Well, I guess that title is wholly hyperbolic. I don't think Gillispie's toughness mantra is completely stupid, and toughness wasn't the sole reason we won last night. Still, the blind reliance upon "out-toughing" guys is idiotic.
For instance, Ramon Harris can be as tough as, say, Grrrrreg Paulus (now with extra grr!). It doesn't matter, because he looks like a person surprised by an over-inflated basketball when he dribbles. It never cleanly meets his hand. And to label him a defensive stopper is an insult to Craig Ehlo. Point being, he and Porter can be tough as calculus, they still can't compete with guys like Calathes. Hell, did you seen Greggie try to man up Ty Lawson Wednesday?
As I've mentioned previously in this space, Jay Bilas described what it meant to be a "tough" basketball player in a recent Insider column. Unwittingly or not, he simply described a good, smart player. Like, say, a Nick Calathes or Jodie Meeks. Basically, there's a stark difference between being Allen Iverson "tough" or Jordan "tough" or Kobe "tough" and being Paulus "tough." To be sure, I have zero qualms about continuously using Paulus as my example of a not-tough player.
Despite all my bitching about the absolute vacancy inherent to the terminology, I grant that toughness may have won us the game last night. Conversely, toughness may have had a hand in losing it for Florida, as well. Down the stretch, Parsons and Calathes really choked at the line. There's no other way of saying it. They choked. The new blogger at KSR made a great point (though I don't know if his post is live yet or not, still, I'll share with some of my own embellishments): Dykes talked incessantly about all the "adversity" Calathes has been through. Like, playing for a HS powerhouse or starting every game in your career at UF or having your career in the NBA laid out before you. Sounds like a dream life to me. Point being, as hard as Calathes has probably worked to get where he is, I doubt he's encountered any real "adversity." Until last night, when he stepped to the line with a chance to tie the game in a loud-ass gym full of rednecks, and choked. The point Hunter makes is, yeah, he fought through all this "adversity," until he ran into some actual adversity.
My point is buried somewhere within that paragraph, but you may need a fucking bulldozer to unearth it. Basically, as I sit here and watch Greggie P. and listen Vitale and Patrick verbally fellate him for his hustle, I think of a player like Meeks. Guys can look hardcore with their skinned knees, constant screams urging "let's go!," and dives into the crowd when the ball bounced out of bounds a full second prior to the leap, but are they tough?
Tuesday night, with the game and season on the line, everyone in the Arena knew that UK's only shot to win lay with Meeks. We were down 6, and Patterson was on the bench injured. He hits a three, then drops in a hanger from the elbow, and, as Bick said, willed in a 25 footer that was tipped out of his hands (or so says Calathes) on the way up. I'm not saying a guy like Calathes can't make that play, because he can. I am saying, though, that even with all the shit we've been through with Gillispie, this toughness racket may not be so bad after all. Because, against Florida, Meeks showed that even if he wasn't playing on the same level with Calathes for most of the night, he wasn't going to lose that fucking game.
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