Zags squeak by Gaels

The TSF has been on hiatus due to emotional trauma resulting from a manic Zags' season of soaring heights and pitifully desperate lows, and a team mired in a confidence and identity crisis.

The Zags are fresh off the heels of a near meltdown in Moraga, luckily winning in spite of horrific free-throw shooting. They basically choked, and are beyond fortunate to remain undefeated in the WCC. TSF argues, and many will likely disagree, that with a healthy Patty Mills, the Gaels would have taken both games. The Gaels' inside combo of Sanham (the Gaels' incumbent douche /slash/ turd) and Simpson dominate the Zags on the boards, and when they have a healthy Mills, they easily match the Zags talent and crush them in hustle points. To give the Bulldogs credit, they did manage to pull out a tough one on the road over a great team, in spite of the fact they got absolutely embarrassed by Memphis on national television on Sunday.

The tragedy of the Zags failures against Memphis are too great to discuss and their successes against St. Mary's (injured Patty Mills), San Diego (injured Brandon Johnson) and Portland (best player a Raivio) are too meek to mention. The Zags have a long way to go if they want to make it deep into the tourney. Their confidence is rattled, and none of the WCC teams are going to provide the kind of game that gives the Zags the confidence that they can finish off good teams.

Perhaps the most frustrating /slash/ enraging thing about this season, is that for the first time ever, no one is questioning the Zags talent. It's their heart and confidence that is in question, and that goes against the very definition of what it means to be a Zag. TSF could get into some specifics like Austin's ever present pouty-face and Pargo's utter lack of confidence, but TSF thinks that there isn't merit in pointing out individual performances when this is a team game we're talking about. Therefore the changes that need to be made, need to come from the ground up, the team as a whole needs to refocus, retool and redefine themselves. That's no short order, but the Zags have the talent and discipline to pull it off. Let's just hope they can get it together by March.

Go Zags.