RE: UPenn - Battle of 33rd Street Continues
Don't get me wrong, I am happy with the Spiker hire and think he's done a great job beginning to revive this program - there's a good energy around it unlike anything in we've seen in the last 5 years (since the 11-12 NIT season). The early line on the new recruits is positive (esp. Lee, Jonnson), the resurgence of Rodney and Austin is a huge lift. So, I get it, we're on the right track.
However, I still think we should have won 2 of the Rider, St Joe, Penn games. We're 5-7 (forget Kean), we should be 7-5. I'm not buying the freshman excuse, lots of teams start freshman (Penn did it yesterday). I'm not buying the new head coach excuse, he's a good coach and doesn't need that crutch. Penn was a beatable team and we just made too many mistakes. St. Joe and Rider, we let slip away at various points of each game. We need an aura of winning in those situations. Spiker even alluded to this sentiment in an interview on the broadcast yesterday. When asked, summarize your achievements so far, he said with a very "meh" tone, "we're 6-7".
I'll be a little disappointed with less than 9 wins in the CAA. Delaware, JMU beatable twice. Even 3 of 4 against those 2, we should win 6 other games. Hofstra, Elon, W&M are beatable, and I know we can steal a game or two from the top 4. Again, Spiker says "We are nowhere near where we should be". I take from that, we are better than the 5-7 in OOC showed. If the coaches get results, aka getting us to where we SHOULD be, it must translate to 9 or 10 CAA wins.
I'm being a little bold, but I'd rather see the expectations raised as a fan / alum and start expecting wins, instead of being satisfied with the moral victory of progress and promise for the future. If Spiker weren't a good coach and the players on this team weren't solid mid major guys, I wouldn't be thinking this way. So, my boldness and expectation comes from the positives that I've seen so far.
Go Dragons.
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