Gunk wrote:

No question there seems to be a tendency from fans to blame the refs or the MWC when we lose. As I mentioned on another thread, it's easier to blame refs or officials because then the fan doesn't have to be disappointed in his team. The fan can just walk away and say it was someone else's fault.

Me, I am all about owning up to things. We got beat by UNLV because we didn't play well. Key players didn't show up and we left UNLV's leading scorer wide open and basically let him rack up 14 points against us in the final 5 min. The refs had NOTHING to do with that.

I know beating A&M on Thursday will be tough, but there's a good chance we'll pull it off so need for the doom and gloom.

The problem wasn't that we had key players that didn't show up-the problem was the 8 or so key players that showed up-the Rebels. Instead of playing and beating the team we should have (either TCU, but more likely Utah-they probably would've beaten the frogs), we played UNLV-a team who was given a win.

Last night's game wasn't poorly officiated. UNLV outplayed us and that's why we lost the game to UNLV-but that's not why we lost the MWC tournament.

BYUtx wrote:

I guess I could've simply asked why you're so negative, but I thought that was implicit in my statement. I really am curious.

I don't think I'm negative -- just more of a fan that has been down this road alot since 2001. The Cougs are 0-4 since 2001. They have only "brought" it once (that was in 2004) and they still lost. BYU doesn't play well outside of Provo (evidenced by the SDSU and the Tourny Championship loses) and I don't expect that Anaheim will be much different. Plaistead plays poorly against good competition.

Why are you so optomistic? The best team BYU beat was a Louisville team without their star player. I thought it was a wonderful win (and still do), but I know that BYU didn't get the Cardinal's best team. What makes you think BYU has a shot?

I actually was referring to your posts in general, not just in BB.

I think there's a huge difference between saying "it'll be tough for us to win" and "all you cougar fans are going to be making excuses after BYU loses." You can keep your gloom and doom and I'll stick with Ammoncoug's example of being optimistic.

If we were playing A&M in Texas I'd be less optimistic. I think we can get a bunch of fans there. If we play to our max potential, we'll beat A&M handily and will compete with UCLA.

BYUtx wrote:

BTW, our excuses started today, not Thursday. Just like they started Thursday night when UNLV was handed a win by the MWC refs-they just came to a head last night. I'm sure that's what will happen this week, unless we win, of course. OLB, you used to be somewhat nice, what happened?

Here's the apparent schedule for all interested.... looks as if we'll be able to see it after work for MOST of us. Good stuff. Hope everyone watches:
ANAHEIM GAME SCHEDULES
Thursday, March 20
No. 6 Marquette vs. No. 11 Kentucky - 11:30 a.m
No. 3 Stanford vs. No. 14 Cornell - 25 minutes following
No. 8 Brigham Young vs. No. 9 Texas A&M - 4:25 p.m.
No. 1 UCLA vs. No. 16 Mississippi Valley State - 25 minutes following

That's Pacific Time, right?

BYUtx wrote:

Gunk wrote:

No question there seems to be a tendency from fans to blame the refs or the MWC when we lose. As I mentioned on another thread, it's easier to blame refs or officials because then the fan doesn't have to be disappointed in his team. The fan can just walk away and say it was someone else's fault.

Me, I am all about owning up to things. We got beat by UNLV because we didn't play well. Key players didn't show up and we left UNLV's leading scorer wide open and basically let him rack up 14 points against us in the final 5 min. The refs had NOTHING to do with that.

I know beating A&M on Thursday will be tough, but there's a good chance we'll pull it off so need for the doom and gloom.

The problem wasn't that we had key players that didn't show up-the problem was the 8 or so key players that showed up-the Rebels. Instead of playing and beating the team we should have (either TCU, but more likely Utah-they probably would've beaten the frogs), we played UNLV-a team who was given a win.

Last night's game wasn't poorly officiated. UNLV outplayed us and that's why we lost the game to UNLV-but that's not why we lost the MWC tournament.

If our team showed up last night with that attitude I now know why we lost.

Again, you are faulting someone else for BYU's loss. You're saying we lost because we should have been playing someone else. What a poor excuse. "We had to play UNLV, that's why we lost the MWC tournament." So, basically you are saying BYU can't beat UNLV and UNLV is a better team. That's fine if you admit that, you're entitled to you're own opinion. I for one, believe BYU is actually better than UNLV when our players decide to show up and play.