It was just the hot pocket...

I was pretty concerned for about 30 minutes. We just were not clicking on offense and they were hitting some tough shots. Thank goodness "the Doherty effect" kicked in and SMU return to their regular level of ineptness. While we are solid for the NIT, I am really concerned about getting a road game against a decent team. We do have some road wins, but none are very impressive. I still think getting bounced in the first round of the NIT is better than winning the CBI. All that said, unless we slip up, we should get at least one home game.

I am delighted to see Reese playing well. If you count defense, I think he is the MVP of this team right now. We are REALLY going to miss him next year. I hope we got some great young players in the wings to replace Reese, Jordan and Uzoh.

In other news, I just watched Jerome Randle again. WOW, he might be the best undersized player in the country. If we had him on our team, we are top 15. He is good for 20 points and 5-6 assists every night. So close...

SMU is terrible... so... why does this game scare me?

We played very well against Houston and it looks like we are about to roll thru the rest of the regular season without another loss. So, why does SMU scare me? They are not any good. We only beat them by 9 at home but that game was never really in doubt. Doherty is a terrible coach. We should win by 20. I am not predicting a loss but... dunno, just have an uneasy feeling in my gut. Hopefully it is just that hot pocket I had for a midnight snack...

ECU - A tale of two halves

I got to the game and was elated to see a fairly large crowd, similar to BYU. That elation didnt last long as we started flat. We were not even playing defense well and only hitting 4 late 3's kept us from being down double digits at half. Honestly though, I was not really worried. ECU is not a great team, they have a very good PG, a good shooting guard and a promising young big but overall, they are a .500 type team with ZERO bench. They have one road win since December 3rd (at lowly SMU). We DOMINATED the first 10 minutes of the second half. It was ugly, they had exactly ONE bucket in that span... uno... we had them smothered.

Once again, we were outrebounded... weird. Maybe it was all the bricks they were laying, dunno. One thing is crystal clear to me now. We play a ton better when Ben does not try to play PG. He needs to remove that mindset from his brain. He is a 2 guard who just happens to be handling the ball. Tonight is EXACTLY what we need from him. He took 16 shots and 8 FTs and doled out exactly one assist. PERFECT. I would take 20 shots and no assists from him each and every night. At UCF he had exactly 6 shot attempts and 6 assists and we know how that worked out. He is not a PG, he is a scorer and a player who can handle the ball but he cant run the offense... maybe because we dont really run much of one at times. At any rate, Ben needs to be the MAN, not the PG.

We need to play better to beat Houston but I think we will. If we win out we will likely be #2 for the CUSA tourny, which is as good as anyone predicted. Barring a monumental collapse, we are in the NIT. I just hope we can get hot and make some noise... we'll see.

Some solid melting...

Here we go again, meltdown on ITS. Probably deserved this time but yikes, come on people, from "we are a bubble team" to "fire the coach we suck" is a bit extreme. No bones about it, we blew this game and blew it bad. Worst meltdown since the... cant even talk about it. I had this one marked down as a loss all year, but I had some hope because we were have been playing pretty well and UCF has been terrible the last few games. This is what happens when your best player is out of position. You are wildly inconsistent, especially on the road. Uzoh took a whopping 6 total shots in the UCF loss, 4 of those were 3 pointers. He did manage 8 FTs but we need his official attempts in the 12-15 range.

Our defense really hurt us the last 10 minutes. The officials called it tight and we just could not adjust. Up 13 and fouls mounting would have been a great time to go to a zone in spurts. I am baffled why we dont spring it from time to time. It is perplexing.

The biggest dissappointment of the night, came near the end. We had blown a huge lead and needed a score with around a minute left, I believe we were just down 1 or 2. We come down on offense and.... GET A SHOT CLOCK VIOLATION? Are you freaking kidding me? Wow...

The last play was part fluke and part bad defense. You have to make a guy work harder than that, deny the ball, make him throw a hard pass, etc. The most unfortunate thing about it is that I almost expected it. We have really made poor decisions on the bench in every close game but UAB.

Where does this leave us? I still think we are an NIT team. Even if we lose 2 more games our RPI will be around 80 which would put us on the bubble and with TUs history, and a possible match up with OSU or Arkansas, I believe they would put us in.

If we somehow find a way to miss the NIT, then we need to pass on the CBI. It will be a huge failure this year. There are 1500 people who will care, MAX.

Bubble bursted...

Wow... did we really just make 14 shots while committing 24 turnovers? How does a D1A team turn it over on more than HALF their possessions? I guess we can put that NCAA talk to bed. What a massive disappointment. We had no clue on this one, Woj tried to get creative and go to the bench but there were no answers. They were ALL OVER our press plan, Bishop and Reese bringing the ball up the court are not the answer against a good team.

We are better than last year for sure but we are just not close to being an NCAA caliber team. If by some miracle we win the C-USA tourny (going to take UAB beating Memphis), we will get blasted in the first round by the 8th place Big East team. We are a mid level NIT team which is an improvement but man... what might have been. With one year left of the Jordan/Uzoh era I can only dream of what this year would have been like with McLean at the 4 and any of Clarke/Page/Randle or even Hill for that matter at the 1. We would literally be a sweet 16 team this year and elite 8 next. Instead, with our best talent in 5 years, we have to hope and pray to get a decent enough PG to get us into the tourny next year.

UCF is going to be tough, especially after this. They are not playing well but they generally do well at home. Right now, I think that is probably going to be a loss. I also have a bad feeling we are somehow going to beat Houston at home and find a way to lose one of the remaining roadies. Those of us with NCAA dreams are going to have to wait until next year...

On the roll again...

Sorry for the lack of updates, my baby boy decided to come 3 weeks early, guess he wanted to see the Superbowl.

We are playing very well right now. It is interesting to note that we are not playing traditional Woj basketball. The defense, while tough, is not as intense, it is hard man defense but we are not smothering the perimeter the same way that was leading to back cuts and ball screens. We are also a lot looser and have not rebounded as well but certainly it has been good enough. Hopefully Woj has realized that no matter what you do on defense, rebounding, etc. that in order to win, you MUST outscore your oppposition.

The person that has been helped the most by this is Ray Reese. IMHO he is playing better than anyone on the team when you factor in defense. Hurtt has really blossomed as well and if he can improve on defense and finishing on the offensive end, he can be a real player.

We have won 5 in a row but now have 2 tough road games. Memphis is playing great, that is going to be tough and even though UCF has flat out stunk it up the last 2 games, that wont be easy either. Houston at home is the only other chance for a slip up.

It is fun to talk about being on the NCAA bubble but right now, we are not close. Remember that SMS was left out with an RPI in the low 30s a couple times and I believe the MVC was a top 6 conference as well. If we were to win out I think our RPI would be in the low 40s which would get us on the board at least. People like to point to the Tulane and Ohio games as ones that may keep us out but in fact, there are two WINS that are going to keep us out. UNCC and Loyola are a combined 2-44. If we dont play those games at all we are probably 20 spots higher in the RPI. It is a crap shoot but you just CANNOT schedule these really really terrible teams when your conference is just average. Those are THE two worst teams in the entire nation.

Here's to hoping we win the next 2 so we can all start the RPI watch again. It is fun to even be thinking about it, even as a longshot.