I just. You know. As hard as it's been on the team I'm sure to lose all these games...10? 11? 12? How many is it? It's kind of hard to keep writing all of these recaps. I think this video adequately sums up how I feel about the season thus far....
And now, for the meat of this post-loss stew...THE GOOD, THE BAD, AND THE UGLY!
THE GOOD
The liveblog tonight - I just want to thank everyone who came out to the liveblog tonight. It was a lively crowd tonight and made what was otherwise an unenjoyable game pretty bearable. Good times from all of you, and I hope you'll all continue to join us as we continue liveblogging throughout the season!
Oh, you mean I'm supposed to describe things the team did well here? Oh. Well, what if...okay, okay, there were some bright spots. Here they are.
Stephen Lumpkins - Lumpkins went 5-7 from the field. With 11 points! And he had some nice finishes! Thank you, Lumpy. Thank you, thank you, thank you. Now please keep it up and don't let this be a fluke. If you can finish like this for the rest of the season you will return to the beasty force you were at the beginning of the season.
Simon McCormack - Simon really showed off his defensive skillz tonight against the Lions, especially in the first half, where he was all over the court, getting hands up in people's faces, and being an absolute stopper. He also kicked in 5 rebounds, but sadly no points. Points would've been good, but we'll take it since he was probably too tired from his defensive efforts to do much on the offensive end.
Blake Jolivette - We were actually joined in the liveblog tonight by Blake's uncle who is a fine fellow. His nephew finally returns to the GOOD column tonight after kicking in 6 points, 2 rebounds, and 5 assists to only 3 turnovers in 33 minutes.
THE BAD
Vlad's shooting - 6-16 and 2-8. Yes we got 18 points, but we also could've gotten some higher percentage shots out of those 10 misses. Am I ungrateful for the 18 points? No. You know what I am grateful for, the fact that he played the first half with no fouls and only got 3 in the second! Booyakasha!
Here we are...THE UGLY
The stretch from 13:53 in the 1st half to 18:16 in the second half where we had 1 FG. Are you kidding me? 16 minutes with one field goal? We jumped out to a 13-5 lead, and then we just stagnated immediately. Unreal. I mean we're a Dr. Jekyll/Mr. Hyde team, for sure, but it normally doesn't happen that quickly.
Free throw shooting - When you're 9-17 from the charity stripe, and you lose by 5 points...that's bad. Good teams don't shoot like that from the FT line. Lumpkins, if you're going to get to the line, you've got to be better than 1-5. Put in extra practice in the gym or something. This isn't all on Lumpkins either, as a team, we're just atrocious from the line.
Three point shooting - 6-20. Minutes for Bersch in the game: 0. I don't really get why Bersch's minutes have fallen off so immediately. Maybe Josh will speculate about it tomorrow. It would've been really nice tonight to see some minutes from Mike who might've provided us with a spark off the bench from behind the arc.
18 turnovers - 1 step forward, and 2 steps back. Nobody wins the games like that. Lose that dribble and flub that pass, this kind of handle never lasssssstssss. (See the video, you'll get it)
Alright, that's enough blogging for one night. We'll see you tomorrow for Speculation Tuesday. Leave your thoughts on the team as we enter league play in the comments, we'd love to hear them.
Pro deo et patria and GO EAGLES!
Simon 21 minutes 0 points, Matt 2 minutes 0 points, Luptak 9 minutes 0 points, Joe Hill 15 minutes 0 points, Riley 16 minutes 6 pts. Total 63 minutes, 6 points. Almost a third of the total minutes and 6 points???? No matter how good the defense, more scoring is needed. Not sure what some of those on the bench are doing in practice but it has to be better than this???
ReplyDeleteBarechested: Don't you feel like just cutting and pasting from old Good, Bad and Uglies as so much of it is the same stuff happening over and over.
ReplyDeleteAlso, I gotta give you an overdue shout-out for your fine work in dustracting the free throw shooters. Your best work was against Manhattan where I think you caused at least 3 misses.
To the first anon - Very, very good point. Even 10-12 points out of those 63 minutes would be sufficient (we would've own the game) but as it is, that's unacceptable.
ReplyDeleteSecond anon - Sometimes I have to admit I'm tempted to copy paste, but that's just not right. And thanks for the shout-out. I'm just a guy with a loud voice, annoying things to say, and no shame. If I can put that to some good use, well damn it, I will.
I also meant to mention in this post that Hendra was an honorable mention for PL player of the week this past week. He didn't quite make it, but here's the write-up: "Nick Hendra, American Jr., G, 6'3, 205, New York, N.Y./Xavier
ReplyDeleteHendra had 15 points and a career-high 13 rebounds in American's loss to Florida on Monday, then tallied a career-high 18 points in a win at Brown on Saturday."
Would've mentioned it last night but his performance didn't make it into any of the columns.
I'm not sure who is worse, The Redskins or The Eagles.
ReplyDeleteUnfortunately, we are not going to win with this starting lineup. Jones needs to see who played in our four wins (including Catholic) and re-evaluate.
ReplyDelete