In Gordon's own words, excerpted from the Indy Star:
“Sometimes it felt like it wasn’t even a real basketball team because of all the turmoil that went on. I was just thinking about that the other day. It was so crazy that all that stuff threw off a good season and made it a waste, basically. It was really tough for us to be around each other all the time off the court because we were so separate.”
Of course, this my personal interpretation and you could argue me wrong... but I wouldn't budge. The Theory makes sense, and it happens more than us, the viewers, can see.
Here's how the Eric Gordon Theory applies.
Imagine you are a freshman or sophomore who loves basketball and is a decent kid. Believe it or not, there are a ton of them out there (go to a Kansas, Duke, Purdue, Gonzaga, Syracuse, etc game). Your senior leader and multiple teammates lead everyday lives where it is not just possible, but normal to get in a car with liquor, marijuana and guns with altered serial numbers. I get it; college kids drink and many even try smoking weed. It doesn't make them bad kids. The guns? Now we're getting serious. My Mom used to say nothing good ever happens after 2am. Um, make that double if you are high and packing heat. For lack of a more polite colloquialism, now we're talking some gangsta' shizzz.
Let's assume that with the four suspensions, the garbage has all been taken out. All of a sudden a cloud lifts and everything basketball; practice, road trips, hanging out with teammates, is fun again. The whole team begins playing and having fun, just like they envisioned when they signed their letters of intent. We can just play ball.
Amazingly, the results improve.
Does it make sense that a team loses four of its top eight players and improves? Not if the game was played on paper. But it isn't. It is played by real people with real lives and real ups and downs. Sometimes just wanting to be there makes all the difference.
On Sunday in Knoxville, after taking down the #1 team in the nation, there's nowhere else Bruce Pearl and his kids would rather be.
Article Research and Related Links:
http://www.wbir.com/news/local/story.aspx?storyid=109372
http://www.midwestsportsfans.com/2008/12/eric-gordon-says-drugs-caused-problems-at-iu-under-kelvin-sampson
http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2010/basketball/ncaa/01/01/tennessee.players.arrested.ap/index.html
No comments:
Post a Comment