Patience has been exhausted. Time to rant.

I gave this team a nearly infinite level of forgiveness early on this year for being a young team dealing with losing a senior leader to injury. They essentially could do no wrong early on and were given the benefit of the doubt in just about every way by me. Then as they started winning some games and looking good, I sang their praises like effing crazy. All the while, I've relentlessly had their backs.

During the Gossners Tournament, it looked like this team grew up and was ready to make a run at another WAC title. They were playing team ball, executing in every way, and just looked totally in sync. 


Now though, I'm officially frustrated, and seeing how much I stuck up for them and have had their backs (and will continue to do so, obviously), I do feel it's only fair that the cold, harsh hand of accountability be thrust upon them at this point.

Since beating Fresno State to open WAC play, Utah State has taken continual steps backward. Losing to Nevada was bad, getting blown the hell out by New Mexico State was worse. Barely holding on to win at La Tech was nice, but the Bulldogs should never have even been in the game. Now, finishing off this five-game stretch with losses to Seattle and Idaho, neither or which should by any means have resulted that way, the shit has hit the fan (or wheels come off, or gone overboard, or whatever analogy you prefer to describe things as sucking).


There's two things I could pinpoint for this: Lack of team play and lack of consistency.


Consistency

Outside of Preston Medlin, nobody on this team has been a consistent scoring threat all season. Morgan Grim and Brockeith Pane have had their hot streaks, and even Kyisean Reed did a little bit too. But each one of them have been seemingly just as likely to completely disappear for games as they are to go off, making it a pretty safe bet for teams to just completely sell out defensively on Medlin and bank on nobody else stepping up.


The worst part is, it's working.

Pane has finally been playing better as of late, but the lack of consistency, and sometimes just awful play during the non-conference schedule, seems to have set an unsavory standard for this squad.

Reed is capable of dominating so much more than he has been lately. While Pane's downfall has seemed to be a lack of decision making and execution, Reed's seems to be a mixture of confidence and intensity. He's got a good handle, is pretty good at finishing around the basket and has even shown some solid mid-range ability. Now he just needs to believe in his ability and assert himself more.

Speaking of asserting himself... Morgan Grim at times has staked his claim on the paint and dominated some games. He started the season by basically knocking Noah Hartsock around in the paint early in the season-opener and more or less saying, "Bitch, this is my paint." (Hartsock still had a solid game, but Grim let him know who was boss early on down low, and should be a sign of what Grim is capable of).

Now, Grim has been very good at times this year, and from what I hear he's playing through some injuries and illness. He's had nine games scoring in double-figures, but also five games of only scoring four points or less. If he were to bring his TAMCCFYM intensity to every game, that would do wonders to balance out the offense, and probably put up a hell of a lot of points and rebounds.

Ben Clifford has been pretty solid, and surprisingly consistent when he gets minutes. He scores a little bit, rebounds a very good amount, and has shown a solid 3-point ability. The foul trouble is his kryptonite though. Against teams with quicker, more athletic big men, Jordan Stone isn't really an option off the bench right now, making Clifford that much more important.


Team play

For whatever reason the offense is not clicking with this squad. Normally by this point in a season the team has the offense down and it becomes a beautiful thing to witness. For a while, it seems like a lot of us were fooled into thinking that we'd reached that point earlier than normal when things really started clicking in the home game against Seattle. Now though, they've dropped off completely again.


For a six-game stretch between that first Seattle game and the Fresno State game, the team averaged 16.6 assists per game. They didn't have more turnovers than assists a single time in that stretch. For the rest of the season, the team is averaging 9.5 assists per game, and has had more turnovers than assists 10 times. That's way worse than very bad. I'm not sure any adjective could do that stat justice.

In six seasons since joining the WAC, USU has finished with the highest assist total in the conference all but one season (2006-07). Right now, the team ranks DEAD LAST in assists in the WAC.

Now, I know I've loved comparing this season to that 2006-07 year, and since they were the other USU team to not lead the WAC in dimes, let's keep going with that... In that 2007 season the team averaged 14.4 assists per game; this year, just 11.7 per game.

Another 2007 comparison
That team, more than anything, didn't know how to quit. They were totally undersized and overmatched in almost every game, but they just had grit. This was the same team that beat a top 10 Nevada team TWICE!! The team that was down by nine to Boise State with just more than a minute left and came back to win. The team who was down 22-4 against Oral Roberts on the road only to fight all the way back and win.

Undersized and marginally athletic as they all were, everyone in that team's rotation played with intensity every game. As I remember it, that year was when "Spectrum Magic" really became a thing, because the team just never gave up and pulled out a handful of unlikely victories because of it.

Chaz Spicer had no inside game at all, but still managed to always get his. Steve Ducharme was horribly undersized for a center, but still always found a way to score in bunches. Chris Session was a small/power forward tweener, but played solid defense, rebounded well and led the team in steals. Nick Hammer couldn't make a 3-pointer to save his life, but almost never turned the ball over and played lockdown defense. Kris Clark wasn't a scorer either, but dished out assists at a higher rate than any other player to play for Stew. Durrall Peterson... Well... He was a bad ass. No two ways about that one. 

Basically though, all those guys made up for every deficiency they had with hustle and intensity.

I see that type of intensity in Preston Medlin, and in smaller ways E.J. Farris and Ben Clifford, but I don't get the vibe that anyone else on the team goes into every game with an "I'm going to make you my bitch" mentality toward the opponent. Not to mention that two of those guys are reserves for a good reason. As hard as E.J. plays, and as much as I've liked his game at times this year, his ceiling is very low. Clifford's potential is pretty good, but he's a freshman, and it shows most of the time.

This year's team doesn't have the types of size and athleticism limitations that the 2007 team had, yet this will end up being the first season where USU fails to win 23 games since around the time that a certain William Jefferson Clinton was under fire his most notorious of unfaithful Oval Office endeavors.

Or maybe they could recapture what we saw at the Gossners, and then some. Maybe the youth is just making things take a tiny bit longer to click and they'll finally come around. Maybe they'll read this and try to tap into some consistent intensity, or maybe they'll read this and want to stick it to the writer and bond together to do so. Whatever the means, I support it.

Or maybe this will finish the way things have been going and we'll finally have had that down year that Stew has prophesied for so long.

Regardless, I'll still be there for every home game trying to scream my lung out an will this team to victory. You had better be as well.