daveakins.com

I’m still proud of our Dawgs. It was difficult to see them jump out to such an early lead and hold it through halftime, because if there’s been one ongoing negative about this team (even through the SEC tournament), it’s the fact they always hit a lull, get tired, miss shots, give up buckets on the other end at minutes at a time. And that’s what the last 8-9 minutes of the loss to Xavier was – a king-sized lull, slump, whatever you want to call it. That’s why it was difficult to watch us build such a lead going into the half – I still knew it was coming. If we hit that wall in the first half, we might still be in the tourney.

Hopefully this last week will resonate through the program for a long time to come. Yata and Bliss laid a foundation formed more of poured heart than poured concrete. Now we see if the others can adopt what our two seniors have left this team with. We now have a solid group of tournament-tested underclassmen to challenge for the SEC title next year.

I’d like to say “I can’t wait”, but that wouldn’t be true; after all, we got a football season to play. But this run still makes it hard to be patient.