We need to get ready for a lot more games like bama cause the way we blow 17 and 14 point leads coupled with poor ft shooting means we are going to have a lot of games that come down to a last possesion. Hope we can draw up some better looks toward the end than we did on Saturday.
I think we’ll be ok as soon as the team realizes they cannot get sloppy (on offense or defense) once they have acquired a big lead. We should not have allowed Bama or Rutgers back into the game. If we can learn how to finish we’ll be ok.
Just realize that “okay” means NIT. Okay?
[i]Originally posted by NinerLoudNProud[/i]@Dec 5 2004, 10:23 PM [b] Just realize that "okay" means NIT. Okay? [/b]We're better than NIT-bound and we'll be a strong force in conference play. It's not like we weren't in the two games we lost. We gift wrapped the game to Rutgers by means of abysmal free throw shooting. We did everything in the Bama game except score one more point than they did.
I’m very worried about our free throw shooting and our not-so-consistent defense but there’s a lot of ball left to be played. The Davidson game will say a lot about what kind of team we have, as will the Indiana one. With that said, I do think that that our two losses were a major blow to our resume come seeding time. So if we wind up winning 20 games and still get in the 8/9 game, let’s not all piss and moan as to why we wound up there. It will be because we choked at home Rutgers and failed to grab a quality out-of-conference win against Bama. But I do think we can still be an at-large NCAA Tourney team.
We still CAN be an at-large bid, but these two HOME losses kill. Last year we went on the road and beat Syracuse, we had that win to hang our hat on, as well as wins over Cinci, Louisville, Depaul, Marquette and a share of the CUSA title, and that got us right back in the 8/9 game. We will need to make noise in a big way in conference play to get into the NCAA tourny. We all know we are talented enough that we should be a virual lock for the dance, but it doesn’t matter how talented you are, you can’t keep losing. I think we still have a shot at a good seed, if we win out the OOC schedule, finish in the top 3 CUSA and get to the CUSA tourny finals we could easily be in the 5-7 seed range. But we could just as easily fall against Davidson, Indiana and Santa Clara and end up in the NIT. Hopefully we blast Davidson and let Bama be a building block for the team, not the start of a downward spiral.
Good news is that last night’s game won’t be bad for us because we took a ranked team into 3 OT, the people who pick the Big Dance teams probably weren’t watching and won’t remember the details, come March I don’t think there’s going to be any shame in having taken Alabama into 3 OT’s, they could very well be a Top 15 team by that time(of course a win would have been better, but going for the half full approach here).
I’m not throwing away the season. I’m just saying okay isn’t good enough.
Fortunately we play well in conference traditionally, and match up well with our opposition (save Memphis who will beat us how Alabama did if we don’t smarten up).
But I’m looking ahead. Davidson can beat us how Rutgers and Alabama did if we don’t smarten up.