using time outs

[statefan]

Maybe I should sub-title "i'll be the villain". I just had lunch with a friend who I consider to be a very knowledgable hoop guy, and who has no local affiliation. He's actually a Philadelphia guy. He loves hoop and goes to at least two games a week between high school, Siena, UAlbany and St Rose. This was his dirct quote "that was the worst 5 minutes of coaching I've seen in a long time".

 

Now, I don't think he meant it literally, but I think the point is worthy of discussion. Several season ticket holders in my section voiced the same concern last night. Why not call as many time outs as it take to stop the kind of run Vermont made from roughly 17:30 left in the second half til roughly 12:30 left? One fan in my row constantly recalls the circumstances of last year's Wagner game, where we ran out to a huge first half lead and Mike Deane (and I think everyone knows, the last thing I would ever do is give him any credit) called 3 time outs in about 4 minutes of playing time until our run came to an end. Believe me, I understand the counter-argument of preserving them til the end of the game, but (and this is clearly monday morning QBing) last night the game was lost by then, and to Vermont's credit, they ran inbound plays off our time outs where we had to foul either Sorrentine or Coppenrath.

 

I heard the question a lot last night and was surprised no one brought it up here.

 

Now, a few other points in response to other strings relating to last night.

 

1. The atmosphere was electric. The community supported us big time. The difference in attendance was all community support. The students (not the Rowdies) failed us miserably. Please don't tell me that students would have come to the game but went to see Siena Monologues. I'm at a loss here; and I'm all out of excuses for the students; they had an opportunity to participate in the excitement on BPG; the opponent was a known quality; the student population wasn't all out drinking at WTs at 7 PM on a Wednesday night. I wish someone had the answer.

 

2. The Rowdies. I love the Rowdies, the flag guy, the relationship between players, coaches, the athletic dept and the Rowdies. Let me say one thing to the Rowdies - when you show up on ESPN next week, it's going to be embarassing because they're going to show you prematurely chanting "overrated" and Vermont's asnwer.

 

3. Ettkin. I am a person who goes on first impressions. My first impression was to hate this guy for his column following the 2003 Albany-Siena game. I thought the whole bruhaha regarding use of the words "backwood freak" was absurd and almost felt bad for him. But, his column today was GREAT. The picture he conveyed of Levi, with his head down being upset at losing when some thought it was good enough to be competative, will stick with me for a long time.

 

4. Officiating. I don't think officiating cost us the game. To the contrary, at half time I felt the manner the game was officiated was to our benefit. It was basically a "let em play" kind of game and Zoellner used it to our advantage in the way he played Coppenrath. The only part that puzzled me a little was that in a game where almost nothing was being called, I thought Jamar gave Sorrentine too much room. I do understand that Jamar needs to be careful and that when he has to sit for long periods our chances of winning diminish exponentially, but I thought last night he could have taken more risks (I guess I'm always stuck in my mind of three years ago when we played them box and one and Opong, with a little help from Antoine Johnson played Sorrentine like a blanket and frustrated the heck out of him).

 

I hope this doesn't come off as too negative because that's really not how I'm feeling. I like how we're progressing. The atmosphere last night reminded me a lot of some of the packed houses we would have in the D-3 days primarily against the Jerry Welsh Potsdam teams. The emotion is half the fun.

 

On last thing, stated by a Hall of Fame room regular - if Siena wins the rest of their games, sweeps the MAAC tournament, wins the NCAA play-in game and the NCAA title, they still won't be .500.

[AlbanyObserver]

Here is my reaction to your statements:

 

1) Coaches have different philosophies on using timeouts. Some use timeouts when the other team goes on a run. Others don't like to use them during those runs because they want their team to fight through the momentum swing. I never wondered why Will wasn't calling timeouts last night. It wasn't an issue to me.

 

2) Building student interest isn't going to occur overnight like some of you think or want to happen. I think we need to be extremely happy with the formation of the RACC Rowdies and build on this for the years to come. As long as the north and south endzones are full of students, we should be thrilled. That has been the case for the past three games.

 

3) Speaking of media, did you see John Spadafora from Channel 10 on press row??? Wow, I didn't realize we had a fifth news station in town. That station's sports department is worthless in my book. If anyone is pro-Siena, it's them. We shouldn't even allow them in our building. Dan Murphy is a joke. Who cares what garbage comes out of his mouth.

[Classof72/74]

 

2) Building student interest isn't going to occur overnight like some of you think or want to happen. I think we need to be extremely happy with the formation of the RACC Rowdies and build on this for the years to come.

As long as the north and south endzones are full of students, we should be thrilled. That has been the case for the past three games.

 

 

I think the North stands were predominantly non-students, though there were some student groups present.

 

Overcoming student apathy is an age-old problem, and so far no one has found an enduring solution :-(

 

OTOH if that kind of community support would turn out on a consistent basis you'd hardly notice the lack of student numbers.

 

Also worth noting was that TV coverage did NOT seem to hurt last nigth's attendance; it would be interesting to hear whether Time-Warner has any Nielsen-like analysis of viewership for the TW3 broadcast.

[UA66]

State Fan, I have to agree with much of what you had to say. However, I'm not going to second guess on the timeout situation.

 

I felt that we played two different types of ballgames in the first half and second half. We challenged UVM with every move in the first half and played them hard physically. The officials were letting both teams play and a lot of rough stuff was overlooked. It definitely worked to our advantage, and was particularly helpful to Zo who made some very agressive moves to the hoop, pushing through the defender(s). To be trite for a moment, we took the game to them. I could see from the effort that Sorenstine was putting out and the expression on his face that he was getting frustrated and was expending a lot of energy - he did throw up some bricks in that half.

Right from the getgo in the second half, I sensed a different demeanor on our part, we seemed to be letting Vermont bring the game to us. We didn't attack them on defense with the same intensity nor push the ball into Zo on offense to the same extent. I was asking myself in the first few minutes of the second half if we thought we could coast the rest of the game and play them even and walk a way with a win, or did we just run of steam. As far as Sorenstine was concerned, after he put in the first two threes, pretty much uncontested, the expession on his faced changed completely. He looked confident and even pumped his fist after making some shots. At that point he took over the game. Perhaps we should have called timeouts. I don't know, but I feel that the difference in the game was the change in our demeanor after halftime. This gets back to the immaturity and level of mental toughness of this team that was discussed in earlier threads.

 

Having said that, though I was disappointed that we couldn't pull off the win, I left the RACC feeling optimistic with the progress that this team has made. Next year everyone will be a year older and probably wiser (I think the two freshman have the court savvy to become much wiser.) There are some very good times ahead. We, the fans, maybe should be more patient and just enjoy the growth this program is experiencing.

 

The officiating was not a factor in the outcome. I didn't like all the calls but thought it was balanced.

 

How about that save made by Brent Wilson, tumbling over the bench seats and destroying the water cooler and still somehow flipping the ball backwards inbounds to one of our guys which led to a basket. Reminded me of Derek Jeter diving into the stands last summer. That had to be the outstanding play of the game.

 

Re student attendance, as with you State Fan, I don't get it. Are UA students on apathy pills? Perhaps students - with the exception of official RACC Rowdie members - should be charged admission. (Yes, I know they probably pay an athletic fee of some sort but it is out of sight out of mind.) Perhaps the principle that you get what you pay for is at work here in the minds of students. If they had to pay to get in they may feel that there is really something of value here to see. It would be worth a try. What the hell, they're not coming now anyway. I can only conclude that the immediate future of support for UA athletics is going to rest on the general Albany community, alumni, and a small group of committed and rabid students such as the RACC Rowdies. However, as someone pointed out in another thread, take away the noise and enthusiasm of the Rowdies from the mid-point of the second half and all you would have heard was the cheering from the contingent of Vermont fans, including those pains in the ***** sitting behind me last night. It's great to have the community support but they don't get as enthusiastic as students typically do.

[Patch]

statefan

 

Is the glass half empty or is the glass half full.

 

Hind sight is much better than foresight.

 

I too was looking for an earlier time out but I guess Coach felt like his team was going to weather the storm.

 

On the other end if Levi and "Q" had hit their 12' wide open jumpers in the lane near the end and we had no time outs left your buddy would have probably said Coach should always save his TOs.

 

All of us - who are true spectators - have never lost a game from our seats in the stands. When it comes to real coaching the guy on the floor has to go by his gut feeling and sometimes TOs come quick and sometimes they don't.

 

"that was the worst 5 minutes of coaching I've seen in a long time". - statefan's friend

 

What was his quote for the first 20 minutes???

 

Hey everyone is allowed their opinion and I have alot of friends- like it seems you do - who are the "Real Experts".

Edited February 18, 2005 by Patch

[McFan]

Again, no defending the students, there should be at least 2,000 at every game, but there are at least 5 times more students this year than last. I was with two guys that I went to school with in the late 80's early 90's and we were discussing how many games we went to when they were DIII. It helped that they were a very good team and as fellow athletes we had training room acquaintance level relationships with some of the guys on the team, but it really came down to we were basketball fans.

 

The other issue that is brought up that I think does play a part (not the Siena monologue) is cable TV in the dorms. I still would have went to games but I know some who would rather watch ACC, SEC, and Big 10/12 rather than mid/low DI. Winning and turning it into mid DI will certainly help.

 

Just my$.02

[alumni '92']

Speaking of media, did you see John Spadafora from Channel 10 on press row??? Wow, I didn't realize we had a fifth news station in town. That station's sports department is worthless in my book. If anyone is pro-Siena, it's them. We shouldn't even allow them in our building. Dan Murphy is a joke. Who cares what garbage comes out of his mouth.-AlbanyObserver

you've got it, i've posted a number of times on the bias over at CH. 10 ... Dan Murphy won't know what to do if UA continues to grow and there is no return to glory for siena ... what a joke over in that sports dept. ... great hustle exhibited by Brent Wilson ... time, improvement to the athletic infrastructure, success on other fields/courts, RACC Rowdies, and a NCAA tournament appearance in 2006 will be the solution to student apathy

[Big D]

The first half was a glimpse of next year. The second half was the better team asserting itself. Remember, though, that after the 23-2 run, we came back to tie it at 55 with 7 minutes to go. Sorrentine is a great player at the AE level. Schneider is not. His 8 points during the run killed us.

 

On timeouts, I think Brown called one at 43-37. There may have been another tv timeout in between.

 

In my view, the bigger problem was the lack of offensive. Some credit must be given to the UVM defensive effort, but Danes could not deal with the UVM switch to zone in the 2d half. If Lucious doesn't hit a couple of threes with a hand in his face, it could have been a 15 point loss.

 

I thought the atmosphere in the RACC was great. Student turnout has always been a problem at UA. One theory is that most students are from downstate, and were raised on pro sports, so they're only interested inpro games and/or "big time" college events. I think next year will be a good test, especially if Danes are the team to beat. It could be alot worse (see BU attendance vs. Stony Brook).

[DaneFan2k3]

I think we need to be extremely happy with the formation of the RACC Rowdies and build on this for the years to come.

 

Unfortunately you could have written the same thing about the Private Pound a few years back, then watching it fade away with graduations.

 

It's the building that has always been the problem.

 

At some point you have to just turn this into a pro-style team. Forget that it's even college athletics and tell the students to go pound salt.

 

Albany isn't at that point yet, but it could reach it if the students don't come around.

 

We may have to be satisfied with a stable amount of 500 students per game and fill in with community members. Which would be sad, but making lemonade out of lemons.

[reeder]

I think the RACC rowdies have done a great job. I listened to the game last night and at times it was hard to hear the announcers because of the background noise - huge contrast compared to prior years.

 

That said, i don't believe you can build a fan base based on student support. You get a loyal base of students to follow the team, the team performs well, community interest increases and you have improved attendance.

 

The administration must work on selling the programs to the kids during orientation and during other campus activities.

 

You can't make kids go the game - get the RACC rowdies and a good core group and let the team continue winning. Everything else will work itself out.

[Big D]

Agree with Great Dane. The key is to have a critical mass of students. They set the tone and create the energy. The rest of the crowd (and the team) can feed off that energy.

 

Duke is considered one of the great college hoop atmospheres, but for most games, the "Cameron Crazies" represent maybe 1000 out of the 9000 in the building.

[AlbanyObserver]

DaneFan2k3 -

 

I understand your example of the Private Pound comparison. Yes, these student groups fluctuate every year based on graduations. But, I see the RACC Rowdies as different and unique. The Private Pound existed when the program was in shambles -- 5 wins per year and no conference affliation. Things are different now. We have a winning product. One that will compete for a serious NCAA berth next year. Will Brown acknowledges their support. Charlie Voelker caters to their needs. It wasn't like this three years ago. People are communicating.

[GODANESGO]

This thread seems to be very student attendence/RACC Rowdies orientated so I want to chime in with posts that got my attention:

 

First, I wouldnt be at at least 75% of these games if I had to pay to get in. ALL students do pay an athletic fee (somewhere in the hundreds of dollars per semester if I'm correct) and at this stage of early DI play, students deserve to get what they pay for. You already have evnough students who don't give a crap about ANY sport (let alone their school's low-mid major college program) and think it is RIDICULOUS that they have required to pay for it. I pay for all of school myself...my tuition, rooming, meal plan, books, social life, etc. I in no way could affoard to drop at least $7 a game to watch a team that I even love dearly. So making students pay, ESPECIALLY in the short term, would be simply disasterous in attempting students to go to games.

 

Second, student apathy..there's a ton of it. But, whether it helps the arguement or not, it runs rampant all across campus for just about EVERYTHING. The fact that we can regularly get a good 200-500 students to come to every game, let alone any event on campus, if pretty impressive considering the fact the free pizza and pop isn't given out at every game to every student (as most student group meetings do have). This comes from a person who is very active on campus and is a member of the Student Association, so I would like to think I have pretty first hand knowledge of the situation..lol. I'm also dumbfounded by the thought that we should easily have 2,000 students at every game. Like one poster said, I bet student attendence at most major DI schools isn't even comparable to that. Attendence is really, for the most part, boosted by community fans support.

 

Third, the future of the RACC Rowdies. Wow, I can't believe its potential downfall is already being talked about by some people. Remember, this is an idea that was generated on this board and pitched in Charlie 3 weeks ago! The fact that we are already getting this much press and attention amazes (and throughly impresses) me. It was started 3 quarters of the way through the season and FULLY dependent on outside support for funding supplies, etc. I was worried about getting the 25 that Charlie wanted for the original SBU game and now were getting approx. 100 to sit with us and be louder than I've ever heard a group of UAlbany students be at a given time. Let us grow before saying our future is doomed! And yes, I'm probably going to be a bit embarassed when/if ESPN shows us chanting "overrated" right before the UVM comeback. But we don't chant and cheer based on what we think might burn us in the future. We're 12-12 so we'd be burned 50% of the time if we were that cautious.

 

Sorry for the WAY too long post. I just got out of a 3-hr class and have been bored out of my mind. LoL

[DaneMan]

Duke is considered one of the great college hoop atmospheres, but for most games, the "Cameron Crazies" represent maybe 1000 out of the 9000 in the building.

 

Duke could fill that place with all students if it wanted too. They just chose not to.

 

One other point.

 

Dane96 and I were discussing that the current members of the RACC Rowdies should be wearing their t-shirts on GameDays and if you wear any other garb like a wig or face paint, maybe wear that to your last class of the day if its allowed. You may look like a giant loser, but people will remember the guy in the wig and may ask why you are dressed that way. Also, are they any attractive girls in the RR and not too sound too sexist but ones that are well endowed too? Have them wear a shirt around campus. Or if you have a hot friend let her wear your shirt even if she doesn't go to games.

 

Gather up the frosh in your dorm and make them go. They can't drink on campus and most can't get into bars anyway.

 

Keep up the good work. I am sure the Crazies started with 500 people too.

[Patch]

GODANESGO - U DA MAN!!!!!!

 

GO ROWDIES GO

 

YOU'RE DOING A GREAT JOB

 

Third, the future of the RACC Rowdies. Wow, I can't believe its potential downfall is already being talked about by some people. Remember, this is an idea that was generated on this board and pitched in Charlie 3 weeks ago! GDG

 

THE FUTURE IS GREAT KEEP UP THE GOOD WORK!!!