Yo, THIS is what I was writing about when I wrote “Winning is a Culture“. I’m glad someone else wrote about it in a more focused way than I did (lawl), and applied it to a real team. That article does a great job of explaining why I like that team so much — their effort to build a program with a winning culture. Has nothing to do with wins and losses, with personal merits or hardware. Mad respect for Hambly, his staff, and his team. Great group of people right there. I have hell of thoughts on the article, but I have other posts I want to finish up work on before I get to work on this one, so I’ll hold off on posting about it (read: I’ll finish it in eight months, which is usually my timeline for these things). Speaking of which, sorry I’ve been slacking on posts (to all three of you who need things to look at whilst procrastinating from finals stuff). I’ve been doing a lot of photo editing lately, and figuring out some kinks on my camera, which takes up more of my time than I thought it would. Who knew my refusal to read instruction booklets could lead to so much fun? Anyway, I’ll probably write about that soon, too, whether you like it or not. Sorry ’bout it. That said, I’m hoping Illinois plays lights out in Austin tomorrow night. Get it, Illa.
Random thoughts, though:
1. If you understood how often “Yo Side of the Bed” makes me cry (and sometimes not even the video, just the song), you’d probably not want to be friends with me. GOD, Trey Songz. Ugh.
2. Top Chef All-Stars is effectively over for me. *sigh* I had high hopes for my girl, too. The questions are “Will they do another Top Chef All-Stars?” and “Will she be on it?”. Welp.
3. I think part of what makes treadmill running so difficult for me is that I’m so uncoordinated on solid ground anyway, that the idea of running on a moving belt is even more terrifying for me. I swear I spend the whole time just looking at my feet. Even the least athletic of people can manage to run in a straight line on a treadmill, but not me. If you look at my feet, I’m all over the damn belt, cause I’m freaking out about whether or not I’m going to misstep or something, and I’ll end up flying off and knocking all my teeth out. My paralyzing paranoia and lack of coordination will be the end of me one day. Le sigh.
4. In case you didn’t hear about the hilarity, a women’s basketball was used for the first seven minutes of the Illinois/Oakland men’s basketball game last night. In case you don’t know, a women’s ball weighs less and is smaller in circumference than a men’s ball. Oakland played a much better opening seven and the Illini struggled. People are joking, saying that it’s because the Oakland team plays like a bunch of girls or whatever, but you wanna know why Oakland played well and the Illini didn’t? Oakland has a post game, and Illinois doesn’t. They didn’t feel the effect of the ball as much because they were scoring in the post, not relying on jumpshots. Don’t get me wrong, I’m an Illini fan and I want our team to do well, but even the most diehard of Illini fans has to admit that we have a weak ass post game. Meyers Leonard is our best traditional post player, and the kid looks like a deer in headlights most of the time when he’s on the court. The kid has mad athleticism and aggression, but he doesn’t know how to use it yet. Don’t get me started on Tizzy or Mike Davis (and ya’ll know how much I love Frankentizz). Jereme Richmond’s our best player in the post so far, but he can only do so much, plus he’s a freshman. It’s like damn, if I was an opposing coach (read: Rick Barnes) I’d kick the ball into the post every possession because there’s nothing Illinois can do about it. Tizzy can go out and shoot threes and that’ll hurt the other teams, but as long as you force him to “play defense” on the inside, you can get him to foul because neither he nor Mike Davis have the speed, strength, or athleticism to defend better post players.
5. On that note: Demetri. McCamey. Jay Williams can avoid me all he wants, but DMac is a game-changing point guard. Game-changer. Yeah I said it.
