Dane Pound

Let's hopefully turn the page from Wednesday night. SFU is 2-3 with losses to Texas, Lehigh and American. Wins over Maryland Eastern Shore and a 17 point win over Navy. Game notes and a link to video.

Joe Cremo's Scotia team will be playing Ogdensburg Free Academy tonight at 7 PM. OFA is generally one of the better teams in the state and last year Scotia was the best team in the state.

So here's hoping it was just a BAD day. I hope so too. One telling moment in that game was when we forced an HC player under the basket on a drive. He took a crazy shot that hit the bottom of the backboard and then bounced right into the hands of an HC player under the hoop.

From the TU blog, CB thought about having a midnight practice after last night's game.

This game reminded me of the Colgate game last year when they came in and shot about 70% from three. The difference is Holy Cross is a lot better than Colgate was. I agree about Baker. He had a really bad shooting night but at least gave us an emotional lift in the second half and played with some fire.

One thing that wasn't mentioned before is that HC hasn't been a great rebounding team so far this year. We've been OK in that department considering we don't have great size in the front court. The UNLV game was an exception and probably our most disjointed effort so far this year. Something that has driven me slightly crazy this year. Ray Sanders driving into the lane and trying to hit a long finger roll from five or six feet from the basket. Seems like he's done it a bunch of times this year. One of the only complaints about him so far this year.

Game notes for the Holy Cross game are up. They are forcing opponents into 20 turnovers a game and began the year by knocking off Harvard who was ranked #25 at the time. They have a pregame thread about us on their board.

They shot 42% or so from three but you're right, it felt like more than that. Maybe it was because we would just crawl back into it when they would can another one.

I didn't think Sam took that many bad shots in the first half. He's a big part of our offense and he's going to attack. I thought Ray Sanders looked really out of sorts in the first half. Like he was doing everything too fast. UNLV gave us every chance to crawl back into at the end of the half and we didn't make it happen.

I think they lost a lot of scoring from last year but had the 5th ranked recruiting class nationally to make up for it. We are going to have our work cut out for us.

I certainly don't know the whole story but it's been a soap opera every year he's been there. He's been a nice player for them but also a big distraction.

Not a thing of beauty but I'll take a workman-like win. You can tell Colgate starts four senors and a junior - they run their offense really well. Our starters looked OK defending against it but the bench seemed to struggle. Agree with Click about the free throws. Especially since it was Peter Hooley who is usually money from the line. Dallas came in to settle things down a little. Four starters with double digit points and Mike Rowley with 9, Sam with a double-double.

I've thought Hooley has forced it a bit sometimes in the first three games also. Defenses are keying on Rowley and Hooley because they're our established scorers and they'll have to adjust to it. On the other hand, I'd like Mike Rowley to be a little more aggressive. I'd like to see the MR version we saw in the P+G game. Overall, we have 8 guys getting double digit minutes and 4 of them are new to our team, including the PG. It's going to take some time to sort the roles out and we're probably going to look a little ragged sometimes in the process.

Story on Greg Stire on the TU blog.

Nice win by Hartford tonight over the Q despite not getting much scoring from Nwakamma. The Q owned the boards but shot 0-15 from three tonight.

Providence won the Tip-Off Classic today beating Notre Dame. They demolished Florida State by 25 earlier.

Bump

Have to say, hats off to the athletic department for the video highlights this year. I don't remember that being a regular feature last year. Nice addition.

Great way for the senior class to go out. Winning the rivalry game with the Brook and our first home CAA win as someone else pointed out tonight.

Frustrating loss because we hurt ourselves so many times late in the game. Credit though to Q, they are a tough well-coached team and Drame was better than I remember. I thought both of our bench bigs played pretty well - Stire and Peters against a good front court. I'm hoping Peters comes along a little each game. During crunch time Q did what winning teams need to do and we didn't. They executed their offense and hit free throws. We were a little selfish a couple of times late in the game, didn't work for good shots and of course, missed free throws. Ray Saunders has to stay out on the floor. That was the second straight game he's fouled out, granted he had a tough assignment tonight agains Hearst.

A good test coming on Saturday night. Game notes are up. Also, a story on the TU blog about the Q's frontcourt.

That's exactly who I thought of after that dunk last night. Kind of funny since Tim Ambrose was at the game last night. Kind of a rough home debut for Ray Saunders with the foul trouble. He looked much better against Providence that he did last night. The only really question I have when I watch this team is defending the interior. We don't have a lot of size or shot blocking unless Peters starts to get more minutes. Saturday will be a good test for this. Q has a good big guy.

The play that was forgotten because of the Wheeler Baker dunk was the Singletary play where he layed the ball up, then sprinted to the other end of the floor and blocked a shot on a fast break into the front row. Tough shooting night for him but he did everything else - rebounds, steals and assists. At times we were a little ragged on offense. Sometimes a little too unselfish but that will hopefully get ironed out. There's a lot of new pieces.

Game notes for NJIT are up. The Highlanders were a winner over Maine on Monday night. After going down there to watch them last year, their coach Jim Engles has done a nice job with his team. They have no conference affiliation and their facilities are pretty awful but they are a decent team and their PG is a good player. That said, they start an even smaller lineup that we do. Hopefully the Rowleys can have a big night in this game.