Friday, November 28, 2008

UAB thoughts

We stopped the bleeding and put together a quality win. The best news of the day was Rice broke out of his funk

Likes
-- Second-half rebounding. This team is not talented enough to win games without controlling the boards. The first half was awful as UAB grabbed 8 more rebounds than BC did. Fortunately things improved in the second half mostly due to Southern and Trapani.
-- Rice getting hot. His outburst doesn't mean his slump is over. Team's are going to focus on him but he took over in the second half.
-- Reggie Jackson during crunch time. He fought for rebounds and buried a critical 3.
-- Sanders' scoring. He is still reckless at times, but he gave us some points when we were desperate and his pass to Raji in the zone was perfect.

Dislikes
-- Defensive rotation. The defensive stats don't tell the whole story. UAB missed plenty of open shots. Good shooting teams will kill us if we are so lackadaisical defensively.
-- Our lack of adjustments to Rice coming off the double screens at the top of the key. Clearly teams are going to shoot the big man out and double him. We need something effective out of that set to burn teams who leave one of the screeners open.

This wasn't a banner week for BC basketball. If anything they offset the questionable loss to St. Louis with a nice resume win over UAB. (If Purdue stays in the top 20, that loss won't look as bad.) Now we need to build on the second halfs from MSG, get Rice hot and tear through the non-conference schedule.

4 comments:

Raj said...

Definitely agree with everything you said, especially on the defensive end. We give up driving lanes like nobody's business. Rakim sanders shows that on occassion he can become a good defender but consistent effort is lacking.

Not only is effort lacking, but i really think that the coaching staff is not stepping up. Repeatedly we dont know how to defend the pick and roll or pick and slip.
I dont think this is on the players but also on coaching and preparation.

Im hoping we really step up our defensive effort, and am hoping for.500 in conference

ClassO10 said...

Big win to get to 4-2. Going 0-2 in New York and having a 3 game losing streak this early into the season would have been awful for the psyche of this team. This also could be a nice resume win come March (yes, I am optimistic).

Agree with the rebounding in the second half. Much better. Southern and Trapani have to keep up their efforts on the boards. Defense has to get a lot better. Like seeing Tyrese get his swagger back.

We have 8 games in December. Home games against Iowa and Providence and a road game against UMASS should be the only tough ones. If we run the table in December and take care of Harvard in early January we can have some great momentum heading into ACC play and get back to the big Dance. Get focused guys. A bad blemish in December will haunt us come selection time.

ClassO10 said...

Sorry, Harvard comes after UNC.

Erik said...

We seem to lose the ball too often, either lazy passes or dribbling through traffic. Conversely, I have been very happy with transition game when they get the ball and go. I hope they decide to push more often, then if there's nothing available we can slow it up in to the flex. But when teams can really pressure Tyrese, our team goes downhill. If we're off and running, they can't guard him and he can beat people to the basket or find an open guy for a layup. I'll be happy if they decide to try to create more fast break opportunities. It doesn't mean they have to force a bad shot that isn't there.