The Mediocre University

That is us and I'm probably being generous. I wrote something very similar a couple of weeks ago, but the label is about as fitting as I can see. Cheapskate hires alongside boring, predictable and uninspired play have led us to these dark days.

Two years into the Cuonzo Martin Experience and we were sold on a hard nose defensive team that is neither hard nose nor particularly good defensively, much less plays hard. I was sitting on the fence a few weeks ago and I'm pretty close to making a determination. I'm still wondering what is supposed to make me interested in this team, at all. They don't play hard and provide nothing in terms of generating much of alluring play.

But, he fits the university now. They made a decision to not give a shit about winning in athletics, so that's where we stand. Happily, we're not paying top dollar and being economical with our coaching hires. This is allowing us to work on a generation of Vol fans to condition them to accept this mediocrity as the norm for Tennessee, even make them argue in favor of accepting our "limitations".

Me? I'm tired of this shit.

 

Gee, firing Bruce Pearl in the summer of 2010 and hiring Larry Brown doesn't look like such a bad idea now, does it?

 

You can watch Jordan McRae try to be Marcus Haislip 2.0.

 

It literally is quite amazing the paths we could have taken for coaches in the last 20 years that we willing, sometimes dying, to come coach here in football or basketball, like a Kevin Sumlin or Bill Self. Instead, we go the economical route and try not to disrupt the academic side by being too good.

I was one of the biggest Pearl supporters on the old board, but there's zero reason that we couldn't get a decent hire following his firing. Instead, we get the guy who has made this program as exciting as non-buttered toast.

 

Fantastic. I can watch my favorite NBA team blow a lottery pick on a guy who flamed out of the league in two years. I'll run and get my popcorn.

 

Looking at the combined record of Oklahoma and Maryland isn't doing my mood any good.

 

Sumlin and Self WERE the economical route. The problem isn't being cheap, it's being stupid.

 

I feel for you. It's bad when a guy who lives and breathes basketball like Skiles hates a roster so much he simply walks away.

 

Correct.

 

Brandon Jennings AND Monta Ellis? I'd jump off a roof if that were my starting backcourt.

 

I watched them play a week or so ago. Skiles had the same look on his face as Christian Bale did for most of American Psycho.

 

Laughed.

 

The more I think about this, the more depressing it is.