2016-2017 Season

BearcatTalk

Help Support BearcatTalk:

What seed will UC get this year in the Tournament?

  • 1-4

    Votes: 24 38.7%
  • 5-8

    Votes: 35 56.5%
  • 9-16

    Votes: 3 4.8%

  • Total voters
    62
I think people compete at their highest level in different ways. Some guys are laser focused almost psychotically competitive. Others need to stay loose to perform. It's about finding what makes you click and what keeps you at your best. Some guys if they allowed themselves to get down on themselves or mad or whatever you want to call it, it could affect their play. For others that same mistake will put them into another drive. Different strokes for different folks. But there is a grey area. Some guys genuinely do need a kick in the ass and need to understand effort and attitude need to be in sync and on green at all times. I don't see this being the case with Troy but I would leave that up to the coaches and I guess himself to determine that.
 
I hear you. I'm not questioning passion, just intensity. But I didn't question it at all by year end, so I wish I would've never even said anything in the first place lol.

I understood your point Jacob...you want to see that end of game toughness so we can win the close ones and the big ones. You want to see the whole team put on a look of determination. I get that. You may not like a particular demeanor but I think being able to smile and shrug off a mistake is a sign of confidence in a player. "I'll get them next time".
 
There are a gazillion sports videos. People have to really search for smiling losers. But, we could randomly pick any video and come up with hundreds of examples within that one single video where the losers aren't smiling. We wouldn't even have to go to other videos for examples. The probability of finding smiling losers is probably lower than winning the lottery. Again, it is becoming more common today with our wuss mentality of rewarding participants and de-emphasizing winning. The perfect example of this soft mentality is this thread. 30 years ago, Jacob would have had tons of support for his view and the one or two who argued differently would have been destroyed. It's sad how times have changed.
 
yes, hats off to you brave souls who pored over tons of youtube videos to dig up these obscure kobe bryant and stephen curry guys. i can't even imagine how much time that must have required.
 
When I was playing competitive sports I may or may not have smiled at times when things were not going right, but I can tell you that inside I was grinding to the point of being unaware of some things going on around me. Maybe Troy doesn't even know he is smiling.
 
yes, hats off to you brave souls who pored over tons of youtube videos to dig up these obscure kobe bryant and stephen curry guys. i can't even imagine how much time that must have required.

Kobe and Curry have their hundreds of millions of dollars. Caupain is trying to get there. My bet is his smiling will never lead to those big bucks. This will be easy to track. Maybe if he didn't smile so much, he could figure out something different than getting the ball crammed down his throat every time he tries to drive for a last second buzzer beater.
 
Kobe and Curry have their hundreds of millions of dollars. Caupain is trying to get there. My bet is his smiling will never lead to those big bucks. This will be easy to track. Maybe if he didn't smile so much, he could figure out something different than getting the ball crammed down his throat every time he tries to drive for a last second buzzer beater.

could be, or maybe it has nothing to do with his natural reactions on the court. who knows!?!

keep fighting the good fight, man. it's noble work you're doing.
 
There are a gazillion sports videos. People have to really search for smiling losers. But, we could randomly pick any video and come up with hundreds of examples within that one single video where the losers aren't smiling. We wouldn't even have to go to other videos for examples. The probability of finding smiling losers is probably lower than winning the lottery. Again, it is becoming more common today with our wuss mentality of rewarding participants and de-emphasizing winning. The perfect example of this soft mentality is this thread. 30 years ago, Jacob would have had tons of support for his view and the one or two who argued differently would have been destroyed. It's sad how times have changed.

The "back in my day" argument isn't very convincing. There were winners and losers in every generation. Weren't you happy when the steam engine won out over the Pony Express?
 
The "back in my day" argument isn't very convincing. There were winners and losers in every generation. Weren't you happy when the steam engine won out over the Pony Express?

Not if the pony express was my idea.
 
Well anyway, I hope our team leaders show a lot of fight next season. I remember Cronin talking about these guys needing more fight and that's something he can't give them. And after either the Temple or Iowa State game he talked about guys still feeling okay after our 2nd or 3rd home loss. And Kyle Washington was more pissed than anyone else about it. Smiling or not, Caupain plays better when he has an edge to his game. We've seen flashes of it. And I just hope he puts it all together, or else his career will be over before he knows it.
 
Hey...I'll take smiling over dazed and confused any day.

I might be able to get on board with Troy becoming more "clutch"...buy I'm not sure anyone can convince me he isn't extremely competitive. He doesn't have the greatest skill set but he was all conference as a JR. How does that happen to a guy who is ok with mistakes or doesn't play his ass off?

Personally I think Clark would be the biggest benefactor from a change in demeanor.
 
Hey...I'll take smiling over dazed and confused any day.

I might be able to get on board with Troy becoming more "clutch"...buy I'm not sure anyone can convince me he isn't extremely competitive. He doesn't have the greatest skill set but he was all conference as a JR. How does that happen to a guy who is ok with mistakes or doesn't play his ass off?

Personally I think Clark would be the biggest benefactor from a change in demeanor.

No argument here. He had a pretty good stretch before the injury, so hopefully he really hits the ground running next year. He should be able to carry his playing weight better in year 3 too. I think he'll be a double-double machine.
 
Well anyway, I hope our team leaders show a lot of fight next season. I remember Cronin talking about these guys needing more fight and that's something he can't give them. And after either the Temple or Iowa State game he talked about guys still feeling okay after our 2nd or 3rd home loss. And Kyle Washington was more pissed than anyone else about it. Smiling or not, Caupain plays better when he has an edge to his game. We've seen flashes of it. And I just hope he puts it all together, or else his career will be over before he knows it.

I think this is a slightly different take I can agree with. We can't be okay with losing...we have to take that personal.

On court demeanor is different from off court complacency. Troy will have to be the guy to get that message across that we can't be great if we don't want it more than everyone else.
 
I'm the first to WISH for more passion from Clark, but to be honest, these young men are who they are by now. Clark will always be that type of low emotion on the court player. Doesn't have any bearing on success or not, just who he is. The key, for me, is to have your top 7-8 rotation guys have a nice mix of 'over the top' to 'cool hand luke'. And I think we have that moving forward.

Why I've always been partial to the Tony Bobbitt's, Oct Ellis's, Eric Hicks etc. Seems like after '00 we've needed energy more than the opposite.
 
Yes Waite. I am. Show me a guy who smiles, and I'll show you a guy who loses. It's about the level of intensity and confidence. The only time he should be smiling on the court is when he clinches a conference title. I'd be willing to bet that Evans and Washington won't smile a single time after a mistake.

I personally hate saying this, but Hines Ward smiled a bit. Won a few games.
 
I personally hate saying this, but Hines Ward smiled a bit. Won a few games.

When did he smile? When winning Super Bowls? Or right after dropping a pass that turned into a game losing pick 6? Please understand the difference. If you don't agree, fine. I couldn't care less. But at least understand my point of view.
 
Cam newton smiles a lot too.

Cam Newton is a sore loser. He smiles when things are going well, not when they aren't. Yes, he smiled while congratulating Peyton Manning after they lost a Super Bowl game that had been decided for 3 quarters. That means nothing.
 
This whole smiling thing has been blown way out of proportion by now. Caupain has as much or more heart than anyone on the team. His smile or smirk in no way tells me he is okay with making mistakes, playing poorly, or losing. I can't think of another player I feel this concept relates to less than him.
 
Last edited:
Back
Top