Wednesday, March 05, 2014

Not close

"Close only counts in horseshoes and hand grenades"
-- Gorilla Monsoon (among others)

 I already wrote about how the close losses narrative bothers me. Bad luck comes into play in all sports, but in general, your close games will even out over time. If you look at the whole season, BC did lose eight games by four points or less. However, they won three games by four or less. That is a little unlucky, but not as dramatic as the announcers made it. Even if you completely flipped the luck and won eight of the 11 close games, BC would still stand at 13-17 with one game left. Would that change the decision on Donahue? Not in my opinion.
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18 comments:

Napolean Bonaparte said...

Time for Brad Bates to earn his generous compensation. We need a major upgrade hire and Bates needs to make the turning around of both men's and women's basketball a huge priority. To the extent Leahy is opposed then that needs to be exposed and discussed. BC's students deserve much better than this.

12:42 PM
Erik said...

I miss Craig Smith terribly.

2:11 PM
WI_Eagle said...

Craig Smith is my favorite player in the last 15 years of BC basketball. I feel like he is a bit overshadowed when people talk mostly about Bell, Dudley, and even Jackson as Skinner's "diamonds in the rough" but Smith's combination of scoring and rebounding is unmatched.

2:32 PM
Anonymous said...

Close losses! Bah! The announcer just does not know hoops (not!)

A close loss is called a "moral victory" if you like the coach.

Stevie has had enough moral victories this year and he is recruiting well and he knocked off a #1.

He will return.

I think we will all look back and laugh about the idea of firing Steve (what were we thinking!)

5:06 PM
mod10aeagle said...

Calling Donahue "Stevie" is not helping your cause, eagle. And you might want to step away from whatever happy juice you're drinking. If you have some reality-based rationale to support Donahue's continued employment, you might want to share that.

6:23 PM
dmyankees said...

eagle: "Stevie has had enough moral victories this year and he is recruiting well and he knocked off a #1."

That knocking off of a #1 is looking less and less impressive by the week as Syracuse continues to struggle.

6:34 PM
Anonymous said...

mod10notaneagle -

If you only had a clue...

So, if someone disagrees with you they are drunk. What a idiot.

7:11 PM
Hoib said...

Erik

I've watched BC hoops for over 40 years, and in my opinion Craig has been the best player we've had. When he was a freshman he was the goto guy even though we had Troy running the point. He was unstoppable unless he stopped himself w/ silly reach in fouls, his Achilles heal.

Now to the subject of the post. It' s not bad luck that causes us to lose the close ones. Most important games tend to be close. In a close game late the most important thing is to get stops. We can't do that because we have players w/ Ivy League physical ability trying to guard future NBA players.
When we have the ball we have very limited options late. Ideally you want to play inside out. In Stevie Wonders system we live and die w/ the 3. By doing this in a close game late, all the probabilities work against you. So more often than not we die.

7:27 PM
@timstwrt said...

When Craig was a freshman Troy scored 25 points a game.

8:09 PM
Hoib said...

Tim,

I know that, but in spite of that Al still went Craig in the final minute. I specifically remember a crucial Big East game against Rutgers that we had to have, and the last 2 or 3 trips we went into Craig and he delivered. No knock on Troy, but I thought Craig was the best. Feel free to disagree.

8:51 PM
@timstwrt said...

Too close to call....I'm partial to Troy, but they're 1-2 either way. That year they benefitted from one another, but Troy had the weaker supporting cast in general.

9:01 PM
Hoib said...

Tim

They were both great, and I had so much fun watching them. I went to all 3 games at the Garden when Troy led us to the Big East title. I'm starting to wonder if I'll have anywhere near the fun like that in the future w/ this deep hole we are in now.

9:37 PM
matthew2 said...

Talk about the anti-Donahue...

http://espn.go.com/nba/story/_/id/10559217/gregg-popovich-san-antonio-spurs-says-players-play-coach-court

I know the caliber of player on the Spurs is much different than BC, yada yada yada... but I'm so sick of watching Donahue micro-manage, it's pathetic and insulting to an all-ACC caliber PG.

10:58 PM
Bravesbill said...

I'd go with Dudley over either Craig or Troy. Craig was dominant when he wanted to be. However, he disappeared through various parts of games and couldn't hit a free throw late in games to save his life. I only got to see Troy play for 2 years but he was pretty streaky as well (although he had no support his senior year). Dudley had it all though and was really consistent. He was a major contributor his freshman year and improved throughout his career. He could post defenders up, his a mid range jump shot, and during his last two years he had a pretty good 3 point shot. He was virtually unstoppable his senior year. He never stopped hustling and got a ton of rebounds even though he was fairly small for a front court guy.

10:38 AM
Tim said...

It's funny reading all the comments knocking Donahue for micro-managing, considering Skinner was routinely knocked by BC fans for his lack of in-game coaching.

12:31 PM
Hoib said...

Braves Tim

We are stuck w/ this stuff to talk about because we for the third year in a row have no hoop season to pay attention to so here goes.

Onahue was basically hired as the not Al coach. I think the jury is in on how that decision went. I don't get much support on this blog, but I feel Al was a very good coach, and as ATL has said was perfect for BC.

Now onto the best player argument. You can't judge Troy if u didn't see his soph. Year, it was his best. I think he was Big East player of the year. So if we want the best for 1 year u could go w/ Troy, or Dudley, but I would go w/ john Bagley, who I know Bill didn't see, and probably not Tim.

For the best career I still like the Rhino, Dudley who is the smartest player I've seen, was second fidle to him for 3 years. As to the foul shooting late. 2 of the last 3 games he played were the most important of his career. On our last possession we went to him he got fouled and sank both. The last against Nova w/ an injured wrist. The prior was the ACC title game against Duke. More people would remember this if we could have made stops on D as the games ended but didn't.

Any way you cut it we don't have anyone on this team who can approach these guys, sorry Olivier. They were all money when the game was on the line. That's what makes a great player, not a nice stat line. Maybe there is someone older than me who would want to add Austin or Driscoll to the mix.

5:57 PM
mod34b said...

Hoib, let's not forget about a BC legend many here will be hearing about for the first time now: MICHAEL ADAMS. All of 5'10". Lighting quick.

He was Bagley light. but more exciting -- not quite as excellent as the Bags, but so exciting and awesome to watch. Probably has the highest NBA single season scoring avergage of any BC grad (26/gm).

----------------
Adams (1981-85) lettered four seasons and started three at guard for Boston College under then-coach Gary Williams. He helped the Eagles to a four-year record of 85-40 including one NIT and three NCAA Tournament appearances. A three-time, second-team All-Big East selection in 1983, 84 and 85, he was also an NABC All-District honoree in the same years. He still ranks 12th on the Boston College career scoring list with 1,650 points, averaging 13.9 points a game, is 7th on the BC career assist list with 475 assists and is the Eagles' all-time leader in steals with 275. A third-round selection of the Sacramento Kings in the 1985 NBA Draft, he went on to an 11-year professional career in which he scored 9,621 career points and had 4,209 assists with Sacramento, Washington, Denver and Charlotte. A native of Hartford, Conn.,

7:25 PM
Hoib said...

Mod

He was something! And those were great years.

8:05 PM

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