@ Stony Brook

[AmericaEasterBunny]

Agreed on Ambrose, his energy on the glass for second chance bounce sparked the run that put us up early. No agreement on Iati though. He didn't do anything bad... but the problem with this game wasn't doing things bad, it was an inability to make progress- which is what Jake brought to the table. Watts played very well in limited time in first half (fouls) even though his shot wasn't dropping, against penetrating lane. Actually also some very nice looks inside to Puk from Ambrose. A couple Puk made nice cuts but just couldn't deal with the little people in traffic. Work in progress, but it'd be nice to see some more progress in the last ten minutes not just the first thirty.

 

True that Iati will never be an offensive threat, but I don't think Watts is much of one either at this point as he has a bad shot. Also, I'd rather have Iati's good defense than Watts' crap fouling defense, but we'll have to agree to disagree I was just happy for Iati that he went out there for the first real minutes in a long while and accomplished what he did - the kid has heart. And his height makes you want to root for him!

[UA'08]

uofalbany, i know you removed your post about ambrose, but watch the first half and the first 10 min of the 2nd half. he was probably the best player on the floor in that span. he showed more toughness than any other player and even threw in an elbow (which i thought for sure wold have been a flagrant when i saw preyobe head bounce back) on a loose ball. ambrose is probably the most consistent player this year.

 

as for the rest of the game we should have lost this. 1 point in 10 min is ridiculous. they just stopped being aggressive and turned the ball over way too much. if this team wants to compete in the conference thursday is a must win against bing at home.

 

btw umbc is tied with bu with 57 sec left.

 

71-67 umbc. the aeast is so bad. that is probably our saving grace.

[uofalbany]

uofalbany, i know you removed your post about ambrose, but watch the first half and the first 10 min of the 2nd half. he was probably the best player on the floor in that span. he showed more toughness than any other player and even threw in an elbow (which i thought for sure wold have been a flagrant when i saw preyobe head bounce back) on a loose ball. ambrose is probably the most consistent player this year.

 

as for the rest of the game we should have lost this. 1 point in 10 min is ridiculous. they just stopped being aggressive and turned the ball over way too much. if this team wants to compete in the conference thursday is a must win against bing at home.

 

btw umbc is tied with bu with 57 sec left.

 

71-67 umbc. the aeast is so bad. that is probably our saving grace.

 

The comment about Ambrose is still there. Sounds like he had a solid 3 quarters.

We need some serious leadership in crunch time. We need an aggressive posture and we

need to put teams away that we should be putting away. It should've stayed even or we

should have pulled away. We shouldn't be giving up big leads like we have normally done over the years.

 

We need some floor leaders taking this team into the heart of the battle.

 

I feel very good about Puk and Devlin. I think it gets better and better with those two, with

several years to enjoy.

 

It is a win... but there needs to be a BIG gut check to determine why we are collapsing at the end of games.

We need to stay aggressive and we need to penetrate, pound, and dish to the final buzzer.

[Dane Pound]

Recorded the game and just finished watching it. I don't expect that to be on ESPN Classic anytime soon.

 

As ugly as it was I'm surprised to see everyone so PO'ed about a win.

 

Even during the NCAA years it was tough to win at Stony Brook and they were awful. In fact they had beat us six times in a row. To do it now, two day after two of the most potential demoralizing losses (Maine and BU) I will take without apology. Tomorrow I'll forget how ugly it was (cause I'm not watching it again) and remember Doughter missing the shot at the end and that we won.

[UAalum72]

I don't know that we 'collapsed' or played that much worse in crunch time, but how many 4-footers did they miss? How do you go 2-7 from the foul line (including the 1-and-1 front end by Luke that would have iced it)? - even tho that was our margin of victory because Stony was 0-4. How many times did the ball just get picked clean from us? - SBU had 11 steals, we had 9 or 10 turnovers in each half.

[YO DAMIEN]

I hate to sound so hypocritical, but my feelings have completely reversed from the first weeks of the season. Let's face it...this team is meeting preseason expectations. Most people with realistic, legitimate, and accurate knowledge of this team predicted 12-15 wins and a "middle of the pack" conference finish. Might it be fair to say some of our hopes got a wee bit too high during the OOC weeks just based on the fact that we eclipsed our win total last year?

 

I'll use a little negative thought to show why we should keep positive. As previously stated I think a lot of us got carried away with expectations because wins were coming in quantity despite low quality. I mean realistically do we have any bad loses, and by that I am referring to loses to teams which are clearly an inferior team? Personally I'd say no. Along the same thinking, do we have any "great" wins, meaning wins over a clearly superior opponent? Again I'm going to say no. Beating was Siena was a nice FEELING, but let's face it that win essentially means nothing and Siena really isn't good this year. Our conference record probably won't matter because lets face it this league is pretty darn bad. Is it really going to matter if we are the 2 seed or the 7? Honestly? This year especially anyone can beat anyone anytime, see UMBC's W over BU tonight.

 

As long as we don't see the PROGRAM regress this season I'm fine with just "meeting expectations". So far I'd say things are ok. This is the America East, not the Big East. For me it kind of boils down to: who do we have to impress? A flawless W is going to just as valuable (or invaluable) as an ugly one, so all things considered, I'll take all we can get.

 

P.S. we made sportscenter tonight, albeit via the #9 top play happening against us haha, at least they mentioned we won!

[McFan]

Agreed meeting expectations, which is at the same time not meeting expectations.

 

This what I thought this team would be again. This is not what I hope for this team to be.

 

As for the win. Yep, road win, yippee. 1 point in ten minutes and another (near) collapse. We missed shots, and foul shots, to be sure. But we also seemed once again to lose our aggressiveness. Coaching? Youth? Not sure but it certainly is consistent and it snowballs. We lose aggression. Game tightens up. We tighten up further. Other team gains momentum.

 

Last point. Is there another player in this league, or the NCAA for that matter, that scores 15 (30% of teams points), has 14 RB, 2 assist (yes 25% of teams assists), 1 block, 1 steal, and 5 TO's, that catches more grief. Without this kid UA would consistently score in the 40's and would be lucky to have 3 wins. No grief for Logan? 1 point in the second half (I think), 0 assist, 0 blocks, and 0 steals.

[Clickclack]

I hate to sound so hypocritical, but my feelings have completely reversed from the first weeks of the season. Let's face it...this team is meeting preseason expectations. Most people with realistic, legitimate, and accurate knowledge of this team predicted 12-15 wins and a "middle of the pack" conference finish. Might it be fair to say some of our hopes got a wee bit too high during the OOC weeks just based on the fact that we eclipsed our win total last year?

 

I'll use a little negative thought to show why we should keep positive. As previously stated I think a lot of us got carried away with expectations because wins were coming in quantity despite low quality. I mean realistically do we have any bad loses, and by that I am referring to loses to teams which are clearly an inferior team? Personally I'd say no. Along the same thinking, do we have any "great" wins, meaning wins over a clearly superior opponent? Again I'm going to say no. Beating was Siena was a nice FEELING, but let's face it that win essentially means nothing and Siena really isn't good this year. Our conference record probably won't matter because lets face it this league is pretty darn bad. Is it really going to matter if we are the 2 seed or the 7? Honestly? This year especially anyone can beat anyone anytime, see UMBC's W over BU tonight.

 

As long as we don't see the PROGRAM regress this season I'm fine with just "meeting expectations". So far I'd say things are ok. This is the America East, not the Big East. For me it kind of boils down to: who do we have to impress? A flawless W is going to just as valuable (or invaluable) as an ugly one, so all things considered, I'll take all we can get.

 

P.S. we made sportscenter tonight, albeit via the #9 top play happening against us haha, at least they mentioned we won!

 

This made me think...well done!

[Clickclack]

No grief for Logan? 1 point in the second half (I think), 0 assist, 0 blocks, and 0 steals.

 

He is completely unreliable. From game to game you have no idea what you'll get out of him.

[UA'08]

the post game story says ambrose had a triple double. am i missing something here?

[bob87]

it might be time to start looking for to baseball season.

 

I am always ready for baseball especially on days that the weather sucks. Those thoughts help me get though January and Febuary even when basketball is doing well.

I missed Satuurday's game. It was a long weekend on LI and being I was beat, I drove back after the Isles game instead of driving back out to SB. As such I only heard the second half on the radio and saw the last 6 minutes of the game.

It certainly seems like the potential is there, but they fade too often at the end. Hopefully they impove on that as the season goes on.

Looking forward to Thursdays game.

[bob87]

Recorded the game and just finished watching it. I don't expect that to be on ESPN Classic anytime soon.

 

 

DP, if you recorded it on a disc or a tape can I borrow it after Thursday's game to see the rest of it.

[uofalbany]

Let's not forget men's and women's lacrosse!

Or indoor track that hopefully wins us a few conference championships.

 

Maybe some of us, including me, are being too hard on this team. We've had some nice wins.

No matter how much I hate to admit it, $iena is a good team, and we took the win.

We played solid in the tournament in Detroit.

 

We've got a case of inconsistency. I wonder if there's a cure for it.

My 'collapse' comment was a bit dramatic, but Bob is right about the team 'fading too often'.

 

This team has talent. They should ask themselves if the want to pull it all together now, and try

to win a conference championship, or do they want to waste another year.

[Clickclack]

I've been trying to make sense of the second half fades. Up two at UVM at the half (obviously did something right there) and lose, up HUGE on BU at home and lose (16 pt lead on BU is nothing to sneeze at) by 3, UP 2 on Maine and lose by 2.

 

Is it a case of all of a sudden playing not to lose instead of playing to win? I mean there is talent there to get out to these leads or at least be competitive with what I would think most would agree is the top of the league (UVM, Maine, BU).

[uofalbany]

I've been trying to make sense of the second half fades. Up two at UVM at the half (obviously did something right there) and lose, up HUGE on BU at home and lose (16 pt lead on BU is nothing to sneeze at) by 3, UP 2 on Maine and lose by 2.

 

Is it a case of all of a sudden playing not to lose instead of playing to win? I mean there is talent there to get out to these leads or at least be competitive with what I would think most would agree is the top of the league (UVM, Maine, BU).

 

I think you may have hit it on the head. Playing not to lose would be a negative, mental shift.

It's the prevent defense thing but in basketball.

 

Other teams get desperate

Other team puts on pressure

We retract to the perimeter

We don't attack / break the pressure

They smother to some degree

We get a bad shot or they force a turnover

 

Are we trying not to turn the ball over, or are we trying to score?

 

Like the full court pressure. Is the goal to get it across half court, or

is it to break the press and make them pay by attacking the basket.