Obviously, winning a national championship every season is not a reasonable expectation, but it should still be the goal. On the other hand, there are programs that have shown that it is possible to win a conference title every season. These should be the goals of every program, every year, regardless of the circumstance. I'm not saying you should fire the staff every year for failing to achieve these. I'm not saying that you shouldn't reflect on the minor successes over the course of the season and celebrate them, but at the end of the day, if you didn't bring home hardware, you failed.
There were fun moments this season. I enjoy looking back on a lot of them, but there are some terrible, terrible moments from this season, as well. Instead of patting ourselves on the back for the things we did right, we need to be focusing on the things that were done wrong and strive to fix them. I hate complacency. I don't see oscar talking about fixing these mistakes. All I see is excuses, finger pointing and celebrating mediocrity.
I hear you, and I get what you're saying about the bolded part, especially outside of this particular story. We know a lot of that is just PR fluff from Schulz, Currie, etc. They're going to pump the PR sunshine no matter what. As far as Kellis' column it was just that, one dudes opinion that K-State overachieved or succeeded this season. Is that what he really thinks?

, but those quotes from oscar weren't really excuses to me. They weren't placed in the story to be excuses either. I took it as they were to show the point that the Cats were returning a lot, including leadership (Gip was the biggest leader on this team, imo) to a talented crew next season.
Again, oscar's quote about fairies and whatever is typical Brucing, and he should fix it. It sounds/ reads ridiculous, even if it was (probably) just an honest answer to a question about finding leadership heading into the NCAA tournament.
I looked back at some old Champaign Gazette article over oscar's 2006-07 (23-12, 9-7) and 2007-08 (16-19, 5-13) squads to gauge his reaction. I ran out of free articles but the summary I got was that after 06-07 there were some of the "tough bounces" comments that easily come off as excuses. The quotes after the 08 season took a lot more responsibility.
"The most disappointing thing, I've always taken pride in being part of programs where the kids make improvement," Weber said Monday. "It's probably one thing we didn't do on a whole, and it's probably why we had our struggles this year."
Then he went on to talk about players (Frazier, etc.) needing to step up as leaders the following year. They did get better the following year. Tying for second in the Big 10 and earning a 5-seed in the NCAA tournament before falling to 12-Seed W. Kentucky in the first round.
I'm not making excuses and don't want to be confused with accepting mediocrity, but I do think K-State fell on the positive side to what was a rebuilding/ transition year. That's just realistic to me. They fall on the NIT side? Then my alarm bells are going of, and it doesn't need to be said a follow up like Illinois' 07-08 squad and Weber's seat is burning up, if not burnt down. That shouldn't be in K-State's cycle, and I hope we don't condone it. The following years of bouncing in and out of the NCAAs every other year isn't good enough for K-State.
I'd be interested in Bread giving an honest account of oscar taking responsibility or blaming throughout his tenure at Illinois. I'm not concerned with the comments other than the awkwardness yet.
Heading into 06-07
http://www.news-gazette.com/sports/illini-sports/mens-basketball/2006-11-01/tate-history-tells-us-patience-usually-pays.htmlAfter 06-07
http://www.news-gazette.com/sports/illini-sports/mens-basketball/2007-03-17/tate-hope-horizon.htmlAfter 06-07
http://www.news-gazette.com/sports/illini-sports/mens-basketball/2007-03-17/illini-unravel-late-difficult-season-comes-end.htmlAfter horrid 07-08
http://www.news-gazette.com/sports/illini-sports/mens-basketball/2008-03-25/weber-points-important-offseason.html