Eagles Fall to the Buffalo Herd in Sojka

First of all, thanks to everyone who joined us in the liveblog last night. It was a very lively discussion and great to "see" so many of you in there to talk about the pretty crazy game that we were able to listen to. Here's the recap, and here's the box score. I have some thoughts from this game, so please join me as I tip-toe through the tulips below.

- You've probably noticed I don't do the GOOD, BAD, and UGLY anymore, but in this case, I think it's warranted to give Vlad a BAD for last night. In your biggest games, you need your biggest players to step up. In two games against Bucknell this year, Vlad shot 5-20 and 1-4 from the 3 point line. He's averaging 8 points a game (12 points below his average). He is averaging 6.5 rebounds in these games, but it's not enough. You need Vlad to step up. Haywood points out that it looks like Vlad was sick last night, or at least something was off. If that's the case, sorry to put the BAD on you, Vlad. We'll hope to see you bounce back against Colgate.

- Troy has really stepped it up the past few games. In his past 3, he's averaging 14 points on 48% from the field. He was the only one who kept the Eagles afloat in the dismal first 10 minutes of yesterday's first half. The one gripe I had about him last night was that he doesn't ever pull up for jumpers in the lane. He has some trouble finishing at the hoop, so why not shake off the defender with a sudden stop and pull-up? Keep up the good work, Troy.

- Every once in a while Danny Munoz has one of these tremendous outputs that you wish, hope, and pray would be what we'd see on a consistent basis. Munoz exploded for 11 points and 4 assists last night. The 11 points came on 3-4 from long range (a season high) and his point total tied a season high too. Great performance, Danny really stepped up when a lot of the other roleplayers didn't.

- Mike Muscala is a force. That is all.

- Lump had a decent, but not great, game last night against the best big man in the Patriot League. 11 points (1 pt below average) and 5 rebounds (almost a season low), weren't a tremendous output. There were times when Lump got the better of Muscala, with a little up and under trickery that completely faked out the big buffalo. We needed Lump to have the game of his life last night, and we didn't get it, but we certainly can't lay this loss at his feet given the other subpar performances we got.

- What an unbelievable comeback by the Eagles for this game to even be a bitter loss. Down 14 points early, this looked like it was going to be a repeat of the Bender Blowout earlier this season. But the Eagles bite and clawed their way back to get a lead late in the second half. Clutch three point shooting really helped; without those buckets from Munoz and Charles (help comes from unexpected places!) we'd be tearing our eyeballs out at a double-digit loss today. Down the stretch we just couldn't hit a clutch basket. We missed a few chances to re-take the lead. Muscala came up huge at the end for Bucknell and we didn't have anyone step up in the last few minutes. We came together enough to get it close, but just couldn't get over the hump.

I fully, FULLY expect us to bounce back (again) against Colgate this Saturday. One game at a time from here on out, it's completely improbable that we will get the #1 seed now, but we can work on keeping the #2 seed firmly in our grasp.

Pro deo et patria and GO EAGLES!