Frustrated but hopeful

[GemParty]

Doing some reflection on the loss from earlier this morning. Golden opportunity that slipped away several times. Knocking off two top 20 teams within 7 days would’ve felt great.

Feels similar to the 6 OT Cuse lose. It was an exciting well played game, in retrospect, that just ended badly. It could be a springboard to the future. That year it was.

At 1am, I was thinking the same as many of you. Why? How many times will we drive too deep and get stuffed? I had a headache from all the foul calls. The final Whaley one was ridiculous. How did Marshall, drop that deep 3? That was a gift. We get that rebound and probably wrap up a win. Just needed a few more bounces and a few better decisions to pull it out.

Polley’s two off balance threes were a thing of beauty. AG at the free throw line, helped keep us close, for all his shortcomings, he shoots 65% but was cool at the stripe. I want the kid to succeed so bad! Bouknight appears better than advertised and I had high expectations. He will be hard to keep out of the lineup. Will probably be a 6th man playing starters minutes for as long as he doesn't foul out. A super talent. Relaxed. Confident. Is he more Ben Gordon or Jeremy Lamb? It’s a shame we didn’t get to witness him, take our final shot with 10 seconds left.

The definition of insanity is repeating the same thing time & time again, while expecting a different result. There’s a touch of that on this squad. I believe upperclassman deserve big roles, but we’re looking for our first NCAA tourney in the Vital era. If you're not willing to sacrifice for the good of the team or diversify the late game playbook, you’ll be watching from home in March. Again.

The team is talented and deep. This tourney has shown our young kids all have bright futures. How soon is that future?

 

[browndog319]

Doing some reflection on the loss from earlier this morning. Golden opportunity that slipped away several times. Knocking off two top 20 teams within 7 days would’ve felt great.

Feels similar to the 6 OT Cuse lose. It was an exciting well played game, in retrospect, that just ended badly. It could be a springboard to the future. That year it was.

At 1am, I was thinking the same as many of you. Why? How many times will we drive too deep and get stuffed? I had a headache from all the foul calls. The final Whaley one was ridiculous. How did Marshall, drop that deep 3? That was a gift. We get that rebound and probably wrap up a win. Just needed a few more bounces and a few better decisions to pull it out.

Polley’s two off balance threes were a thing of beauty. AG at the free throw line, helped keep us close, for all his shortcomings, he shoots 65% but was cool at the stripe. I want the kid to succeed so bad! Bouknight appears better than advertised and I had high expectations. He will be hard to keep out of the lineup. Will probably be a 6th man playing starters minutes for as long as he doesn't foul out. A super talent. Relaxed. Confident. Is he more Ben Gordon or Jeremy Lamb? It’s a shame we didn’t get to witness him, take our final shot with 10 seconds left.

The definition of insanity is repeating the same thing time & time again, while expecting a different result. There’s a touch of that on this squad. I believe upperclassman deserve big roles, but we’re looking for our first NCAA tourney in the Vital era. If you're not willing to sacrifice for the good of the team or diversify the late game playbook, you’ll be watching from home in March. Again.

The team is talented and deep. This tourney has shown our young kids all have bright futures. How soon is that future?

Bouk fouled out, sure. But it was a double OT game. Lots of people foul out. It was going to happen. He only played 29 minutes. How he only played 29 minutes and still led our scoring is a head scratcher. In a game like that you use the tools you have and you use the guys who have their offense working - he had it. You don’t let a guy like AG who only had his FT (and he’s only a 65% FT shooter) play the most minutes.
This is some curious game and roster management.

 

[GemParty]

Today’s another day for change.

 

[JustbrewitMan]

Doing some reflection on the loss from earlier this morning. Golden opportunity that slipped away several times. Knocking off two top 20 teams within 7 days would’ve felt great.

Feels similar to the 6 OT Cuse lose. It was an exciting well played game, in retrospect, that just ended badly. It could be a springboard to the future. That year it was.

At 1am, I was thinking the same as many of you. Why? How many times will we drive too deep and get stuffed? I had a headache from all the foul calls. The final Whaley one was ridiculous. How did Marshall, drop that deep 3? That was a gift. We get that rebound and probably wrap up a win. Just needed a few more bounces and a few better decisions to pull it out.

Polley’s two off balance threes were a thing of beauty. AG at the free throw line, helped keep us close, for all his shortcomings, he shoots 65% but was cool at the stripe. I want the kid to succeed so bad! Bouknight appears better than advertised and I had high expectations. He will be hard to keep out of the lineup. Will probably be a 6th man playing starters minutes for as long as he doesn't foul out. A super talent. Relaxed. Confident. Is he more Ben Gordon or Jeremy Lamb? It’s a shame we didn’t get to witness him, take our final shot with 10 seconds left.

The definition of insanity is repeating the same thing time & time again, while expecting a different result. There’s a touch of that on this squad. I believe upperclassman deserve big roles, but we’re looking for our first NCAA tourney in the Vital era. If you're not willing to sacrifice for the good of the team or diversify the late game playbook, you’ll be watching from home in March. Again.

The team is talented and deep. This tourney has shown our young kids all have bright futures. How soon is that future?

Nice post. Share a lot of your sentiments.

Some other important big positives I’ll add:

-it’s be a LONG time since I’ve seen our perimeter D so active and effective. We were a real pain in the arse on their guards most of the 2nd half. Lots of traps and hard nose in your face 1-on-1 D. Same goes for our help D underneath on Jones. Our 2nd half defensive adjustments were EXCELLENT and EFFECTIVE.

-Our press looks well organized and highly effective. Got Xavier into nice corner traps twice in a row in the overtime sessions. I’d love to see us roll that out here & there moreoften at select times in all games...not just when our backs are against the wall

Excited to see us play this afternoon!

 

[80shusky]

Doing some reflection on the loss from earlier this morning. Golden opportunity that slipped away several times. Knocking off two top 20 teams within 7 days would’ve felt great.

Feels similar to the 6 OT Cuse lose. It was an exciting well played game, in retrospect, that just ended badly. It could be a springboard to the future. That year it was.

At 1am, I was thinking the same as many of you. Why? How many times will we drive too deep and get stuffed? I had a headache from all the foul calls. The final Whaley one was ridiculous. How did Marshall, drop that deep 3? That was a gift. We get that rebound and probably wrap up a win. Just needed a few more bounces and a few better decisions to pull it out.

Polley’s two off balance threes were a thing of beauty. AG at the free throw line, helped keep us close, for all his shortcomings, he shoots 65% but was cool at the stripe. I want the kid to succeed so bad! Bouknight appears better than advertised and I had high expectations. He will be hard to keep out of the lineup. Will probably be a 6th man playing starters minutes for as long as he doesn't foul out. A super talent. Relaxed. Confident. Is he more Ben Gordon or Jeremy Lamb? It’s a shame we didn’t get to witness him, take our final shot with 10 seconds left.

The definition of insanity is repeating the same thing time & time again, while expecting a different result. There’s a touch of that on this squad. I believe upperclassman deserve big roles, but we’re looking for our first NCAA tourney in the Vital era. If you're not willing to sacrifice for the good of the team or diversify the late game playbook, you’ll be watching from home in March. Again.

The team is talented and deep. This tourney has shown our young kids all have bright futures. How soon is that future?

The team actually played poorly (other than defensively where they were great) and still stayed in the game despite that. They fought hard, gave great effort and did not give up. If they will just keep playing hard and keep the team in the games and competitive it will be a huge step up from the last few years. Offensively I don't know what is going on.

 

[browndog319]

Nice post. Share a lot of your sentiments.

Some other important big positives I’ll add:

-it’s be a LONG time since I’ve seen our perimeter D so active and effective. We were a real pain in the arse on their guards most of the 2nd half. Lots of traps and hard nose in your face 1-on-1 D. Same goes for our help D underneath on Jones. Our 2nd half defensive adjustments were EXCELLENT and EFFECTIVE.

-Our press looks well organized and highly effective. Got Xavier into nice corner traps twice in a row in the overtime sessions. I’d love to see us roll that out here & there moreoften at select times in all games...not just when our backs are against the wall

Excited to see us play this afternoon!

I keep coming back to the fact that as irritating as this game was for US, Xavier is ranked 18th. THEY blew a 10 point lead at the half and only won by 1 point in double OT...

We might be better than we’re giving ourselves credit for - we have a long way to go, but we have tools and grit. We can hang with the ranked teams. Just because we didn’t win doesn’t necessarily hurt us when selection Sunday comes if we play relatively well in conference.

It may be a point in favor of us, actually. Early season, almost took down a ranked team.

 

[ucawn]

Hopefully the team plays angry knowing they should’ve won and blows Miami out of the water and roll through December undefeated. That’s the hope. Hopefully we work out most of our kinks and flaws when we travel to Fifth Third and take on Cincy.

 

[Ts5034]

Im on the fence about this. Im still frustrated about the game the other night, but still somewhat optimistic about the rest of the season. I think its very important for us to win this game today for a number of reasons. First of all, we need a win for our resume. With todays game vs Miami, we have three more OOC games vs solid competition. Im hoping we can beat Miami and Indiana, then play Villanova tough on the road in January. I think todays game is more important for the teams psyche and confidence. If we win, that would get rid of the bad taste from the Xavier loss.