I never told anyone they were failures…. We failed to reach our goal… Yes…. 113 years we have failed to reach the goal which I feel like being the top 8 teams in the country is a huge accomplishment..You can always set goals low enough to where you can feel like a success. Isn’t that what this trophy generation about?
You just said an Elite 8 is a "huge accomplishment."
It is. That's why it cannot be the "expectation." It cannot be both of those things. An expectation by definition cannot be something that is a huge accomplishment.
My boss expects me to be at work on time and work 8 hours. Therefore, being at work on time and working a full 8 hours is not a huge accomplishment. That's the standard.
The floor expectation has to be something that should, by any reasonable condition, be accomplishable. The standard should be a solid result.
And each season can and should be different. If you're a Top 8 seed, it's reasonable to expect a Top 8 finish.
I expect to make the tourney just like my boss expects me on time. A successful season should be a Top 16 seed and/or a Top 16 finish. I expect Barnes to maintain us as a Top 16 program. But if my car blows a tire on the interstate, it's reasonable for my boss to not expect me to be on time.
I personally call a season a success if 1. SEC season title 2. SEC tournament title 3. Sweet 16
The expectation is 1. Top 4 SEC regular season 2. Top 16 seed.
Not all of them have to happen simultaneously. For example, we finished 5th but made the Sweet 16. Still a successful season.
If we were a 1 or 2 seed, I'd move "success" from Sweet 16 to Elite 8.
It's just totally irrational to EXPECT something every year that the program has only accomplished once in 114 seasons.