Perspective

I had this in the comments before, but I realized that there's more to this the more that I think about it.

I'm not really that upset right now. I probably should be. I was upset after Oregon. I was REALLY upset after Stanford. This one...not so much. And I don't think it's that hard to figure out why.

1. Westbrook - I love the kid, but he's not starter material yet. Nor should we have expected that out of him. He got his first start as a point guard after being exclusively a shooting guard his entire life. 1/11 from the field just shows that there is a big difference between starting and being the sparkplug off the bench.
2. Nonconference - Yeah, we should have repped the conference. Call me selfish, but winning this next week is FAR more important than today. After all the emphasis placed on winning the conference over the past month and a half, there was no way for me to truly get into this game and place any real importance behind it. Of course, I'm not playing, so it's easy for me to not take it seriously, our players should have come out with more intensity, but what I'm saying is that I understand why they didn't.
3. WVU is a pretty good team - Give them credit, they came out and took care of their business and did what they needed to do. Their record isn't awful, in fact, you could say it's impressive given their circumstances. Nevertheless, I think the game is ours if you put Collison in instead of Westbrook. Their zone is so spread out, that a player like DC has even MORE room to get into the lane for floaters and dishoffs. Westbrook seems to be more effective attacking the compressed 2-3 because he's a little more "crafty" than Collison, but in a zone that spread out, DC would have had a field day.
4. Overrated - I'd agree with this assessment from their crowd if DC played. He did not. As mentioned before, they stormed the court after each and every one of our losses. That's a compliment to be sure, whether or not they mean to give it to us.
5. Perspective - We are 24 games into the season, so now is probably as good a time as any to reflect upon last year. At this point last year, we had 4 losses. Much of that can be attributed to the injuries that (knock on wood) haven't been as prominent (although Luc, Shipp, and now DC appear to be hurting) this season. Our 25th game of last season was this disappointment up at Washington, followed by the fluke loss to the gap closers. Hollins was only beginning to become the West Regional MVP. We are in familiar territory here. Aboya, who I thought would come out of the gates strong, is finally showing me what I thought he would early. Is he a candidate to be the '07 version of Hollins? I don't have that answer, but I feel like I've seen this movie before.
6. Everyone loves an upset - This is more nitpicking from me, but I feel like a little more of the emphasis from the AP story should be on our point guard not playing in the game. He was, after all, labeled as a major player, and one whose improvement would help us take the "next step". But again, that's not major, and at least it's not completely dishonest, like the hacks from the trOJan Times.

As I said, I'm really not as upset about this as I probably should be, as this is about as much of an exhibition game as we were going to get from here on in. I don't have a problem with losses as long as it doesn't jeopardize our seeding and as long as the players are able to learn from them. In this case, I'm looking squarely at Westbrook when I say that I hope that he takes this and uses it to improve his game. I think his time on the court today will prove invaluable in the always vague "experience" category for down the road. Let us hope for a speedy and complete recovery for Collison and I believe the rest of our conference schedule (with guidance from Howland) will take care of itself.