It’s been a while since we’ve had to deal with something like this. A 15-point loss to West Virginia at home. At home. This is the definition of ennui, as the French would say, this is profound sadness, chagrin, or disgust. Apparently it can also mean disagreeableness. I am guessing that every single one of us fit in one of these definitions, whether it be sadness, chagrin, disgust or disagreeableness. Just pick one and go with it.

The question is why this is happening and I think I can get the feeling, but answering the “why” is much more difficult. It’s normally not “a” thing, but lots of things. Head coach Mark Adams apparently said on his radio show earlier this week that the team would need to get older. there’s only 1 super-senior on the team, Kevin Obanor, which might mean that the other seniors, Fardaws Aimaq and De’Vion Harmon, could return and there’s not a lot of room adding experience.

That means exactly what you think it will mean, which is that there will be players who are jettisoned in some form or fashion. That’s sort of to be expected, but this doesn’t explain the situation that the team find themselves in.

I’ve mentioned repeatedly that the issue is that the team on offense is turning the ball over at a really high rate and Texas Tech is allowing other teams to extend possessions because of offensive rebounding. Quite simply, that’s really it and you wouldn’t think that a couple of statistics, particularly the turnovers, would cause such issues.

To say that the offense is disjointed would be an understatement, something that Steve Green was supposed to solve when he arrived. He had fluid offenses at South Plains with new players on a yearly basis, yet that fluidity isn’t there. I don’t know the disconnect, but something is amiss. From a player standpoint on defense, the effort was high on defense for the first 5 minutes against WVU, but remember when Adams would constantly sub in players last year, keeping players fresh on regular basis. High max and high effort can only last so long, but the players that could potentially substitute in aren’t the high end athletes. they have their own attributes that could help, but I don’t think there’s been a real opportunity to do that. I’d also tell you that they haven’t necessarily earned extra minutes ,but I don’t know that the starters have either. Regardless, the high effort defense is only sustainable for so long. Rotationally, this needs to be solved.

The transfer of your best two players to Illinois and Michigan says something as well. Something. And this is always something where fans want to dismiss the actions of these players and it creates an infallibility of the coaches which isn’t accurate. UT fans learned about the infallibility of a coach this year.

Adams coached really well last year. He recruited good players that played well together. there’s no doubt that he can turn things around in a year. These things can flip pretty quick, but Adams has two freshmen players committed, so Adams will need to play those freshmen next year, hope that the players playing now improve and the growing pains will payoff in a year.

And if you’re here right now, you’re not going to go anywhere. That’s okay too. As fans, you’ve suffered through worse (admittedly, this is certainly not fun). I get to catch games when I can, weekends are harder to watch games than weeknights. I’m going to continue to watch. I’m going to keep watching because I still care, it is still fun for me to write previews and watch. That doesn’t mean that the play and the results aren’t a bit of a downer, but I still watch. Hell, I watch youth basketball (Youssouf) and if you want to talk about bad offense and defense, spend some time watching some of that over a weekend. The other good news is that Adams still can pull this thing out of the gutter, maybe not this year, but he’ll have the opportunity to turn things around pretty quickly because of the portal. Keep the faith.

Changing the subject, enjoy this ESPN article from Ryan Hockensmith on Patrick Mahomes and his high school teammate Ryan Cheatham and how Mahomes eventually won the quarterback battle between the two of them. I think you’ll really enjoy this.