You know what the difference between a good coach and a mediocre coach is? If you have a good coach leading your basketball program, you know every time you go on the road in conference play, you have a shot at winning. Hell, if he is a good coach and you have talent, you go on the road expecting to win conference games. If you have a mediocre coach, you just hope you don't get blown out too badly when you go on the road in conference play. That is where we are as a basketball program at A&M right now: Hoping we don't get blown out too badly when we go on the road to play conference opponents.

The only bright side of our 9-point loss to texas yesterday was the score differential; so far under Turgeon, we've averaged a 20-point deficit in losses in road conference games; losing only 67-58 suggests we're making progress. The problem with looking positively on that stat is the simple fact that this really isn't a good texas team. They don't have a true point guard, they have a very talented player in Damion James, an up-and-coming talent in Gary Johnson, and a bunch of role players on the rest of their roster who really aren't difference makers. Overall, A&M has a more talented team than texas does, but we don't have the coaching to match up with them, and that is disappointing. We let a very winnable game get away from us yesterday, and a big reason for that is because we have a soft coach who doesn't instill fear into his players, and we have a soft team as a result.

I probably wouldn't be so negative if I thought we were a well-coached team, but we're not. We are lacking when it comes to the core fundamentals of the game, like blocking out for rebounds. One thing I will give texas credit for last night, they wanted it more than we did, and it showed on the boards, especially in the second half. They were going up for every rebound, while we were just standing around in the paint. The only person who I saw giving an effort every time was Junior Elonu. Elonu's play highlighted another weak fundamental of our team, though, the ability to handle a trap. texas switched to a trap, utilizing it especially on Elonu after his hot first half, and the result for A&M was a bunch of turnovers. Do we not work on breaking the trap in practice? Judging from the lazy passes out of the trap that texas was able to intercept and turn into fast-break opportunities, it doesn't look like it. We're not even going to go into the fact that I don't think we know how to rn a viable fast-break ourselves. If we get an outlet pass downcourt, the ballhandler just pulls up at the three-point arc and waits for everyone to get downcourt so we can work whatever passes for our half-court offense these days (I still don't see any motion).

These are just more signs of our poor coaching, though: lack of intensity on defense and on the boards, inability to break the trap, lack of a cohesive offensive plan, they're all coaching issues. They are all issues we're dealing with.

We are currently 1-4 in conference play, and 15-5 on the season. We have Texas Tech (home), Oklahoma State (home), Oklahoma (away), Kansas State (home), and Baylor (away) as our next five conference games. We need to go 4-1 in those five games to get to .500 in conference play, and that means we need to win at either OU (not likely) or Baylor (probable), and hold serve at home. I'm just not sure this team and this coach have it in them to pull off that kind of a run. You need a good coach to win on the road against good teams in this conference, and we don't have one.