When you have an 11 point lead at half time and then blow it, you could say it's GOOD, BAD, and UGLY

Gooood morning and happy weekend to all of you out there in the Eagles blogosphere! Don't know about the rest of you, but this week was particularly long and agonizing. The thing that made it all better though was that incredible win at St. Francis last night! Up at 11 at half time? Psht, I'm not watching the rest of this blowout, I've got other things to do!

Wait, what?

What do you mean awful second half? What do you mean "lost by four"? Are you kidding me?

Ugh. Well. At least it's Saturday.

I'm kidding by the way, of course I was sitting riveted to the hideous video feed from St. Francis and the pretty okay radio feed from the local radio station. In fact, we even ran our first liveblog last night (you can replay it below if you're so inclined). I'd like to thank everyone who came out for that last night, it was a pretty good time, and we will keep doing it for the away games.

Here's the requisite info from last night: Box Score Recap

In any event, it's time for today's edition of the GOOD, the BAD, and the UGLY!



THE GOOD

The good section from last night could really begin and end with Riley Grafft. A career night (in a young career) for Riley. 14 points and 6 rebounds in 30 minutes, and only 1 personal foul (we'll get to that in a minute). Riley had a career-high 12 points IN THE FIRST HALF, and then only added another bucket in the second half as the Red Flash found a way to tighten up inside against the Eagles. Still, Riley provided solid, foul-free minutes after Lumpkins got into foul trouble. This is especially encouraging after his game against Catholic (0-1, 0 points). Nice work.

Daniel Fisher's performance last night doesn't, in its totality, qualify for the "good" section here. However, the sweet left-handed hook he had in the lane certainly does qualify. Fish, if we can get some more of those, 1. that'd be wonderful and 2. you'll find yourself here a lot more often.

The free throw shooting last night was fantastic. 14-15 overall, including 6-7 from Lumpkins. Wonderful. Like I said last night in the liveblog, we weren't great at shooting free throws last year, and it was okay because we were good enough to get away with it. This year, maybe not the case, we can't afford to give away free points, and we're capitalizing thus far this season.

Looks like we've got our point guard indecision resolved. Danny Munoz played a game-high 35 minutes last year (here's the line: 6 points, 4 fouls, 4 turnovers, 4 assists). Not the greatest line ever, but at least JJ figured it out, now we'll see Danny progress and mature as the year goes on.

THE BAD

Unfortunately, there's some items for this column this morning.

Rebounding. We got killed on the boards in the second half against a team that didn't have our height. We got very few second chance opportunities in the second half, and it really hurt us and contributed to us blowing that 11 point lead. Lumpkins and Grafft combined for 14 rebounds, which is respectable, don't get me wrong, but we've got to out-rebound teams like St. Francis.

Fouls. Another big contributor to the loss yesterday was foul trouble. Lumpkins, Munoz, and Hendra all were in foul trouble last night (four fouls for each), and St. Francis got into the double bonus with more than nine minutes to go in the second half. St. Francis went 21-28 from the line, 19-25 in the second half. They iced the game from the line with three seconds to go.

THE UGLY

I'm reluctant to call out individual Eagles for last night's game because I only had the radio feed and a choppy video feed to go off of. So I won't call out anyone for an overall performance, but there is something that is definitely ugly last night from the box score.

Lumpkins: 2-9 from the field
Hendra: 3-12 from the field
Combined: 5-21 from the field, 14 points total.

Not going to get it done, but it's symptomatic of a larger problem. We shot 52.4% in the first half (very good!). The second half for the team? 9-28 from the field, 32%. Ouch. Talk about major halftime adjustments for St. Francis.

The three point shooting also regressed this game. 3-12 total from behind the arc, including 2-8 from Hendra. Some of those come as we were playing catch-up in the last minute, but still, I'd rather see you pound it inside for a higher percentage shot than try to force the three-point game.

Anyway. That's that. Another GOOD, BAD, AND UGLY completed. Now we can look toward ALBANY in the HOME OPENER ON MONDAY AT 7:30PM.

BE THERE! BE BLUE! BE AU! (and have a nice weekend everyone!)

Pro deo et patria and GO EAGLES!