If you’ve visited this blog before, you probably saw my post on the seminar Seth Godin gave here last week in Louisville. If you haven’t, please check it out as it will make this post more sensible to you. In short, Seth made a statement that we’re mostly a society receiving “average goods for average people” and most things are “already good enough.”
After watching UofL’s basketball team play three games in three days this weekend, I realized I’m (thankfully) not part of the majority. Average doesn’t sit well with me in the least. I demand excellence from myself and the products I use or support. That may make me radically different, which I’m happy with, but why does the majority accept mediocrity? Where does fitting in with the average Jane or Joe really get you? Since I rarely half-ass anything, the mentality to accept mediocre status in anything irritates me. Either do something or don’t–there is no in between!
The basketball product I witnessed this weekend is very mediocre at best, and this will be the second year in a row that the product on the floor is not up to par for my tastes. Does that mean I’m no longer a fan? No, but it means that I probably won’t vote with my wallet next year and renew my season tickets. That’s the price of mediocre–you lose interest from people like me if you try to fool me more than once. I feel as if Rick Pitino is trying to fool me with this team by telling the media that this team will be very good by year’s end. Unless he has some sort of magic trick he’s going to implement in the next few days, it ain’t happening with this bunch.
UofL has now lost to Dayton (a mid-pack Atlantic 10 School), only beat Ohio by 3 (a mid-pack MAC school), and struggled with Division II Bellarmine yesterday. Yes, I said DIVISION II!!! I’m sorry, but the Big East Conference is anything but “mid-pack” or average so something has to give based on the results thus far. Yes, things can change with a few weeks of hard practices, but I fear that isn’t going to help because this team just doesn’t seem to get it. They allow lesser talented teams to hang around. They take highly contested and un-make-able shots and miss easy wide open shots very badly. Guys who shouldn’t be shooting from the perimeter (T-Will!) shoot far too many jumpers, and guys who should dominate inside (Juan Palacios–a.k.a. Pele-acios) are completely soft and get their stuff pitched by smaller opponents.
In the years Pitino has been coach here, his teams rarely stop dribble penetration on fast breaks especially in the middle of the lane, and they frequently run away from shooters. That’s a sure fire way to keep a lesser team in a game, and it’s no way to discourage easy shots. When he was at UK, he had a boat load of talent to mask his shortcomings as a coach, but he doesn’t have that talent here (yet) so his weaknesses as a coach are readily exposed. He’s simply not a good bench coach–all anyone would have to do is watch his teams following a timeout to see what kind of play they run. It’s, more often than not, a guy going one-on-one and taking a highly contested shot. That’s coaching 101–your team should get a great look following a timeout, and UofL rarely does. It was the same at UK, but the talent level was much higher so the players had greater ability to overcome the lack of a set play on their own. On the flip side, he is a great motivator so his teams will stick around in games they have no business sticking around in so it gives off the impression to the “average fan” that his coaching abilities are responsible for that.
I’m here to tell you, Denny Crum would run circles around Pitino when it comes to play calling. Denny just couldn’t recruit the modern day athlete toward the end of his tenure, but he could call plays like nobody’s business. Same goes for UofL’s football coach–Bobby Petrino–he’s a master play caller (and great recruiter to boot), and that’s why his teams have great success. As frustrated as I am with the basketball program, I’m elated with the football program and Coach Petrino. He does things “my way” which means the football program is on par with my goals and objectives in life, but the basketball team has some work to do to win me and my money back. I’ll still attend the games this year and watch in hopes that I’m proven wrong, but I’m not holding my breath with this year’s, average to date, basketball team. If things don’t change, my wallet will vote for an alternative product next year. I’ll always be a UofL fan, but season tickets are becoming far too expensive to cast any wallet share on a sub-par product any more.
Bottom line: don’t settle for average–do something great for a change. The world needs more “great.” Or as Seth says, “be remarkable.” I couldn’t agree more.