FanPost

Tears of the bluebloods, are we next?

This is taken from Reddit post titled: "The Vicious Cycle of Kentucky Basketball"

Step 1 (Hot Start): Start off the season with high hopes. Kentucky once again has one of the best, if not the best, recruiting classes in the nation, the preseason polls put the team at #2, and all of the experts and analysts are talking about a run to the national championship. Start off your first two or three games by looking competent against a top team and dominant against buy-in teams.

Step 2 (No-Fun November): Watch things begin to unravel very early. After early success, the team’s shortcomings and weaknesses are exposed. Typically, these weaknesses include shooting 20 threes a game and making 3 of them, as well as running into the paint and throwing up whatever circus shot these young players can. Sometimes, the defense consists of sitting down and staring at a small guard weaving through as if the players were traffic cones. Every game through November is much closer than it has any right to be, and if you play any ranked opponents through this stretch, you get dominated for all 40 minutes of basketball while somehow keeping the score close. Your rankings have dropped from #2 to #15.

Step 3 (A Decent December): You enter a December stretch where you look okay. Not too bad, not too good, just okay. You beat the teams that you need to beat by 10 or so and your games against power conference opponents are a toss-up. You have a rivalry game with Louisville, which is usually a close game but typically goes in your favor. You still look pretty bad in a lot of areas. Rise from #15 to #12. (YOU ARE CURRENTLY HERE)

Step 4 (Unconvincing and Underestimating): You enter SEC play and start off by completely underestimating your opponents and once again failing to impress the judges. You beat up on some cupcake teams in Ole Miss and Arkansas, but you never pull away and you always keep it close for some reason. Doubt is beginning to set in on if this team is legit. You stay at #12.

Step 5 (The Low Point): Go to Tennessee or Florida or whoever is this year’s surprisingly good team, get absolutely destroyed, and drop from #12 to #20. By this point, the bandwagoners have jumped off this crazy ride and are running back to the safety of Cameron Indoor Stadium. The basketball world believes that you are fraudulent and are waiting for March to knock you out of the tournament. This is your lowest point, where all hope is fading fast. Do something!

Step 6 (Putting It Together): After your embarrassing loss, things start clicking in Late January or Early February. The three pointer is beginning to hit, your defense is locking down star players, and you begin to show signs of the championship contender that you were hyped to be. That team that ripped you apart in step 5 comes to Lexington and you beat them handily. Over the course of the last two months, rise from #20 to #10.

Step 7 (The Finishing Touches): Enter late SEC play. Typically the conference is so schizophrenic and unpredictable that those early cupcake wins and your late January play are enough to get you a high seed in the SEC tournament or even win the SEC Regular Season. You go pretty far in the SEC tourney but you probably lose in the Semi-Finals to the only other SEC team that will get above a 4 seed this year (whoever that may be). Sometimes you win it all, though. Hope has been restored and the fanbase is ready for you to dominate in March.

Step 8 (Tourney Time): It’s time for the Big Dance. You enter the tourney as a low 2 seed or a high 4 seed and begin your path to the tourney by beating the poor 15/13 seed by double digits. You get to the next round where you have a ridiculously close game against a 7/5 seed but still manage to squeak past. You then go to the Sweet 16 team and have a great game, winning in a shootout or a defensive struggle. You get to the elite eight and the fans begin to fantasize about that 9th national championship.

Step 9 (Dose of Reality): From this point onward, there will be someone who will clean your clock. Whether it is here in the Elite Eight or in the Final Four, you get utterly decimated by the team that’s probably going to go to the national championship and lose. Louisville fans and other SEC fans begin prepping months upon months of jokes and memes to throw at you. Go home and watch whoever the ACC's best team is win it all. That, or Villanova for some reason.

Step 10 (The NBA Reaping): The fans are not disappointed and are already thinking about how good they will be next year. If a few players stick around and hone their game, they think, they will be unstoppable. Before they can even say "could you please stay for another year", everybody who came in this season is gone. The fans knew most of the freshman were here to put in their time and go pro, but they were still hoping. That one player who was really, really bad for most of the season is typically the first one to declare. If you have any seniors leaving this team, they have either been at the far end of the bench or are a transfer from some lower-conference team. One of these players will go on to be a superstar for a franchise that’s going to completely waste their career, while the others fill up bench slots or play as serviceable big men. Some have to get a fresh start in Europe or China. You start over from scratch again...

Step 11 (The Recruiting Class): ...But it’s okay, because you once again have an amazing recruiting class! One of the top 5 recruits in your nation, followed by another two in the top 30, and some other 4 stars sprinkled throughout the top 100. You even got a senior transfer from one of those nobody schools you usually play at the beginning of the year! You are going to be loaded with so much talent and skill that you are going to make the rest of the NCAA look like the local church league! The bandwagoners are returning in droves! You are #2 in the preseason polls! You are contenders once again!

You now return to Step 1.

Is this going to be us? I am fairly sure we are going to win the national championship in the next 5 years. We had our very first one and done. We are already at the stage when players are coming to play for 2-1 years, rather than 4-3. Nobody expected Zach Norvell to leave last season and this season might bring another surprises (my guess is Joel leaves having 2 years of eligibility left and so does Filip although him leaving will not be much of a surprise, he did test waters last year). The Kentucky fan added:

You know that fire and heart that Zaga players have to stay until senior year and win for their school and home?

For the love of God, cherish it.

During the CBS Man of the Month interview with Mark Few said about the former players:

"Everyone of those kids who has come through here, played for the name on the front of the jersey, not the name on the back."

For how long can we maintain it? Are the next players coming in will care about Gonzaga as much? The slipper still fits, but for how long? Don't get me wrong, I am extremely happy with what Gonzaga has done and will soon accomplish, but I can't help to think we will lose something what makes us special along the way. I guess that is the price of success.

Go Zags!

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