Dane Pound

I'm late to this party but great win tonight. Singletary and Hooley seem to be gelling in the backcourt. Singletary's quote: “If you don’t want to take the big shot, why play?”

Not that this makes me happy about the SFU loss but they beat Rutgers today at Rugers. They also beat Duquesne by 15 the other day.

As we know, winning in Patrick Gym isn't easy. Yale has been terrific in their defense this year. Other than Florida they really haven't let anyone put up points on them. They are 9-3 and their wins haven't been against cupcakes. Wins over Vermont, Hartford, Lafette, Kent State, Southern Illinois and UConn are all really good - great wins.

I'm a big Dallas fan also but he's not really a guy who's going to create his own shot off the dribble on a regular basis. I took his performance in this game as a positive sign for our offense. We moved the ball a lot better and got shooters much better shots than they've taken through the first group of games. If we can get some catch and shoot looks for Dallas and Wheeler Baker coming off the bench we're going to be a much better shooting team than when guys are taking long range shots off the dribble.

Nothing against the Cole kid, I don't know the situation and am not super interested. In watching them a couple times this year I have wonder why Patsos favored him over Ryan Oliver who has played really well and can shoot from the outside.

A couple of thoughts about last night that I didn't want to get mixed in with the contract stuff: -Probably the best we've looked offensively since the Providence game. Hitting shots helped but we were a lot more patient than we've been the past few games. -Singletary shot the ball in mostly off passes instead of off the dribble like he'd been doing. He also was the truth from the line. There was a story about the "Battle of Baltimore" element in today's TU about he and Wright both being from the same city. Wright had a great game also and is a heck of a point guard. -Sam. Like most of the great players we have here, sometimes gets taken for granted and we only notice the mistakes. Not his biggest scoring night but probably his biggest impact. Was patient, didn't force and passed out of situations that weren't available. -Big Game Pete. Did what he does when the lights are shining bright. Extra credit for popping the jersey at the end of the game. -Ray Sanders. There have been times when I've thought CB might sub him out of the starting lineup but I'm glad he's stuck with him. Still way too many turnovers but I think we've only scratched the surface of what he can do. -Dallas was exactly what we need coming off the bench. If he and Wheeler Baker can give us some shooting and solid play we are going to be fun to watch. Also, has Coach Iait taught Baker that running one hander or did he bring it from Minnesota with him? I had flashbacks. Hopefully this was a corner turned last night. We have some long weeks between games where we can hopefully improve incrementally.

So I take it you didn't enjoy listening to the announcer take 90 second to say "basket by RRRRRRRobbbiiieeee Poooleeeee!"

I'm not in favor of two games either. We have a hard enough time agreeing on one date a year without listening to some bellyaching. The Union-RPI games are not a good comparison. They play multiple times in part because they're conference games. As much as I'd like this game as Sefcu I'm not sure it will happen. Honestly, UAlbany hosting some games at the TUC seems like the next logical progression in our evolution. I don't know if that's 2 years away or 10 years away but we might as well start by hosting some games in this series at the TUC.

Maybe. I thought some of our problem had been that we hadn't been practicing. Since the Colgate game we've been travelling all over the country. I thought the week of practice we had leading up to this game helped a ton. We made much better decisions on offense that we had been doing. I thought Sam Rowley took fewer shots that usual tonight but contributed more. 11 points, 8 rebounds, three assists, 2 blocks and NO TURNOVERS. Great effort in a much more balanced attached than we've seen through the first few games.

The night started off pretty scary. I thought the women looked a little hung over from the Marist game.

It helps that outside of Poole, they aren't a very good three point shooting team. It didn't help that he didn't have a good night shooting the ball. Really, they don't have a consistent outside shooter who can also drive the ball and we have a couple of those guys.

Interesting take considering we have nine new players and really just one senior in the playing rotation. This is going to be a good game for quite a while (if the series continues!)

This has been beat to death but I don't think a "home and home" series with Siena would have to take place at Sefcu. We could rent the TUC for a home game the same way we did against Syracuse a few years ago. Honestly I'd prefer this to be a stand-alone game at the TUC. Not part of anyone's season ticket package. Split the arena in half with a UA and Siena side. Both programs would make a little more money that way.

I saw that Hartford knocked off Penn State last night also.

I liked those guys. Reminded me of the Red Green Show.

What did the announcer say i had the game on mute the last 10 min Early in the game he said that Hooley was dealing with a sick mother back home who has cancer. That was the story last year. Either he doesn't know that she beat it or he got some word before the game from the Albany staff that it is back and we don't know about it. Seeing how much of an idiot the guy was I believe the former and not the latter. Considering that he was raving much of the game and somehow combined Evan Singletary's bio with DJ Evan's bio into Singletary I don't believe much of what he said. To be perfectly honest, I'm not comfortable debating the health of someone's mother on a message board anyway.

The last I heard he was having back issues. He's been at games.

Disappointed with this loss. Especially when we had two or three good chances to win it in the closing minutes. To me, Peter Hooley is at his best as part of an ensemble scoring unit, not as a guy who needs to go out and score 20 a game. Wheeler Baker seems very comfortable being a guy who goes out to score 20 a game. The sooner we develop other options the better we'll be. I'm willing to cut Singletary more slack. Stepping into the PG is a tough spot and if nothing else, he's show no fear at the end of games to take big shots.

The announcer adds an extra level of suspense. Is he going to whisper...shout like a maniac...no one knows. Did Peters get in foul trouble? Seems like he sat a long stretch of that half. We looked lousy once Sam sat.

Click on the Livestream logo. It's been better.

Bucknell seems as disjointed as we are right now. They lost to Columbia 23 the other day. Good news about this game (maybe) is that it's on the Patriot League network. Bucknell message board.

I'm not as worried about the center position as you guys. Considering we've given up 68% three point shooting to Holy Cross and 55% to SFU today. We are lost a lot of times of defense as those numbers suggest. Several times in the second half we got switched on screens and had two guys guarding one and no one guarding the other guy. Our half court offense isn't much better except for Sam grinding out points on post ups. Individually I like our players but we haven't looked cohesive yet at all.

We look so obviously confused on perimeter defense.

Cremo dropped a cool 32 on OFA...no big whoop! Not exactly the showdown I made it out to be!

Knocked off UConn tonight on a big shot in the closing seconds. Wow! UConn won one of those postseason tournaments last year, not sure which one. Exciting win for Yale. Not such great news for us as we play them in two weeks.