You can't get something for nothing.

If you want to see how we’ve been able to mitigate Festus’ absence, look at how we did last season in our last several losses when Festus was sitting on the bench:

Home against Arkansas we were outscored 27-13 with Ezeli on the bench (11 point loss)
At UF we were outscored 27 to 34 while he sat, mainly due to foul trouble (4 point loss).
Against UT at home we were outscored 32-26 (9 point loss).
UK on the road we were even 8-8 (2 point loss)
UF at home we get outscored 30-11 (10 point loss).
UF in the SEC tournament we are outscored 38-16 (11 point loss).
And finally, against Richmond we are outscored 19-6 (3 point loss).

Basically, at the end of last season we were, for the most part, getting dominated against good teams whenever Festus had to sit due to foul issues or rest – absolutely dominated. This season, We’ve done a good job of mitigating our issues offensively and defensively without Festus to the point where we are no longer getting blown out. Now some of this was because other starters were also sitting, but given that John, Jeff and Brad were playing almost every minute of every game at the end of the season, this does seem to underscore Festus’ importance and what a difficult time were we likely to have in his absence.

Looking at FT% at this point is going to give you a skewed picture, especially since we are shooting a considerably lower number of FT’s per game.

Tinsley has been for the most part as good as he was last season, when considering games where he’s been under a similar amount of pressure. Jenkins has been much, much better defensively that he was last season, and Steve can actually move and rebound this season. Lance is clearly improved in his consistency, and Jeff has passed, rebounded and shot better from inside the three point line.

But the idea that somehow most of our players look worse, while we’re missing our best player, and we’re pretty much playing the same as we did last year is very counter-intuitive. If we were as bad as you think, we would be getting blown out right now, as we generally were when Festus was not on the floor.

Brad played pretty well last night – Louisville’s pressure was more relentless than what Xavier showed us – Johnson was completely overwhelmed. His shot is a bit off, but he probably benefits more than anybody from Festus’ presence in the paint, because John’s guy never leaves him to help in the double team – it is more than likely Brad’s guy leaving him open to double the post. And Steve has rebounded much better this season, while playing better overall defense while avoiding fouls.

I really don’t see this hour as being particularly dark. Our schedule has had only one team that wasn’t really capable of beating us – everybody else has been a top 100 type team – we’ve been adjusting through playing without Ezeli, which we did very poorly last season. This is something that we were going to have to go through at some point anyway. It just looks worse because we haven’t been winning games that we could have.

Have you actually watched Fuller this season? He’s regressed pretty badly, to the point where he is playing with zero confidence – it isn’t just Xavier (though that was the low point) – we’ve been outscored in every game when he’s been on the court with the exception of Monmouth. What are you getting from him at this point?

I find it funny how CKS gets criticied for playing Fuller, then not playing Fuller, then how he played Fuller. He’s likely attempting to give his kids playing time to see how they react, because they need to develop. But based on his play of the first 7 games, Fuller absence was completely unsurprising.