When I Still Can't Believe We Lost this Game There's GOOD, BAD, and UGLY

Wow. I'm stunned. I thought having a good night's sleep would bring me to acceptance of the fact that we dropped our first game of the season yesterday afternoon. It didn't. I'm still stunned. This was a game we had firmly in hand and then just kind of, dropped. It wasn't like there was a strong momentum shift or anything, we just let them back into the game, and then they beat us. Vlad did not play yesterday, he was in street clothes. He had a concussion, but I'm not sure where/how/when he picked that up. Hopefully he'll be back for the trip to Morgantown because the prospect of this team going down there without him when they just blew a double-digit lead to Columbia yesterday is terrifying. Anyway, the GOOD, the BAD, and the UGLY.

THE GOOD

Stephen Lumpkins - Lump had a rough first three or four minutes but then came on nicely and picked up another double double. He had 20 points (8-13) and 12 boards and also chipped in three blocks. He did a nice job on interior defense, and also caused a few turnovers with his quick hands. Lump has been on a roll the past few games, and this is the player we all knew had to show up for us to go far this season. Keep it up, big guy, you cannot be stumped!

Simon McCormack - Hell of a game yesterday from Simon, who played 27 minutes and was the team's third highest scorer with 13 (on 6-9 shooting). He also had six rebounds and was all over the court on defense per usual. Simon's minutes have been reduced this year, but it's good to see that he can still be a very productive player when JJ needs to call on him.

Troy Brewer - I don't know what kind of English/rotation/spin Troy puts on the ball. I do know that it makes the smoothest swishes on threes that I maybe have ever seen. The net doesn't even move when he makes these baskets. It's insane. Troy "InsertNicknameHere" Brewer fit into his recent pattern as a sniper again yesterday. He went 4-8 from 3, totaled 18 points, and also had two blocks. He also played 39 minutes and only picked up two fouls. He narrowly missed the chance to make it into the AU legendarium yesterday...with 1.7 seconds left, Hendra inbounded to Lump who kicked it to Troy in the corner. Troy's three was just a little too strong, and we dropped the game 64-62. So, so close. Good game from Troy though, his consistency is definitely improving.

Daniel Fisher - With Vlad out yesterday, Daniel Fisher got the nod over Riley Grafft to play some minutes inside. He ended up playing 13 minutes and got 4 boards and an assist. Some points would have been nice, but he did a good job setting screens on the offensive end and was pretty solid on defense as well. He ended up getting more minutes than Tony Wroblicky yesterday, which was a little surprising. Nice work from the Aussie yesterday.

THE BAD

Point Guard Play - I was at the game yesterday. I watched for the positive intangibles and non-stat sheet items that I was berated for not including in the last Good, Bad, and Ugly. I didn't see them. What I did see was a lot of sloppy ball handling from Hendra (who had an otherwise okay game, but wasn't good enough to make it into the GOOD column), Munoz, and Luptak. They combined for 9 of our 15 turnovers, and honestly there could have been a lot more. Sloppy ball handling. Passes that only just barely made it to who they were supposed to. Not good yesterday. Hence, bad.

Mike Bersch - Bersch made his first career start yesterday (Congrats!), but he didn't make much of it. He only earned 6 minutes and went 0-1 with a turnover. He still looks lost out there on defense, and on the offensive end he doesn't move well with the ball. For the moment it looks like for him to be a weapon we need to get him the ball when he's set behind the three point line. Not sure he'll get another start for a while, especially given how Simon played yesterday. Keep working, Bersch. You know you're a favorite over here. We're pulling for you, but we need to see more out of you than what you gave us yesterday.

Tony Wroblicky - Tony showed flashes of awesomeness yesterday. A nasty block, a nice hook shot fading away from the basket, but he also picked up three personal fouls in nine minutes of play. He was definitely outplayed by Daniel Fisher, who got his first significant playing time ever yesterday. We need Tony to step up to be the guy to back up Lump, ultimately he's got to be the long term option.

THE UGLY

I can't really put my finger on what caused the loss yesterday. I think it was complacency. Sitting in the stands yesterday, we had a double-digit lead, and as a fan, I never thought we'd give it up. Yeah they got close, but I just kept waiting for a Lump dunk or a Brewer three-point dagger to end their run. It didn't happen. All of a sudden it was like "Oh shit, we're down 2." And then, "Oh, SHIT. We're tied." And then, "OH SHIT!! WE'RE LOSING?" And then, finally and sadly, "Oh...shit...we lost that game. What the hell happened?" We had Columbia on the ropes and then just didn't knock them out. It seemed like we just were out there expecting to win, assuming that lead would hold. Well, we assumed wrong, and we dropped a game we definitely should have won. We looked great in stretches yesterday, even without Vlad. And then we looked completely flat. This team is still consistently inconsistent, and that's a bad thing to be with a tough road schedule coming up.

We were going to lose games this season; we knew that. But we shouldn't have lost to Columbia. I think games like this are the difference between a 14 and a 15 seed come tournament time. That assumes we win the PL Tournament, of course, but bear with me. The selection committee expects teams like AU to lose to teams like WVU, Pitt, Northwestern, and Florida. Losing to teams like that don't count too much against us. But the committee will look at the teams who are at our level and see if we beat everyone we should have. If we did that, we're more likely to get a 14, maybe even a high 14, and not a 15. Well, Columbia is a game we should've had. At home, with a double-digit lead, you win that game. I hope it doesn't come back to bite us in the ass come postseason time, assuming there is postseason time.


Thoughts from yesterday?

Pro deo et patria and GO EAGLES!

When Your Team Gives Its Liveblog Palpitations, There's Bound to Be GOOD, BAD, and UGLY

Sorry it took me so long to get this edition of the GOOD, the BAD, and the UGLY out. My heart only stopped skipping beats about 10 minutes ago. The year of Jekyll and Hyde continues, friends and fans. A Tale of Two Halves, if you will. Yesterday at half, AU enjoyed a 47-30 advantage over FAU in what was easily the best offensive half they'd had all season. The patrons of the liveblog, myself included, were overjoyed (and not a little shocked) at the great play on the road from the Eagles. And then everything came crashing down in the second half. After pushing the lead to 52-30, the Eagles went on to give up their huge lead (at one point the Owls got within 1 measly point). The important thing here is that the Eagles gutted out the win and now stand at 4-0 with a very winnable game at Howard up next. Let's talk about what made this game so GOOD, BAD, and UGLY.

THE GOOD

Stephen Lumpkins - Well, being benched certainly seems to have motivated Lumpkins. After not starting yesterday, Lump had his best game of the season and played 32 minutes. Along with Vlad and Hendra, he was one of the few Eagles who was effective in the second half. This was Lump's first double-double of the season (22 points, 15 rebounds). The shooting percentage was excellent as well (8-12, 6-9 from the line). Overall just a tremendous game for Lump, who had his hands full on defense with Kore White and Brett Royster, but still only earned three fouls. This is the Lump we've been waiting to see, and hopefully he's here to stay.


Vlad Moldoveanu - Vlad had a tremendous second half again (scoring 19 of his 22 post-halftime). His free throw shooting was clutch down the stretch and sealed what was a very tenuous victory for the Eagles. Vlad played in foul trouble most of the game but did a great job not fouling out. He didn't have his touch from long range (1-5 from 3) but his inside game was great as he did a great job penetrating and getting to the basket. He also did a good job limiting turnovers (read: eliminating them, since he had 0) and also kicked in 7 boards.

Nick Hendra - Hendra's stat line was again secondary to what he contributed with intangibles. From the call of the game you could hear that he was all over, pressuring FAU's hordes of guards on the perimeter, chasing loose balls, and still carrying his own weight on the offensive end. He finished with 11 points, 4 boards, 3 assists, and a steal. Your efforts are not being overlooked, Hendra, you're critical to this team's flow right now, and we acknowledge it!

Troy Brewer's first half - This is the Troy Brewer that we heard about and expected. At the half, Troy was the game's leading scorer with 14. 5-5 from the field, including 4-4 from 3. He also chipped in 2 steals, 2 assists, and 3 boards. Just an absolute beast. Which is what makes his second half so disappointing. We'll get to it in a minute.

First half offense - Just awesome. 16-29 overall, 7-11 from 3, and 8-9 from the line. All of this with 9 assists and outrebounding the Owls.

First half defense - Similarly awesome, we held the Owls to 21% shooting (6-28), and 2-6 from behind the arc. The only bad thing about this in the first half was the number of fouls we committed (a whopping FOURTEEN) that resulted in the Owls going 16-19 from the line. Without those fouls we would have had them completely locked down.

THE BAD

Troy Brewer's second half - Well, first watch this video. Only replace the word "Yankees" with "Troy Brewer":



Troy was awesome in the first half. And not so awesome in the second half. In the second half he went 0-3, 0-2 from behind the arc, with just one point (a free throw). He did chip in 2 boards, 2 blocks, and a steal, but he also earned three fouls and just completely disappeared on offense. Like we've said here, is defense merits him being on the floor, but we've got to get some consistency. We needed someone else other than Lump, Nick, and Vlad to step up and play in the second half. That's where Troy is supposed to come in, and he did not.

The point guard position - While Danny and Steve played good defense on the FAU guards in the first half, their commitment of multiple fouls resulted in a much less efficient second half. Luckily, neither fouled out, but the defense in the second half was less than stellar. We're still not getting much in the way of offensive production out of either of them. They combined to go 1-5, 0-2, 2-4 with 4 points (all Munoz), 3 assists, and 4 turnovers. I don't think Luptak is long for his starting position. Munoz is at least kicking in something on the offensive end and brings the ability to slash to the basket.

Assists-to-turnovers - We'd done with on assists-to-turnovers the past few games, but yesterday it was just 1:1. In the second half we only had two assists. That's a sign of an offense that's not functioning well and not working together. The evidence is there: Vlad and Lump had to put the scoring on their backs all second half.

THE UGLY

Number of fouls: We committed 29 fouls yesterday. TWENTY-NINE. Unreal. The game was called tightly on both sides (49 total fouls called), but that was not a disciplined showing yesterday from the Eagles.

The elephant in the room: THE FACT THAT WE ALMOST BLEW A 22 POINT LEAD - Yes, a win is a win. And I'd much rather be 4-0 than 3-1, but that second half was ugly yesterday. It felt like we were playing not to lose. We were very lucky to escape yesterday with the W. Like Mike Jarvis said after the game, 8 or 9 times out of 10, FAU is supposed to win that game. We made the 1 out of 10 as ugly as possible before getting the hell out of Boca Raton.

Other thoughts about the game yesterday?

Pro deo et patria and GO EAGLES!

When You Make It Harder Than It Should Be But Get the W Anyway, There's GOOD, BAD, and UGLY

Hellooooooooo AUHoops fans! Welcome to the wonderful realm of being 3-0. First time this has been the case in the Jeff Jones era, and the first time this has happened to AU since 1989-90 when I was just learning how to eat my Cheerios without spilling all the milk out of the bowl. As predicted, we got the win against the U-MESS Chickenhawks last night, but boy it was a lot closer than me or Josh thought it would be. U-MESS was within 2 with 75 seconds to go last night; that was particularly surprising since before the game I thought they wouldn't have been within 20 with that much time left. Definitely some GOOD, BAD, and UGLY to take out of the game last night, but the overriding thought I have is, a win is a win, and now we'll take our 3-0 record on the road against what will be a very tough match-up against the FAU Hooters.

THE GOOD

VLAD THE IMPALER - No getting around it, folks, Vlad the Impaler was the crown jewel of last night's game. He scored 31 of our 65 points and, along with Nick Hendra who I'll get to in a minute, put this team on his back to get the victory. At half, Vlad had 13 of 23 points and was 3-4 from long range (the rest of the team? 0-8). In the second half, Vlad really turned it on. After getting into some foul trouble and riding the bench with Lumpkins for a long stretch in the middle of the second half, he came back in with the score tied at 45. He then proceeded to rattle off 13 straight AU points including three long range buckets from Garrison Carr range. The third was a contested shot in the corner where he shot around the defender who was in his face while off-balanced and on one leg. Unreal. He finished 9-5, 6-7, and 7-9 from the line with 5 boards, 3 assists, and 2 turnovers. A classic impaling last night.

Nick Hendra - Hell of a game last night for Hendra, and the intangibles were more important than the score sheet. When UMES made their run in the second half to tie it up at 45, Hendra got real fired up and let the rest of the team know about it. He lead by example last night, fighting for loose balls, picking off passes, and at one point hurdling the courtside fans to try to save a ball. All of this isn't to say that Hendra did nothing tangible last night. At halftime he was our second leading scorer with 6, he finished with 9 pts, 5 boards, 6 assists (to only 2 turnovers), and 2 steals. Now that the pressure is off of him to be a primary scorer for the team, Hendra seems to be flourishing in his new role and is facilitating the offense in a tremendous way, including the awesome alley-oop to Troy Brewer late in the second half.

Stephen Lumpkins - Lump was stumped in the first half, going just 1-5 but grabbing four boards. We were having trouble getting it inside to him, and he was having some trouble finishing. Lump was also very predictable down low in the first half (catching the ball with back to defender, spin move left, finish with left hand). Luckily for us, the team came out ready to feed the hungry big man in the second half. He scored the first 10 AU points in the second half and showed all kinds of move in the post. After that the Chickenhawks locked him up for the rest of the game, but he finished with 12 points, 6 boards, and 3 steals. Also did play in foul trouble for most of the second half.

AU's ball handling/distribution - For the second straight game we had a 2:1 assist-to-turnover ratio, last night it was 18 to 9. At half it was 7 to 2, so while we distributed the ball well in the 2nd half, we also gave it away a fair amount. Kudos to Danny Munoz who had 5 assists to 0 turnovers in 23 minutes of action last night.

Tony Wroblicky - Great game from the freshman big man last night who has quickly become a crowd favorite in Bender. 6 pts and 6 boards on 3-6 shooting, and he was able to step in for Lumpkins who had foul issues throughout the game. Nice moves inside, and it didn't look like the ankle sprain JJ talked about post-St. Francis was bothering him at all.

AU's first half defense - Lest I forget this two games in a row, AU's defense in the first half was awesome. Gave up on 18 points and held U-MESS to 31% shooting. Unfortunately, the defense in the second half was much more porous, which brings me to...

THE BAD

AU's second half defense - After playing great D in the first half, the Eagles let the U-MESS backcourt have too much slack in the second. Lots of drives inside by Kevin White and Tim Burns led to 20 points in the paint allowed in the second half versus just 6 in the first. U-MESS shot just under 50% in the second half as well.

Offensive production from the PG position - Danny and Steve combined to go 0-2 with 0 points last night. They did a great job limiting turnovers, and they combined for 6 assists, but they looked overmatched last night against the U-MESS backcourt.

Troy Brewer - It pains me to do this, but I've got to. Troy has a tremendous amount of athletic ability, but has definitely not his groove yet. For a guy who has the reputation as a 3 pt. sniper he's now 2-13 on the season and was 0-4 last night. He's 10-29 overall (2-10 last night) from the field this season. Troy is also very quick, but on two fast breaks last night he lost the handle and turned the ball over. I think Troy is going to be a tremendous asset to us, and he already is on defense. He's long and quick and a real pain for opposing players, but his shooting % has to improve.

Mike Bersch - Bersch is doing a fine job passing, and he looks better on defense, but the guy is a 3 pt specialist and so far he's 1-9 on the season. He drains them like crazy in practice apparently, but in a game situation it's been very different this year. 0-3 last night, until he starts shooting better he's going to see his minutes be even more limited.

THE UGLY

Non-Vlad 3-point shooting - Vlad: 6-7, rest of the team: 1-12. Terrible. That's really, really bad. We're going to the 3 too early in possession, and our sets, thankfully, are giving us open shots, but we are just missing the shots like crazy. We should be feeding the ball inside more to Lump to give him a shot at the opportunities we're squandering from the outside.

All of the easy missed shots - This isn't a statistic that we keep track of, I guess, but it just seemed like we had a lot of trouble finishing lay-ins and point blank shots last night. If we had made these shots, the game would've been a blowout, but we kept missing freebie easy buckets. It wasn't anyone in particular either, it was a team-wide problem last night. As a senior AU official said to me last night, sometimes the shots go in, and sometimes they don't. Let's hope we don't have too many nights where they don't going forward.

How close this game was - This is part of the problem above, but U-MESS is a team that just gave up 100 points to Columbia. We should not have had as big a problem with the Chickenhawks as we did. We let them back into the game and gave that team a lot of hope. A team with hope is dangerous. YOU HAVE TO CRUSH IT LIKE A TOTALITARIAN REGIME WOULD.

Anyway, that's that. Big game coming up against FAU's Hooters. What were everyone else's thoughts about the game last night?

And They Would've Won, Too, If It Weren't for You Meddlesome Eagles! The GOOD, BAD, and UGLY

Two games for our Eagles, and two wins! According to AUEagles.com, this is only the second time under Jeff Jones that the Eagles have started 2-0. Pretty surprising given the level of success we've enjoyed overall during the JJ era. In any event, we played an Albany team that was more or less overmatched the entire game. We jumped out to an 8-2 lead and never looked back. Were there areas we definitely could've improved upon? Yes. In some ways, the margin almost could've been higher. This is an Albany team that was missing its best player and was in foul trouble all game. When you read the rest of this, it might actually read like a GOOD, BAD, and UGLY from a loss. There weren't a lot of standout individual performances. This is a night where the whole was greater than the sum of its parts. Still, a win is a win. Let's get into it.

THE GOOD

The point guard position - Danny and Steve combined tonight to go 4-8 overall and 2-5 from behind the arc for 10 points. They also had 6 assists and no turnovers. For a position that was supposed to be the weakest part of AU's game, these two have done a pretty good job platooning at the point. Danny's improvement from behind the arc is noticeable and could be a big factor that allows us to spread out the defense even further as the season goes on.

Mike Bersch - Only 11 minutes, but 5 points and a rebound on 2-4 shooting, including his first of what I suspect will be many this season from behind the arc. Welcome back to the good column, Mike.

Stephen Lumpkins - It seemed like Lump has having some trouble finishing his shots during the game, but the 5-10 shooting line wasn't as bad as I thought it was. Add to that his 8 boards and 2 blocks and the fact that he shut down Albany's John Puk (no shots, one rebound, five fouls) all night and he definitely deserves to be here.

Assist to turnover ratio - Any time AU has a 2.0 assist/turnover ratio it deserves to be in the good column. All due praise to the ball handling tonight.

THE BAD

Shot selection - Like I said above, this was a game where we were in the driver's seat the entire way. So let's look at the shot selection: 21-48 overall, but 7-23 from long range. Just under half of our shots were three point attempts. That's unbelievable and inexcusable against an opponent like Albany. Why shoot like you're down 15 when you were up 15 for most of the game? There's no reason to take that many shots from long range. I think it's an indictment of our ability to get the ball inside for us to take that many shots from outside. Not only was the number of 3's we took too high, but the number we made was way too low. Vlad: 1-7, Troy: 2-6. Come on, guys. There will be games you're going to need to rely on the 3. This wasn't one of them.

Free throws - 8-15 tonight. Better improve on that quickly because it will really hurt us later in the season if we're shooting ~50% from the line. Credit to Simon McCormack who hit all 6 of his tonight.

Second half slump - Yes we didn't play with a ton of urgency because we had a big lead, but we only outscored Albany 23-21 in the second half. We also shot 14% worse. Against a team that had 12 fouls in the first half, we only forced one guy to foul out. Felt like we were going through the motions a little bit because of our lead.

Rebounding - Outrebounded 38-31.

THE UGLY

The announcing for this game - The two guys who announced this game for the radio feed should stick with the play-by-play at the duck pond. Couldn't pronounce names for their lives (Vlad Moldano, Mike Hendra, anyone?) With 3 minutes left, and Albany down 14, they were still talking about how they could come back and win it. Just a very poor broadcasting crew. Was tough to listen to. Not like our very own Dan Laing.

Maryland Eastern Shore's loss to Columbia - Columbia hung ONE HUNDRED AND EIGHT points on UMES tonight and had 6 players score in double digits. As ugly as that is, I sure hope Wednesday's matchup against UMES will get even uglier for the Hawks. The sweet, sweet revenge tour of '10-'11 continues. We've avenged our losses to Randolph-Macon, St. Francis (PA), and Albany. UMES is next.

Pro deo et patria and GO EAGLES!

We took care of business, and I can only say GOOD things about it

Well, like Jeff Jones said in the post-game (thanks to the AU Examiner for sending me the audio of that), the first half and the beginning of the second half were just about the best basketball that we've played all year. We passed well, took care of the ball, scored from inside and outside, played solid defense. Just did everything right. In light of this (and the fact that I'd have to be more ticky tack than the ref who threw Hoop Time out of a game recently) I'm not doing a BAD or UGLY section for tonight. I'm just going to point out the GOOD and some other notes about today. I could get clever and do the GOOD, the GREAT, and the EXCELLENT, but I think you guys pretty much get the picture. So here we go!

GOOD: Lump and Simon BAD: Anyone not GOOD who isn't Vlad or Hendra UGLY: Vlad and Hendra

Wow, I did it. I actually did it. I've been putting off all evening writing this entry because I just couldn't bring myself to do it. I flirted with the idea of making the title, "When there isn't much good to write about, it makes for a short GOOD, BAD, and UGLY." I think what I ended up with though is very to the point. Let's you know where everyone stands so you don't even have to read the entry. This frees up more time for your Sunday night so you can rejoice in Team USA's victory over our neighbors to the north. I imagine there are some of you who will read this entry anyway, and for those of you that do be sure to read: the recap, the box score, and our opponents' thoughts on the game. Join me after the jump for what I promise you will be a pretty succinct entry.

When your team plays a great first half and ends up avenging an earlier loss that's GOOD, when it almost gives the game away in the 2nd it's BAD/UGLY

Goooood evening AU Hoops fans. Hope you're all having a good night. I have to say I'm just catching my breath from that loss. I feel like I didn't breathe very well during tonight's second half. I guess you could say I was breathing about as well as our Eagles were playing. All's well that ends well, I guess, and since Cleveland Richard's desperation 3-point heave at the end of the game rimmed out, all is well. Still, I can't help but think that we should have never let it get as close as we did in the second half. Anyway, the night isn't getting any younger. Meet me after the jump for our normal post-game ritual.

I don't really know what happened in this game, so it's pretty hard for me to tell you its GOOD, BAD, or UGLY

Goooood afternoon AU hoops fans! Sorry it is taking me so long to get this entry up. I have to admit, I tried to go back and watch the game on the Patriot League All-Access site, and it is telling me that the media is unavailable. So that's splendid. I only saw about 8 minutes of the game yesterday, and given that we went into double overtime, it seems like seeing 8 minutes of the game, reading a recap, and looking at the box score isn't really good enough to write a column reviewing the game.

From what I do understand though, we had a ton of chances to win this game and we blew every. single. one. of. them. Up by 5 with 9 seconds left in the first overtime we gave up the Roemer 3-pointer and then had in the in-bound stolen. The game only went to the first overtime because we had no defense in the paint and gave up the layup that tied it at 56.

From what I understand Vlad and Lumpkins had good games (but Lump only had 11 points in 42 minutes? That's it?) Simon also looks like he had pretty solid production.

I don't really understand why Riley only got 11 minutes of play in this game, any ideas?

And we saw the return of Blake Jolivette because Luptak and Munoz fouled out. See, he can get off the pine! I find it interesting that coach put him in instead of Joe Hill.

So basically the long story short is I'm hoping this will be a commenter-generated post. If you were writing the GOOD, BAD, and UGLY, what would you include under each heading and WHY?

I'm so frustrated with this team. I can't take it anymore. I can, however, still write about GOOD, BAD, and UGLY things for perusal and critique

I don't even know what to say. If I spent six hours putting pen to paper I couldn't fully express the depth of my disappointment in the team's performance tonight or disdain for the officiating. I'm not going to take that six hours because I feel like the team already wasted my Thursday night with the game they just played. If I had to sum up how this game went from the AU perspective, I would say it was like this (Photo courtesy of The Eagle):



It was really that terrible. If you haven't read the tweets from tonight, I encourage you to do so. Additionally, here's the box score from tonight in case you need some material to look at forlornly while you cry yourself to sleep in the fetal position tonight. Here's the post-game video and recap also.

When you get beat on both ends of the court by a team that just flat out outplayed you, there's always GOOD, BAD, and UGLY

Wow. Well this day is just turning out greeeeeat. Hendra suspended, three game win streak snapped, 20 game home PL win streak snapped, chance to enter into a tie for 1st place lost. Yeah, it was one of those days. Check out the AU Examiner's coverage of the game today for a good recap (and the post-game audio from Jeff Jones). Here's the box score. We didn't play well today. We made a ton of mistakes, and we didn't look like we really had our heads in the game. Lehigh also runs a very solid defense. I think even if we had played extraordinarily well, however, we would've had trouble. We didn't, of course, play extraordinarily well. Lehigh has four very good weapons, inside and outside. There's a ton of talent and depth on that team, and while we'll be better suited to competing with them next year, we just don't have the diversity of scorers required to make them spread their pressure out. Anyway, let's get down to it. No one likes ripping off Band-Aids, but it's best to just do it and get it over with.

When your team beats the (current) 1st place team and climbs to 2nd place it makes you happy to write about the game's GOOD, BAD, and UGLY

Goooooooooood afternoon AU hoops fans! Hope you all had a chance to watch our AU Eagles declaw the Laugh-ayette Kittycats! There were a few ties and lead changes in this game, but to be honest we had the game in hand for a majority of the time, and it was really a matter of "Are we going to blow this?" more than "Are they going to come back?" The answer to both questions, of course, is no! This win, our third straight, means we will finish this weekend no lower than tied for second place. What a great day to be an AU Eagles fan. I hope you're all enjoying the snow and being careful and all that. Do yourself a favor, don't go outside, stay right here and join me as I dish out the GOOD, the BAD, and the UGLY!

When you beat your arch-nemeses, in front of a packed arena, and your coach gets his 300th win, there's a lot of GOOD and not much BAD or UGLY

What a glorious, glorious day to be an Eagle. Packed crowd. Tie at halftime. Eagles win. Ah. Makes me so happy. Be sure to check out the following resources: AU's recap, the box score, Mike Unger's liveblog of the game, and Hoop Time's livetweeting and recap of the game. Woo that's a lot of resources. Alright let's get down to the GOOD, the BAD, and the UGLY!

There was lots of UGLY. So much so that I'm not separating any GOOD or BAD from it.

Listen, let me be honest with you. That game we just played was atrocious. Army's defense ate us alive, and we played right into it with terrible passing and decisions with the ball. We got killed in the paint on both ends of the court. The way I feel tonight is that this was a team loss. Yes Vlad had 22 points, which was a lot considering we had 48 for the game, but when you get whipped the way this team just did, everyone loses. So here's your Good, Bad, and Ugly for tonight.

THE GOOD
...

THE BAD
...

THE UGLY

Everyone.

All 200 minutes of that game for our AU Eagles. Get it together, boys. You're going to have a full house on Saturday for Phil Bender, and if you lose to Holy Cross the way you just lost to Army, you're going to have an empty arena by halftime.

Check in tomorrow, we'll have some great content for you!

Pro deo et patria and GO EAGLES (even when they play terribly, like tonight)!

When you play a complete game on your home court and it fills me with a warm fuzzy feeling, I'm happy to write a GOOD, BAD, and UGLY

Goooood evening AU Hoops fans. What a game, what a GAME. I hope you were able to make it to Bender today to see our AU Eagles beat Colgate 73-63. Barring that, I hope you were able to watch it in some form. This was one of the more enjoyable games I've ever seen at Bender, to be honest. Lots of passion from a very fired up team as they extended the PL home winning streak to 18. The recap is here and the box score is here. I also have to say I'm very happy to see the post-game press conference video up, nice touch athletics! Let's get to dishing out the GOOD, the BAD, and the UGLY after the jump!

Surprisingly, There Is More GOOD than BAD or UGLY Because We Won Today

Today was a pretty good day for the AU Eagles and their fans as we beat Brown in Providence 76-68. It was a complete game all the way around, and there are a lot of positives about the way we played. Certainly some negatives as well, and you'll get to hear all about them as soon as you click "Read More." As always, here's the recap and box score. And away we go!

The Fact That I'm Writing This Based Off of the Liveblog, the Recap, and the Box Score Could Make It GOOD, BAD, and/or UGLY

Gooooooooooooooood evening AU Eagles fans! I hope you're all well-rested and ready to go for another fun time here with the GOOD, the BAD, and the UGLY. This game certainly had elements of all three. I have to come clean, I was working my way through a plate of kung pao chicken with my dad and sister while the game was going on, but I tried to do my homework and get a picture of exactly what happened against the Florida Gators. I'd like a little help with this one (though admittedly, I've already had some). If you feel I missed something or got something wrong, please let me have it in the comments. Sometimes I need a little help from my friends, or at least anonymous blog community members who post insightful things that I don't think of but then agree with. Anyway: box score, recap, and off we go!

We Played the Penn State Nittany Lions, Some GOOD, BAD, and UGLY Things Occurred. Supply Your Own Pith

Goooooooood evening AU fans! Well, no surprises here my friends, the Penn State Nittany Lions (by the way, what in the name of all that makes Jeff Jones angry is a Nittany Lion?) handed our AU Eagles their 10th loss of the season. Well, I shouldn't say no surprises. I was a little surprised that we were only down by 6 at the half. Let me tell you what I wasn't surprised by. I wasn't in the least surprised by the 15-1 run that PSU started the second half with. I was going to save this for Thursday's Open Letter to Jeff Jones, but I feel it can't wait, so let me give you a little sneak peak.

"Dear Jeff Jones,

I'm not sure exactly what you do or say to our Eagles at halftime that makes them come out EVERY SINGLE GAME sluggish and awful at the beginning of the second half, but for the love of all that makes you angry and profane, please stop doing it. Make them sit on the bench for halftime or something. Anything to keep them focused on the game, which is apparently the antithesis of whatever is going on in the locker room at halftime.

Love and kisses,
Barechested Bender Bill"

Oh, and JJ? Here's your dose of the GOOD, the BAD, and the UGLY for the Penn State game.

When you lose by 27 to your city's powerhouse team but it's not quite as bad as you thought it would be, there's GOOD, BAD, and UGLY

Gooooooood evening AU hoops fans! Well, our fateful road swing has begun, and it has begun just as we expected, with a loss, 73-46 to Georgetown at the Verizon Center. To read the recap, go here, and to find the box score, go here. Honestly, the game wasn't nearly as bad as we thought it would be. For the firat 8 mminutes or so we hung with the Hoyas pretty closely. We even had a lead! Don't believe me? Here's proof, in two forms!

First, from contributor Vidulicious (5-4):




And then from our own Josh (7-6):


If only the game had ended after the first seven minutes, we would've had the upset of the year! Alas, we had to play the remaining 33 minutes. It was filled with the GOOD, the BAD, and the UGLY. Stick with us and see what those elements were!

EAGLES WIN! EAGLES WIN! Speculation Tuesday and GOOD, BAD, and UGLY All in One? WHY NOT!? WE WON!

Gooooooooooood evening AU Hoops fans! We won! We won! We got a win! We were victorious! Ah, savor it. Having something other than a zero in the win column. Marvelous. CONGRATULATIONS TO THE TEAM!

Ah, effusive joy and happiness concluded, it's time to get back to reality-ville. We won, but it was against an 0-7 team. And it was a very close game, 59-53. There is a lot to talk about in the good column tonight, but there's also some in the bad and ugly. We've also got a piece of news that will come at the end of this entry, and I'll do a very, very quick Speculation Tuesday at the end that will leave you with some questions to think about.

Alright here we goooooo with what should be a pretty long entry!

When you lose to a team you flat-out should've beaten, I can search for GOOD but can find plenty of BAD and UGLY

Ugh. Good evening AUHoops.com fans! Thanks to all of you who came out and participated in our liveblog today. For those of you haven't heard. We lost. Again. For the seventh time in a row. Unlike the past couple of losses, this is a game we should've won, and, well, we didn't. Let me give a disclaimer here, I'm going to write up this Good, Bad, and Ugly based on the box score, the recaps I read, and the comments in the liveblog. If I don't get it entirely correct, I apologize in advance, but I think I'll probably do a pretty good job. (Good enough for government work, as they say). Here's the recap and box score.

Anyway, let's get on with it, painful as it may be.