When I can't decide which angle to take on an article, I like to take it to the polls. In this case, I think there might be 40 reasons this team is terrible, but here are my main ones:
- Individual Inexperience: A lot of individuals that haven't played at this level for very long, and they are making a lot of rookie mistakes.
- Team Inexperience: A lot of talent out there, but they haven't played together for very long.
- Wrong Mix of Guys: Doesn't matter how much experience they have, these guys would never be good together.
- Too Many Tweeners: How many guys on this team have a true position? Honestly? I would say that Jean-Paul Olukemi is a pretty true 3, and Matt Pilgrim is close to a true 4, but outside of that I don't know that anyone has a true position. This is partially a personnel thing, and partially a team need thing. Maybe Markel Brown could be a true PG (?) or SG, but due to team need and his inexperience it is difficult for Coach Ford to just throw him out there.
- Fred Gulley's Injury: When he went down, I don't think many of us thought it was that big of a thing. After a month of watching our guard play without him, I think we are reconsidering. While I don't think Fred would have turned the whole season around, we might have a couple less losses if he were around.
- Cold Shooting Curse:Or whatever you want to call it. There is definitely a lid on the rim this season. And what is odd is that if you go down the line, player by player, you would say that each of the main 8 guys are decent shooters. For whatever reason, they just get out there and miss a lot of make-able shots as a team.
- Slow Feet: While this isn't a slow team, it is a slow footed team (that makes total sense). What I guess I mean is that they are slow to react, and don't force much. A lot of guys are standing around flat-footed on both sides of the court. There seems to be a low energy level and not much of a killer instinct, leading to lazy play and slow footwork.
- Keiton Page is too slow/white/short/shot-happy/evil: He seems to be a bit of a scapegoat for this season among many of my friends. I'm curious if that will apply to this poll as well.
So here is how this will work. Rather than just voting for one issue, let's assign a value to each one. How big of an impact (on a scale of 1 to 5) do you think each issue is having on this team. Vote after the jump, and feel free to add your own theories in the comments.
The Results
Here are the average votes for each category.
Here are the results with all the votes included.
| Average | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Individual Inexperience | 3.03 | 14 | 11 | 17 | 14 | 23 |
| Team Inexperience | 3.35 | 11 | 11 | 17 | 31 | 17 |
| Wrong Mix of Guys | 3.68 | 9 | 9 | 20 | 17 | 34 |
| Fred Gulley's Injury | 3.19 | 14 | 11 | 17 | 34 | 11 |
| Cold Shooting Curse | 3.29 | 14 | 11 | 23 | 14 | 26 |
| Slow Feet | 3.32 | 17 | 11 | 11 | 23 | 26 |
| Keiton Page is too... | 2.45 | 28 | 31 | 1 | 11 | 16 |
My favorite thing about all of these results is that almost no one is on the fence about Keiton Page. Only one vote of a 3 for him being the problem, everyone else thought he was either definitely the problem, or definitely not the problem. He may end up going down as the most divisive Oklahoma State athlete of all time.