Nashville Road Trip Notes from an Old Tiger

Well this is being written two days earlier than I intended, but we have finally seen the Tigers lose a game on the road. Here are my observations:

1. Kudos to the Bengal Brass Band, which harassed the hell out of Florida free throw shooters for the first half, when the Gators were shooting at the band’s end of the court. God knows they had enough opportunities to harass, since Florida got to attempt 387 more free throws than us.
2. Naz made some mistakes, but played really hard.
3, There were times in the first half when it looked like we could match up with Golden State, and there were times in the second half when it looked like my seniors men’s rec team could give LSU a good game. Very frustrating.
4. I spoke to an older Kentucky fan at halftime (a nice man), who asked me, “tell me, is your great young coach going to survive this?’ I told him I didn’t know, but I was still living with the hope that somehow things would turn out OK. He said, “ well I don’t know if he’ll survive, that’s still in doubt. But one thing that isn’t in doubt is that your athletic director is an idiot.”
5. I got next to the tunnel right after the game to give encouragement to the Tigers. You could tell they took the loss really hard. Naz was the only one who looked up to fist bump. All the others just kept their heads down.
6. Tony’s tech was 10 minutes too late. He should have lit into the officials and hopefully have gotten his team out of their lack of focus in the second half. Please don’t do it coach when there’s almost no time to recover from a 6 or 7 point play.
7. Something was wrong with Tre in the second half. He looked listless, and once when he came out the trainer went over to him and questioned him for what seemed a really unusually long time.
8. There was a nice presentation at halftime with Mr. and Mrs. Sims. Also, there was a presentation before the game honoring Skylar as the SEC scholar athlete award recipient, plus honoring the team as a whole as SEC champs.
9. I usually now post the funniest thing on the road trip, but I’m not feeling overly comical right now.
10. Despite all the chaos, stick behind these kids. They are winners. We hope to be able to travel to the real tournament that is about to start, and I’d love to see a 6 game winning streak to finish the season in style.(Edited after feedback about total wins needed to run the table- thanks.),