Second half collapses are nothing new. How we lost was. Instead of coming out flat in the second half, we actually extended our lead. We were controlling the tempo. Yet a boneheaded play from Spears and some big baskets from McClinton and the game was effectively over. The analysis is pretty straight forward.
Likes
-- Southern and Raji getting easy points close to the basket. Even if Rice returns those types of points should be the focus of our offense next season.
-- Oates' defense. Give the guy credit. He's trying and he grabbed 8 defensive boards, added a block and a steal.
Dislikes
-- Blair and Spears' decisions. We've been known for guys with good basketball IQs. Guys who knew where to be and what to do in various situations. These two were in a fog tonight. I mentioned Spears stupid intentional foul. Blair had a few blocks, but his offense stunk. When he gets the ball in the low block a bad decision will follow.
-- Sanders' handle. He has a great frame and could become a very good player, but his traveling is plain sloppy. Some of the calls were borderline, but Rakim is reckless any time he drives while facing the basket. He's much better posting up a smaller gaurd.
-- Rice's passive second half. When the game started slipping away Rice never stopped the comeback with a big play. He got Southern involved for some easy baskets, but we needed him to answer McClinton's big baskets.
The season that won't end is almost over. Let's hope Senior Day changes the karma and attitude of this team.
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6 comments:
Fifteen more points from the charity strike certainly was a factor for Da U as well.
I posted this on Friday, January 11th:
"I must admit that I haven't been following basketball this year very closely - probably because of my very low expectations in a rebuilding year.
I like the positive attitudes often displayed here (on the blog). I hope I am very wrong - but 5 and 11 (or worse)is probably what we will see this year.
Skinner is too lax for freshmen who are not surrounded by wily veterans to be successful, in my opinion."
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I am not mentioning this as though I am some proud prognosticator, but the loss of Sean Williams (and maybe Akida McLain - who had character issues before he even came to BC, as I recall) sealed our fate this year. I have been a basketball fan since grade school many years ago, and I have watched a lot of games. We were behind the 8 ball from the get-go, as they say.
Let's look forward to next year. I don't see any 6'10" players coming along, so we had better be good defensively - much more than this year, obviously. I think that will come with time and maturity.
Follow-up note
Southern will be our only 6'10" player next season, I think.
We lost a lot of close games this year - if Tyrese stays, I think we can be a real threat in the ACC next year. This team has no quit.
I would have like BC finish off the U though, can't stand the U in any sport.
I can't stand when people call Miami "THE U".
It's bad enough when people from there do it, so let's not promote their arrogance.
Another game. Another huge opponent run in the second half to win the game. This pattern occurs every game simply because Al has poor game management skills. Instead of letting runs spiral out of control, how about calling a timeout after a 5-0 or 7-0 mini-run to try to break up the opponent's momentum. There's no reason why Al should have had 4 TOs left with 6 minutes left to play.
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