Calling Out Pearl Haters (merged)

#576
#576
OrangeNYC said:
First off, I know you're a hat clone by the 'sycophants' ref... That Dennis Miller stuff is so lame.
Secondly, it took Pitino 7 years to win it all at UK, and that was already one of the most prestigious programs before he arrived. Also, that was in a time when the lower seeds had much less talent compared to now. Your impatience is ridiculous. We aren't rebuilding in hoops, we're building. Jerry Green was our gold standard, which CBP has already surpassed. If having the best coach we've ever had, the most talent we've ever had, and our best-ever recruiting class on the way isn't enough for you, you have stupid expectations. Pearl is who built this to the point where a Hopson, T Harris or Selby would even consider us. Get it yet?
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If sycophant is a tough word for you, then I guess it's easy to see why you think that your interlocutors are an army of clones out to get out. My little sister knows that word and she's a bonehead.

I don't expect miracles; I don't expect an NCAA championship or to win the SEC every year. But I expect to see improvement. Pearl took over a crappy Buzz Peterson team and immediately turned it around; "Wow!" we all said. "Wait till he gets his own guys in here!" But yet here we are four years later, with what have supposedly been good recruiting classes, and we're not any farther down the road. We haven't had anything that could reasonably be called a good showing in the NCAAs yet. When is it okay to start expecting that from him?
 
#581
#581
Vercingetorix said:
If sycophant is a tough word for you, then I guess it's easy to see why you think that your interlocutors are an army of clones out to get out. My little sister knows that word and she's a bonehead.

I don't expect miracles; I don't expect an NCAA championship or to win the SEC every year. But I expect to see improvement. Pearl took over a crappy Buzz Peterson team and immediately turned it around; "Wow!" we all said. "Wait till he gets his own guys in here!" But yet here we are four years later, with what have supposedly been good recruiting classes, and we're not any farther down the road. We haven't had anything that could reasonably be called a good showing in the NCAAs yet. When is it okay to start expecting that from him?
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Sycophant. Not a tough word, just one of the 6 obscure words that hat aka Dennis Miller jr uses a lot. Words you very rarely hear or see. Dream on if you think you'll confuse me with that feigned intelligence.
Things have happened with the recruiting classes. He's been kicking potheads off the team left and right. Still the wheels didn't come off, thanks to good coaching.
More importantly, he didn't come in as a huge name coach who could get lottery level recruits, nor was he arriving at a program that had ever attracted talent like that before. He had to build it. Jerry left players he used well, but with any other coach, nobody would have ever heard of Dane Bradshaw. He would have rode the bench and seen cleanup minutes as a slow, poor shooting guard.
Our program is a project in progress. We are getting better recruits all the time, but even with the best coach and the best recruits, there is no guarantee in the NCAA tourney (see Duke over last 4 years). It is a game of hot streaks and matchups, where any team can win if they are at least a 12 seed.
If we keep winning the east and getting wins in the tourney and recruiting improves, we have a good chance of getting past the 16, but there's no guarantee. I'd like more, and a SEC tourney champ would be the best, but I don't take what we have for granted. It's not easy to win like we do. One thing for sure is that no other coach (who would coach at UT) could have gotten us to where we are now, to where you as a Vol fan can have such unrealistic expectations, this quickly, if at all... Get a hold of yourself. Enjoy this run. If CBP takes a better job, we may never see this success again.
 
#582
#582
OrangeNYC said:
Sycophant. Not a tough word, just one of the 6 obscure words that hat aka Dennis Miller jr uses a lot. Words you very rarely hear or see. Dream on if you think you'll confuse me with that feigned intelligence.
Things have happened with the recruiting classes. He's been kicking potheads off the team left and right. Still the wheels didn't come off, thanks to good coaching.
More importantly, he didn't come in as a huge name coach who could get lottery level recruits, nor was he arriving at a program that had ever attracted talent like that before. He had to build it. Jerry left players he used well, but with any other coach, nobody would have ever heard of Dane Bradshaw. He would have rode the bench and seen cleanup minutes as a slow, poor shooting guard.
Our program is a project in progress. We are getting better recruits all the time, but even with the best coach and the best recruits, there is no guarantee in the NCAA tourney (see Duke over last 4 years). It is a game of hot streaks and matchups, where any team can win if they are at least a 12 seed.
If we keep winning the east and getting wins in the tourney and recruiting improves, we have a good chance of getting past the 16, but there's no guarantee. I'd like more, and a SEC tourney champ would be the best, but I don't take what we have for granted. It's not easy to win like we do. One thing for sure is that no other coach (who would coach at UT) could have gotten us to where we are now, to where you as a Vol fan can have such unrealistic expectations, this quickly, if at all... Get a hold of yourself. Enjoy this run. If CBP takes a better job, we may never see this success again.
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Dude, seriously, what's the deal with the Dennis Miller obsession? Lots of other people use them there big fancy-pants words.
 
#584
#584
OrangeNYC said:
Sycophant. Not a tough word, just one of the 6 obscure words that hat aka Dennis Miller jr uses a lot. Words you very rarely hear or see. Dream on if you think you'll confuse me with that feigned intelligence.
Things have happened with the recruiting classes. He's been kicking potheads off the team left and right. Still the wheels didn't come off, thanks to good coaching.
More importantly, he didn't come in as a huge name coach who could get lottery level recruits, nor was he arriving at a program that had ever attracted talent like that before. He had to build it. Jerry left players he used well, but with any other coach, nobody would have ever heard of Dane Bradshaw. He would have rode the bench and seen cleanup minutes as a slow, poor shooting guard.
Our program is a project in progress. We are getting better recruits all the time, but even with the best coach and the best recruits, there is no guarantee in the NCAA tourney (see Duke over last 4 years). It is a game of hot streaks and matchups, where any team can win if they are at least a 12 seed.
If we keep winning the east and getting wins in the tourney and recruiting improves, we have a good chance of getting past the 16, but there's no guarantee. I'd like more, and a SEC tourney champ would be the best, but I don't take what we have for granted. It's not easy to win like we do. One thing for sure is that no other coach (who would coach at UT) could have gotten us to where we are now, to where you as a Vol fan can have such unrealistic expectations, this quickly, if at all... Get a hold of yourself. Enjoy this run. If CBP takes a better job, we may never see this success again.
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I don't know what kind of crowd you run with, but "sycophant" wouldn't bat an eye among my friends. It's not "feigned intelligence," whatever that means; it's just a good, useful word that I'd expect any college-graduate English speaker to know. Maybe in NYC you have to use short choppy words because you're constantly having to yell over each other more.

I don't disagree with most of the rest of what you say. (Other than the idea that nobody else would come here, which is crazy -- we're paying $2m for a baskeball coach. We could find somebody else.) Our basic disagreement seems to be that A) you think where we are represents an arrival at another level for UT basketball, and is therefore a good enough accomplishment for the foreseeable future, whereas B) I think that the money we've dumped into the program since Pearl's arrival -- not only his salary, but the massive facilities upgrades, etc. -- represents an investment that demands a return. (I am absolutely putting words in your mouth there, so feel free to let me know if I've twisted your position.) If we were still treating men's basketball like an ugly little stepchild, then yeah, I'd have no complaints. Everything Pearl is doing would be a bonus. But now we're funding basketball like the sport's powerhouses....which means that at some point you have to expect to see results like those powerhouses. Or at least a reasonable progression towards them.

Was it Pearl's ambition and energy and salesmanship that led us to make that investment? Absolutely. But at some point it has to get beyond that. Let's say a company hires you as a sales manager and sticks you in a previously moribund region. You perform amazingly, shattering all their previous sales in the area. You go to your bosses and say, look what I've been able to accomplish here. Invest here and I'll blow the competition away. So they give you a huge promotion and raise, and a giant expense account, and they rent out a big office in a great location, and hire a bunch of sales guys to work underneath you. And after all that, you...do the same as you did before. How long do you think you're going to be able to say, "Well, come on, my numbers are still a lot better than they were before you guys put me in this area?" At some point you're going to have to justify the investment. I am not advocating that Pearl be fired, at all -- as is almost nobody on this forum -- but we're far enough into his tenure and still seeing the same worrying problems that I think it's fair to start wondering if Pearl's going to be able to justify UT's massive investment in him and the program.
 
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#585
#585
For somebody to really try to argue that sycophant is a commonly used word is an unbelievably huge liar.

And people misuse it on this board all the time.
 
#587
#587
BigPapaVol said:
Who argued that?
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I was just rushing through the posts and was chuckling at the people arguing over the word.

I wasn't referring to anybody specific so I didn't quote.

While a lot of people probabaly know the meaning if the word, it's not that bad for people to not know the meaning. It's not too common you hear it used.
 
#588
#588
BigPapaVol said:
Who argued that?
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I guess I did. It's a 20-cent word, not a 50-cent word. It's only three syllables. I'm unaware of a shorter single word that means the same thing, other than maybe the gruntish compound "yes-man," so it's not like George Will saying "felicitous" when he really means "happy." If Dennis Miller overuses it, then that's useful to know, because Dennis Miller was an unwatchable tool even when I quit watching SNL a couple of decades ago. But it doesn't diminish the usefulness of the word.

I'm genuinely confused at people claiming it's some sort of pretentious fancypants word. I'm sure I use it occasionally in conversation and nobody's eyes glass over. And surely people in Atlanta aren't that much bigger word-nerds than anywhere else.
 
#591
#591
Vercingetorix said:
If sycophant is a tough word for you, then I guess it's easy to see why you think that your interlocutors are an army of clones out to get out. My little sister knows that word and she's a bonehead.

I don't expect miracles; I don't expect an NCAA championship or to win the SEC every year. But I expect to see improvement. Pearl took over a crappy Buzz Peterson team and immediately turned it around; "Wow!" we all said. "Wait till he gets his own guys in here!" But yet here we are four years later, with what have supposedly been good recruiting classes, and we're not any farther down the road. We haven't had anything that could reasonably be called a good showing in the NCAAs yet. When is it okay to start expecting that from him?
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V, Would a oden block away from elite 8 be considered a "good" showing? Yes we blew a big lead but that doesn't void the other 105 minutes of hard play? I agree we should have won that game but they were there, right? Not settling, but you can't say it wasn't a reasonably good tourney, can you?
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#592
#592
orangekush423 said:
v, would a oden block away from elite 8 be considered a "good" showing? Yes we blew a big lead but that doesn't void the other 105 minutes of hard play? I agree we should have won that game but they were there, right? Not settling, but you can't say it wasn't a reasonably good tourney, can you?
posted via volnation mobile
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105?
 
#595
#595
He said we hadn't had anything close to a reasonably good tourney, I was saying 105 good minutes VS 15 bad and 2 wins to 1 loss isn't "bad". Again I'm not happy they couldn't close, they should have, but to say it wasn't a reasonably good tourney is a stretch. No?
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#597
#597
Don't get caught up on 5 minutes. Wasn't a 5 min stretch, but a couple plays here and there rounded up, ill change it, 100-20.....now back to the issue, would the stated tournament performance be considered reasonabllee good=)?
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#598
#598
How many kids are in the league off that Thad squad? I know of 2.5. (Yes I know Oldnees is hurt)
How many off our squad? Oh Ok
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#599
#599
Orangekush423 said:
How many kids are in the league off that Thad squad? I know of 2.5. (Yes I know Oldnees is hurt)
How many off our squad? Oh Ok
Posted via VolNation Mobile
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Remind me of the NBAers on Knight's last title team? How about Izzo's last team?

Excuses suck.
 
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