Game thread....

[mufansince72]

Because the season body of work is a collection of single games. And for the most part, when we've lost, it's been a product of our best players not stepping up, not because Derrick didn't do what he was supposed to do. Interestingly, when other guys wilt, Derrick often is the one stepping up. He was one of if not our best player against Arizona State, San Diego State, and Butler, but despite him lifting his game the rest of the team couldn't do the same. The irony is most of the games people complain about what Derrick did or didn't do are games we won rather than games we lost.

We have quite a few wins when Derrick is mediocre. The problem is that when Derrick steps up and plays like a legitimate high major point guard, the rest of the team fails to match his effort and we end up losing. If we could get the same effort and tenacity out of the guys with more talent than Derrick has, we'd have a much better record. And yet he seems to take 80% of the blame.

The games people have problems with are the losses. So let's look at them, with green being good Derrick, red being bad Derrick, and black being neutral Derrick:

Ohio State: Derrick wasn't very good, but neither was anyone else. Definitely a team loss. He's as much to blame as anyone, but not sure he's more to blame.
Arizona State: Derrick was arguably our best player. Great performance and not at all Derrick's fault we lost. Poor positioning by other guys forced him to drive at Bachynski for the tying basket, which was always a losing proposition.
San Diego State: Derrick was playing very well until he took the injury. Probably shouldn't have played as many second half minutes as he did, but if he stays healthy there's a good chance we win.
Wisconsin: One of the lowlights of Derrick's season. I'd put that one on him.
New Mexico: Our biggest problem was not adjusting to Cullen Neal and the massive FT disparity. Derrick's 4 fouls didn't help, but as a team we made a lot of mistakes. Like the OSU game, a team loss.
Creighton: Dumpster fire. Jamil's turnovers, Todd's awful night, but Derrick only getting 1 assist while trying to force things too much didn't help at all.
Xavier: Solid performance with 5:0 A:T ratio, and was nice to see the spread in minutes give John-John a chance. We lost this because we got mauled on the boards. Our guards outrebounded our frontcourt 13-7. If the bigs do their job as well as Derrick and the guards did, we win.
Butler: Ironically, I was disappointed with Derrick this game, but most people were happy with him. Why? Well, I didn't like the turnovers, but everyone else liked the scoring. Regardless, Derrick did a bit of everything but our SGs combined for 3/18 from the floor. Can't blame that on Derrick.
Villanova: I've reiterated time and time again the past couple days that Derrick had a good game. He did. You don't seem to be arguing it, more saying I'm looking at one game and not the season. Bottom line, 'Nova isn't on Derrick.

So if you look at the losses, I'd say that 2 were Derrick's fault, 2 were games where the team and coaching staff were to blame, and 5 where we probably could have won if the rest of the team had played more like Derrick. Now do you see why I look at individual games? Because the games that people get up in arms about, by and large, aren't Derrick's fault. No, a good game by Derrick isn't enough to win in the Big East. And THAT is the problem. Derrick has a good game, the rest of the team plays like poo, we lose. So maybe it's time to look at the guys that are playing like poo in our losses rather than the guy who's upping his game when things get tough.

Obviously, I don't see it your way at all! I'm not a stat junkie like you, but I bet you would be hard pressed to find more than a game or two, where our starting backcourt equalled or exceeded the production of the opponent.