Same with me. Couldn’t wait until we won enough to where you’d start looking at venues for the NCAAT, hoping for a good seeding. Watching every single MWC game you could. And then watch some top 25.
It’s in part that UNLV fell completely off the national or even regional cliff … to me it was as much as having no identity or style, no recruiting to excite … no pro prospects, no reason for any big hopes or expectations. But the game has deteriorated badly. Now, those final four teams were damn good. But once you start getting beyond the top 10-15, you’re seeing teams with some pretty significant flaws. In conference, watching the “best”, they’re pretty damn mediocre as they proved again once again on the big stage.
Watchability, aside from the best teams, which usually involves teams I cannot stand, is difficult. Now we are tossing in the mercenary players; hired guns for a season, for ridiculous amounts … it’s gross. I think it drastically shifts the MO from pride to money, from us to me. And to me, the beauty of competition is the drive to win as a team, roll it out there, go all out, may the best team win. Not may the highest scorer get paid. It’s really disheartening.
Even if UNLV became top 25 regularly, if it was a team that changed 80% of the faces ever year, fans, imo, wouldn’t become enamored with the team. Because we like to watch them grow together, like to see the personality of the players and the team, the development.
Quick, picture Wink Adams face. You got it.
Quick. Picture leading scorer JoJo Moorings face. You didn’t get it. Or if you did, you had to search the memory banks.
Can you picture seldom used David Willard? I can. High scorer Kris Clyburn? I can, but it’s not immediate recall.
