Why Pat Knight's rant lost me early

Pat Knight might be right. Heck, he's most likely right. He sure as hell knows his Lamar team better than I do.

Yes, it's true ... I haven't caught a Cardinals game this year. Been busy living.

But I did take the time to watch Knight's now somewhat-viral (not Mike Gundy viral, mind you) 8-minute, 47-second rant against Lamar's seniors after losing a game Thursday night. How Knight managed to rage on for that time period, to me, is more impressive than what he said.

Because he lost me in the first 2 minutes. Here's why:

In the first 45 seconds, Knight mentioned it was an attitude problem, but then went into a full minute of discussing his players' shooting performances. He picked up the box score: "Miles 2-for-11. Lamb 3-for-9. James 6-for-22 and two of those were gimmes at the end ... Davis 3-for-8. Harper 0-for-8..."

What?

Now any smart basketball mind knows that regardless of a team's attitude or mindset on the court, there are days when shots rain through the basket and there are days when shots simply refuse to be sucked down that circular rim.

Knight talked about his team getting open shots. That's good! That's all any coach can ask for! If your team is executing its offense well enough to generate open shots and, as Knight said, take 20 more field goals than your opponent, that's a really good thing.

Sometimes the shots just don't fall!

I continued to listen to the rest of the rant, the juicier stuff that Knight would never get away with saying at a big university, about how his players would end up homeless if dumped into the real world, about how they had drug problems. And I'm not saying it isn't true. I don't know Lamar basketball. I'm sure nobody in the world knows Lamar basketball better than Pat Knight right now.

But when I think back to the rant, I immediately settle on those first 2 minutes, which came after Knight said he wasn't going to talk X's and O's.

Criticize your players for lack of hustle, coach. Pin them to their lockers for poor defense or missed box outs. But don't go all Gundy on them because they missed shots. That's just a part of basketball.

Even at Lamar University.