Official SMU v Tulane Game Thread

[PonyDoh]

i was one of the few people actually at the game tonight, so not sure why i deserve crap. poor turnout, but good student involvement for the second game in a row. the revival of the Pa-pa Di-a chant was great, as was the Jer-ie-miah chant. Frog is becoming a fan favorite. As for the game, I dang sure expect to beat Tulane and many of these highly average CUSA teams at home. I know that hearts and minds have been convinced that this roster is so bad that any D-1 win is a miracle, but I think thats crap. Papa is having a beast of a season, as he should be as a talented senior. He is surrounded by almost all upperclassmen who probably have 300 D-1 starts among them (Walker, Nyk, Haynes, Harp, Mangrum, Clink). I wouldn't quite have expected or predicted 6-3 and a 5 game win streak which is great but I damn sure would expect 5-4 or at least 4-5 against this league schedule at this point. We stole one at tulsa and vs Memphis, gave one away at home vs. Houston, so we are +1 right now vs. what I consider reasonable expectations, not Friends of Doherty & Staff expectations.

LOL, I love veiled hate. If those were truly your expectations, you probably only set them cause you want Doh canned, not b/c you thought we should actually be 4-5 or 5-4. If those were your legit expectations, you're either a genius or freakin crazy. Maybe a bit of both, but even your congratulatory posts come off salty. Why not just be legitimately happy? Do you really want the head coach fired more than having a good year?

[Harry0569]

Hoop Fan loves drink Haterade.

[ponyte]

6-3 in Conference and a 5 game win streak and we are a middle of the pack team. THese next two games are huge for us.

[Mustangsabu]

Saturday's game in El Paso could make a real statement for this team. If we can win in my opinion it would be the biggest win in doh's time here. This is a chance to win a game against a good team when it really matters and would give our kids great confidence going into the CUSA tourney.

[Hoop Fan]

Ponydoh, if you are gonna call me a 'hater' and 'crazy' for having even modest expectations such as expecting to be 4-5 in conference at this point at a minimum, can you please explain your pre-season comment below about this being a schedule we should beat, and 20 wins etc.? That clearly implies you were expecting 6-8 conference wins to get to 20. So what is your problem? We've had virtually no injuries and you have admitted Jfrog has far exceeded your expectations, so whats changed to actually lower your expectations to zero? Can you please form an opinion and stick with it instead of letting the coaches sway your views as the season goes. Our non-conf schedule was a joke, and anybody who understands the landscape knows that we also have a very easy CUSA schedule having to only play Memphis and UAB once each. Please layoff the hater crap because its disingenous.

by PonyDoh » Wed Sep 29, 2010 1:07 pm

This is a schedule they should beat. If they do get 20 wins vs this crap, are you guys really going to be dissapointed heading into '11 w/the way the roster is shaping up? Generate some momentum, no matter what.

[Wuba]

Ponydoh, if you are gonna call me a 'hater' and 'crazy' for having even modest expectations such as expecting to be 4-5 in conference at this point at a minimum, can you please explain your pre-season comment below about this being a schedule we should beat, and 20 wins etc.? That clearly implies you were expecting 6-8 conference wins to get to 20. So what is your problem? We've had virtually no injuries and you have admitted Jfrog has far exceeded your expectations, so whats changed to actually lower your expectations to zero? Can you please form an opinion and stick with it instead of letting the coaches sway your views as the season goes. Our non-conf schedule was a joke, and anybody who understands the landscape knows that we also have a very easy CUSA schedule having to only play Memphis and UAB once each. Please layoff the hater crap because its disingenous.

by PonyDoh » Wed Sep 29, 2010 1:07 pm

This is a schedule they should beat. If they do get 20 wins vs this crap, are you guys really going to be dissapointed heading into '11 w/the way the roster is shaping up? Generate some momentum, no matter what.

I am guessing the answer is that on Sep 29 we did not know Smith and Vilde would be out all year, or that Pats would miss most of the year.

[Hoop Fan]

Wuba, not quite. Besides it being 'well-documented' for months prior, Ponydoh gets inside info straight from the staff, so he knew long before you did not to expect those guys this year.

by PonyDoh » 12 Nov 2010 05:54 pm

George S. Patton wrote:
BTW, Doh, I guess the DMN story shed more light as to the reasons why that Eastern European kid and the Virgin Islands kid are probably out of action this year.

I really have no idea what you mean. The status of Vilde/Smith & Pats has been well-documented for months, and in appeals forever. Vilde isn't playing b/c of international transcripts, Pats probably played w/pro's(every good euro does), and Smith is getting screwed

[mustangxc]

RPI is 209 according to RealtimeRPI.com which has been a pretty accurate source over the past few years.

Here's the rest of our schedule:

@ 58 UTEP
@ 203 Houston
vs. 94 Tulsa
vs. 172 Rice
@ 63 Marshall
@ 84 UCF
vs. 58 UTEP

Five games vs. Top 100 teams...that will bring the RPI up. FYI, they predict us to go 3-4...with wins over Tulsa, Rice, and UTEP at home.

Our RPI is actually inside the top 200 now, at 198, which makes a big difference because we are now a bad loss, not a terrible loss according to realtime rpi.

[mustangxc]

Wuba, not quite. Besides it being 'well-documented' for months prior, Ponydoh gets inside info straight from the staff, so he knew long before you did not to expect those guys this year.

by PonyDoh » 12 Nov 2010 05:54 pm

George S. Patton wrote:
BTW, Doh, I guess the DMN story shed more light as to the reasons why that Eastern European kid and the Virgin Islands kid are probably out of action this year.

I really have no idea what you mean. The status of Vilde/Smith & Pats has been well-documented for months, and in appeals forever. Vilde isn't playing b/c of international transcripts, Pats probably played w/pro's(every good euro does), and Smith is getting screwed

Whether you believe him or not, PonyDoh has said numerous times that those expectations were based on having the full roster, ie Smith, Vilde, Patsevich the whole season. He said that there was still a chance up until November that the paperwork would get cleared up. Once they were ruled ineligible he basically said that 10 wins would be nice.

For the record, while I am a fan of Doherty and have wanted him to stay all along, I do agree with you in that I expected us to do better in the non-conference schedule and expected 6 wins in CUSA with the hopes of doing better. I for one am very pleased that they have already met my expectations, if not exceeded them given that we still have several winnable games left.

[PonyDoh]

To this day I think Smith should be playing, and that both he & Losh were screwed. I had some idea that Vilde would sit out, but was hopeful that he'd get through on his 2nd appeal. When I said the status of those guys had been known for months, it had nothing to do w/me and any staff members, but rather a rivals article by Armen, possibly a Pony Express.

Tons of kids nationwide weren't cleared at that time, so the staff was even in shock when the final verdicts came in. It was a morgue. At that point, all bets were off. As for 20 wins, that was when I was under the impression we'd at least have 2 of the 3 for the whole season. After that, I put it in exhibition season mode. I have no idea how to classify this season now, but I'm having fun. Isn't that really the point?

[Charleston Pony]

all I know is that one more win guarantees we will do no worse than .500 this year and that didn't seem possible after we got blown out by TCU

[gostangs]

Not if you are one of those people still pining for Tubbs. They dont allow themselves to have fun.