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.

THE GOOD

Nick Hendra - Well, whatever Hendra did it clearly wasn't terrible since he was in the game almost immediately tonight (though he didn't start, Joe Hill did in his place). I guess Nick spent a good long time thinking about what he'd done because he had a career night, scoring 19 points 6-9 from the field, 5-7 from long range, and 2-3 from the line. He also had 5 rebounds and 4 assits (though he did turn the ball over 4 times and he fouled out). He was visibly drained and frustrated by the end of the game; he did everything he possibly could have tonight, but he just didn't get the support he needed (more on that soon).

Danny Munoz - Danny also recorded a career high scoring total tonight with 15 points (3-9 from the field, 2-4 from deep, 7-8 from the line). I've got to say though, it was a pretty quiet 15 points. He also got 2 rebounds and dished 2 assists against only 1 turnover. A pretty okay game all the way around for Danny. He didn't make too many mistakes, but he also didn't manage the floor particularly well. For a freshman PG, this was an excellent game. He's getting better and better.

Stephen Lumpkins - This is admittedly a pretty iffy appearance in the good column. Yes Lumpkins had 11 points (4-7 from the field, 3-5 from the line) and 8 rebounds, but he played terrible defense tonight. Mike Muscala, Bucknell's FRESHMAN center, and Patrick Behan combined for 27 points. Behan's been around the block a couple of times, but to get burned like that by a freshman? For shame. You got stumped by a young chump, Lump.

Team rebounds - We outrebounded them 36-32, which is good, but again, it's slim pickings for the good column tonight.

THE BAD

Where to start? Where to start? Hmm. Let's start here.

Shooting of all flavors - 18-51 from the field (35%), 7-19 from 3 (37%), 16-23 from the line (70%). We had no rhythm at all on the offensive end of the court. Couldn't get anything going. Which forced us to throw up some really crappy shots. We didn't do well in the paint (and didn't take full advantage of getting to the line), and we didn't finish particularly well. We should've driven into the lane more to try to get to the line more because we sure as hell weren't going to do it from the outside.

Defense - This was something I touched on in the preview. They're a balanced team, they've got 5-6 guys they can get scoring from. They had four guys in double figures (and one with 8). We didn't do well guarding jump shots (we just let them have jump shots, and they knocked them down. All night. They killed us with 12-14' jumpers.) We didn't play Behan and Muscala tightly inside, and like I said they put up almost 30 combined points on us.

AU's roleplayers - This includes Simon McCormack, Matthew Wilson, Joe Hill, Steve Luptak, and Riley Grafft. Here's the combined line: 88 minutes, 4-19 from the field, 12 points. We really needed to have some help tonight, and we really didn't get it. Maybe it's not fair to add Riley in with this mix (he was 3-7 with 6 points and 7 rebounds). Alright, fine, Riley you're lumped in here, but you're actually passable tonight. Oh wait, no, here's why you're not: YOU TOOK ANOTHER THREE. STOP DOING THAT. Seriously, if you don't take another 3 for the rest of the season, I'll give you $20. You've shown you can put it on the floor, make a move inside, and jam it. SO STOP HANGING OUT BEHIND THE ARC.

THE UGLY

Two very clear candidates tonight, and it has to start with -

Vlad "the Impaled" Moldoveanu - Everyone is entitled to an off game. I get that. Vlad has been a godsend for us this year, and he's kept us in a lot of games we otherwise would've gotten blown out in. Tonight though was spectacularly bad. 1-7 from the field (0-3 from long range), for 2 points with 5 rebounds, an assist, and 3 turnovers. Now there were some mitigating circumstances. The first was that Vlad got double-teamed every time he touched the ball and he was able to neither fight through the double team nor find the open man that said double team created. The second was it looked like his shot was just generally off tonight. The third was that he was in foul trouble all night thanks to some truly spectacularly awful officiating (more on that in a minute) tonight. At one point Vlad was backing a man down in the post and VLAD got called for the foul because the defender was driving both elbows into his back. Jeff Jones was incredulous and rightfully so. Vlad ended with 4 fouls and only got 25 minutes of play. Looking at the score (73-59) if Vlad had had even half his normal production (10 points) AU is right back in this thing. But he got SHUT. DOWN. COMPLETELY. I mean, he was literally impaled by the Bucknell defense. Ugh. It also just came to my attention that today was Vlad's birthday. Not much like Mike Bersch's birthday game where he lit up Manhattan for 16. Sorry your birthday wasn't a good one, Vlad. You'll do better against Colgate.

Foul trouble for both teams/terrible officiating - There were 49 fouls called in this game (27 on AU), and it really impacted the outcome of the game. Vlad, Riley, Lump, and Hendra were all in foul trouble all game, as were many of the key players for Bucknell. I'm not really sure why the refs decided that breathing on someone was a foul tonight, but it seemed like every single ticky-tack handcheck was called, much to the dismay, and later, outright anger, of the AU coaching staff.

I did some digging because I wanted to see what the story was. It turns out, we see this ref pretty often. Mr. Rutecki, every game you call I want to tear my hair out. You're terrible. Tonight was especially bad though. Here were the other two refs: Louie Andrakakos and Jeff Nichols. Here's some stats. This officiating crew averages almost 37 fouls a game, with an average standard deviation of 6.8. So statistically 95% of the time, with this crew, you will have 43 fouls or less, give or take a foul. We basically had a game tonight that was almost two standard deviations above the mean. The percentages of time that should happen statistically is approximately 5% (technically 2.2%, but it wasn't two full standard deviations, so I added some more in there). Additionally, this crew averages a -1 home margin on fouls. Tonight's home margin? +5.

The bottom line is: this game is a statistical anomaly for this crew. A statistical anomaly that manifested itself as too many ticky-tack fouls and garbage calls. Let the boys play, refs.

And boys, when the refs do happen to be letting you play, DON'T PLAY LIKE TRASH.

After this game and the Lehigh game, I'm really beginning to think that we're on the downward trend again. That 3-game winning streak seems like a loooooooong time ago now and a much different team. Hopefully we can rebound against Colgate this weekend.

I welcome your comments, maybe they'll lift my spirits.

Pro deo et patria and GO EAGLES!