I am upset right now, getting better but still upset. I can't figure how we just laid down and died in this one, I can't figure it out. We were soo close, but still so far. I can't put my finger on it, but it seems like Texas Aggie athletics encounter these games too often. I will try to use recent examples...

Football: '05 Cotton Bowl, '02 season and countless other heartbreaking loss over the last decade or so.

Basketball: '03 Big 12 Tourney, '05 Big 12 Tourney

Baseball: '89 season, 2002 Regional

Feel free to add anymore...

I am proud as hell of this team. I love em to death, everyone of them. I just can't uderstand why, our teams, at the worst times seem to falter. Our teams always put ourselves in a situation to propel themselves into elite status, but then falter. I can't seem to figure out what is holding A&M athletics back from the OU and tu types.

Thoughts?

The regional @Olsen vs UH a couple years ago is a good one.

It started in '89 during our double-header loss to LSU when all we had to do was win one of those games to make it to Omaha.

No it started well before that...

'75 Arkiesaw game comes to mind. Football has its own chapter.

It is frustrating. While sustained success at the elite level would be the ideal state, I'd settle for even a 'cinderella' type season in one of these sports. I guess the '98 football season would qualify in that category although we still lost to the sips and Ohio St. in the Sugar Bowl.

[This message has been edited by MemAg92 (edited 3/10/2005 9:15p).]

1999 Sugar Bowl

I guess I should let y'all feel sorry for yourselves without butting in, but I just can't. Suck it up and get over it. Our season isn't over. We have always bounced back strong after a disappointing loss this year. The other examples listed in this thread were season ending losses. This one wasn't. Get some alcohol in ya, go cry some alligator tears, and come back tomorrow ready to support the team till the end.

quote:

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I can't seem to figure out what is holding A&M athletics back from the OU and tu types.

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Because they have more talent than we do.

Geez guys, so far up and so far down on here.

We were never as bad as we appeared to be last year and we were never as good as we appeared to be this year. We got damned hot the last 5 or 6 games, way over our heads, and tonight we shot way below our level.

It all boiled down to shooting % tonight. Big deal. Very little was riding on this. We will get our NIT and a chance to improve and have some fun.

It started in the late 90s. Instead of our facilites, coaches, and overall athletic department taking off like the rest of our school was(academics, enrollment, etc) we just began to tread water and never really went anywhere or make significant strides. We became complacent and our entire athletic department had that "good ole boy" lets be friends with everybody attitude. Nobody got fired, and nobody felt like their job was on the line. There was no pressure to produce W's.

Like them or not, the sips know how to win and understands it starts at the top with their athletic department. They had a tough run of it early in the 90s, but they saw the problem and then fixed it by upgraded facilites, firing the coaches that needed to be fired, and flat out put coaches a$$es on the hot seat if they didnt produce. They ALLOWED themselves to succed, by placing the necessary pieces into the right places. They have the facilites, the fan base, a hot bed for recruiting in every sport and great coaches to bring in the right players.

We have only begun to do this in the last 2 years. We have got some catching up to do. We have the right AD now, and the right president, and both of them arent afraid to step up and spend some money and make some serious changes. They have now "allowed" us to FINALLY move foward and see our athletic programs move towards where they should have been over 10 years ago.

We just have to get our legs under us and in another few years, we are going to be a top 25 power in every major sport. All this isnt going to happen over night or in 1 season, however both football and basketball have taken huge steps in a very short period of time. We will be solid next year no doubt. Get a little depth, get bennett on the floor, get deezin and slade going and see what happens. Throw in slade and a big foreign 7 footer, and one hell of a coach and we are going to have a squad.


But honestly should it have taken this long if we just took the necessary steps in the early 90s.

[This message has been edited by bullard21k (edited 3/11/2005 1:16a).]

Little was riding on this? Nice try

"Suck it up and get over it"

I have heard these words for the past 10 years and you know what I believed them... once. I will rant all I want. we can't be satisfied with losing, everyone should be mad at this game, we should have won. No doubt. We should be with the Ou's and tu's but its setbacks like these that hurt us. we need to win games like these so kids say, "Hey they can win the big game, i wanna go there." They aren't saying to themselves, "Well they improved and you know what, we'll get em next year." Suck it up, maybe you need to look at the past 10 years of aggie sports and remember every game you said that after.

Little was riding on this is correct. Yea, all we had to do was beat KSU and KU on a virtual home court for a MAYBE at an NCAA tourney invite. Get a grip on reality.

Great post Bullard. You pretty much nailed it.

No, winning this game gave us a maybe. Beating KU pretty much made it unprobable to not be selected. How bout getting this ridiculous monkey off our backs anyway? Get a grip on reality? Give me a break.

Beating KSU would not have gotten us in the tourney. What are you smoking? ISU probably won't make it either and they HAVE beaten Kansas and tu and so on.

[This message has been edited by txag72 (edited 3/10/2005 9:48p).]

ISU is a lock.

This is the dumbest post in the history of Texags. If you think the world is ending based on a basketball game, then you need to get a life! There is nothing so important to act like this. Go run 3 miles and take out the stress. Something. Anyone who compares this loss to an extreme disappointment (such as the LSU baseball debacle) does not understand college basketball.

These guys had one of the best comeback seasons we would ever imagine. The rock wouldn't go in the hoop the last 9 minutes. Have other good teams ever had that happen? Of course. It's called a game. Some win and some lose. Especially on the road (this was a road game for all practical purposes). We play in one of the toughest conferences in the nation. It's not like we were a ranked team. You don't go from worst to first in a year in this league. Get behind the team and they will get better.

Aggiewes
Class of '87

[This message has been edited by Aggiewes (edited 3/10/2005 10:05p).]

plenty was rididng on this game. maybe not tourney bids, but plenty.

a big 12 tourney win is a huge hurdle we need to overcome before we start whining about making the tourney, or why we aren't ranked, or why other schools get the recruits we want.

we'll get there, and this is not the end of the world in any way. but to say nothing was riding on this game is just plain wrong.

as for the original post . . . lighten up man. BG will continue to do more with less, until we're in the big 12 title hunt every year.

How many basketball seasons have we found the Ags sitting at home in postseason and not even going to the NIT? You guys need to let the process work. We did not get in this situation overnight and it will take time to get to the level where we can expect NCAA tournament bids.

Gig 'Em Ags and beat the hell out of the NIT!

a big thanks to you all for these wonderful memories you've dug out of the trash dump

"Maegnas is my name. I am the spider's bane."

Bullard nailed it. Lousy hires by Wally combined with the fact that Slocum got lazy and let Brown recruit rings around him. When Bowen left, the good old boys lost their protection (thank God). Slocum was surprised when he got the ax. I think he actually believed that he could go 7 - 5 and lose to Tech every stinking year and still hang around. Well, with Wally, he could have. Wally was another of the good old boys who was surprised when Gates told him to hit the road. Long overdue.

You tools on this forum need to grow up. Bullard and others have the uncanny ability to know why we have lost every game in every sport. The answer has always been the same old bull---t, i.e. the loss was Slocum's and Groff's fault. 10 years from now , I guess, when we lose a heartbreaker it will still be their fault. What a bunch of mindless crap. The loss tonight and losses in big games in the past is for reasons closer to the posts of Nofield and Agwife than the paralysis of analysis of you tools who can only come with RC and Wally.Read their posts. Blaming it on RC and Wally is so lame it is laughable. Oh, the original 12th man suited up under the stands and was ready but the coach didn't put him in. Now, that coach is the problem! That d----ass cost us that game tonight.
Try in your one sided minds to come up with something that makes sense, like maybe their guys played their best game ever , maybe over their heads a little and we had an off night. S--t happens.

Excuse the misspell Aggiewes.

I find it comical how often I see the "'Name your school here' athletics summed up in one game" posts both here and at other schools' websites.

This was a hard loss last night for all of us to take. We played hard but came up short when we needed to come up big.

I'm sure we are all just being a bunch of pouty sissies but it is hard to take disappointment after disappointment. It does tend to wear on you a bit. Losing the games last yr in football was tough..including the baylor, tu, ou, and cotton bowl stomping. But, I felt a little better knowing that basketball season was getting ready for big 12 action and we really have great team to support.

Although we didn't win our first big12 conference tourney game, we still had a hell of a yr and set records for our school in almost everything in basketball.

We have a proud school heritage and the alumni and current student body to back that up. We are on the right track toward landing the recruits and building championship teams but it will take more than one season to do so.

Regardless of our status in sports, I will continue to support our teams during the good and the bad. That is what separates us from the rest. I'm proud to be a Fightin Texas Aggie!

Part of the problem is Aggies looking to the past and blaming every single problem on past coaches/regimes rather than looking to the future and realizing that we still HAVE problems that need to be addressed.

This thread got off to a bad start when we tried to draw comparisons between one stinkin' game and the whole of our athletics department. It took a turn for the worse when the "blame RC" folks got ahold of it.

Why not just be happy with the fact that we vastly exceeded in exponential fashion EVERY expectation placed upon Aggie Basketball at the beginning of the season? This program has a VERY bright future if we can make our way out of the quagmire of looking to the past and blaming good Aggies for current problems.

agcat- do you realize this is the basketball forum?

I said Wally made some lousy hires. How can any objective soul possibly dispute that? Namely, Watkins, and the ladies basketball coach. That's a fact jack.

Slocums recruiting was poor upon the arrival of Mack Brown. That's also a fact. Care to dispute that? Uh, Ok. Feel free to cotrast Slocum's pre and post Brown seasons, or his record in head to heads with Brown. I won't even go into the Tech saga, but feel free to look up those scores if you like.

The athletic dept under Wally was going sideways at best at the same time that the athletic program in Austin was lapping us. Care to dispute that one? We were also losing assistant coaches left and right - little continuity in the football staff. Again, check the record. Our facilities lagged far behind our rivals (accounting in part for mediocre recruiting). Our athletic dept sat back and let that problem linger for far too long. Texas planned, raised the $$ for, and built state of the art football facilities before we even started planning ours. Hello, athletic dept. Was there anyone home? The answer was no, and that's why the changes were finally made.

Things were just drifting. Things finally got bad enough on the field and basketball court to force the regents and administration to bring in some hungry, driven coaches. Simple as that.

Blaming the state of the atletic dept under Groff was not "laughable". What's laughable is that anyone could look at our athletic program, facilities, recruiting, and coaching hires and not hold the athletic director accountable. As far as Slocum, I was happy to have him in the dark days after Jackie left under an NCAA cloud. For a decade, he guided the football program in a positive direction. At some point around 98 he just lost his drive for whatever the reason. Mack came in driven and hungry, and with the help of great new facilities dominated us in the living rooms around the state. That was reflected on the field.

hold your heads up ags,
this team and next years will be exciting to watch and will always be able to pull off the win. isn't that all you should ask? they play with desire and intensity, you should be proud no matter the score.

Worst thread ever - why? - because "Aggies always play with heart" - they never lay down.

quote:

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The answer has always been the same old bull---t, i.e. the loss was Slocum's and Groff's fault. 10 years from now , I guess, when we lose a heartbreaker it will still be their fault. What a bunch of mindless crap. The loss tonight and losses in big games in the past is for reasons closer to the posts of Nofield and Agwife than the paralysis of analysis of you tools who can only come with RC and Wally.Read their posts. Blaming it on RC and Wally is so lame it is laughable. Oh, the original 12th man suited up under the stands and was ready but the coach didn't put him in. Now, that coach is the problem! That d----ass cost us that game tonight.
Try in your one sided minds to come up with something that makes sense, like maybe their guys played their best game ever , maybe over their heads a little and we had an off night. S--t happens.

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I didnt say specifically the loss tonight was their fault, i was reffering to the orginal question about us being so behind lately in athletics and having a string of tough times.

I also dont really care if you dont want to believe what i wrote or not. The fact is that entire athletic department was a joke and ran virtually every single one of our sports programs into the ground for over 10 years. You can disagree, pout, say people are being unfair with regards to groff, slocum, and others all you want, but the fact still remains is they didnt get it done and have left us in the poition we are in today which is having to completely rebuild from the ground up. Hitting rock bottom isnt a result of something that happens over night rather an extended period of time. On the same hand rebuilding isnt going to happen over night either.

10 years from now we arent going to be blaiming losses on groff or the athletic department because we are going to be judging what we do then by the "current" actions of byrne and gates. Thats usually how that works, the actions and moves that take place right now, will be seeing huge dividens 3,4,5 years down the road.



[This message has been edited by bullard21k (edited 3/11/2005 9:18a).]

Don't confuse anyone with facts. They'll call you a tool.

agcat- my point was that it is time to start looking ahead. there will always be disputes over what "should have been done" under the past regime. Nothing will ever change that. However, your atitude is dangerous. If the athletics department did what you do and file all problems under "Slocums fault" or "Wally's fault", they would overlook some real-time "now" problems and end up in the same situation.

For the last 10 years we havent even been competitive in Basketball...

For the last 3-4 years we havent been competitive in Football...

Both teams had huge turnarounds this season...

Football-

1.) Won a road game
2.) Made it to a bowl game
3.) got ranked

Basketball-

1.) Had a winning season
2.) Won the most B12 conf games of an Aggie squads ever
3.) Beat two ranked teams
4.) Won two Road games
5.) Playing in the post-season for the first time in 11 years

Even stoops lost a bowl game before he won it all...The Ags have to start somewhere and the only place for both teams to go is up