I believe it is very easy for us, as fans, to under-estimate the impact that the storm had on our performance in this game. Being the home team, and not having to worry about travel delays, was big. TT had a huge, built-in, advantage in this one. If I am not mistaken, our flight out of Richmond was delayed, just the night before the big game. More importantly, I had counted both TJ and Pistol "out" of this game, in projected performance, largely because they probably got almost no sleep. Sure, you can say that these are just excuses, but I do believe they are also important factors, and I do believe they influenced the outcome. TJ's 7 turnovers would not have happened if he had arrived in Lubbock at 4 PM on the day before the game. Even super-athletes, like our guys, are not immune to stress associated with travel delays, and no one, even the pros, are immune to playing poorly after not sleeping well. I was hoping this game would not be played, because it looked to me as though we were set up to lose. This game reminded me of the Florida game, where external conditions (travel-related) totally took us out of our game.
You can call these excuses. I call them very reasonable explanations. We came back with a vengeance after the Florida debacle/loss. Let's hope we can do the same on Saturday, with or without our leader, SDJ.