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Message: [QUOTE="Cheriehoop, post: 169113, member: 127"] Nice post as usual Tom. I was fortunate to have sat in THE seats this game. Thank you to CTO, it's always so much fun and gives me the special opportunity to see the game from a totally different perspective from there. Being an SU BB addict, we got there by 11:00am and watched the pregame- pregame warm-ups by ourselves from our special game seats. Saw James and Kevin Jones talking together during warm ups at midcourt. Watching WVU, I was struck by our size advantage even without Fab. Huggins is a very good coach to get the production he does out of the players he has. They are mostly young and they have many small guard-like players who box out and play like they are 4 inches taller which is admirable. Saw a number of moving picks , riding players without a saddle by WVU though which I don't really admire. Their coaching staff and players stand quite a bit on the sidelines, had to be tough for fans behind them to see the game. Was disappointed in KJ for parts of this game. He was defended many times by a guard about 4 inches shorter than him. Was hoping he'd post up and either shoot/pass to the open man when doubled but he would come out high and drive. So glad that in the 2nd half that KJ committed himself to rebounding. Particularly without Fab and with our centers struggling, he has to be a force on the boards to win. Our guards were getting by theirs but we have issues stopping and popping or passing if we can't make it all the way to the basket. Brandon was strong enough to take the bumping and reaching that occurred. Have no idea why Dion who also has the strength has been struggling to finish after taking hits. I thought Dion could have taken his man whenever he wanted to but was reluctant till the end and less effective than I would have thought. He appears to be off balance and fading away from the basket when he takes the shot. Great dunk though. I know I'm biased but why does it seem that SU isn't allowed anywhere the same level of contact they are dealt, before a foul is called? On our drives to the basket it reminded me of a gauntlet-like pinball machine with the bumpers hitting back. We are playing physical teams but it appears because we aren't particularly physical ourselves, we get penalized more for less contact. I admit that our guards are bigger but they just don't put a body on their opponent when the shot goes up, way too many of WVU's guards got rebounds and loose balls after shots. They outrebounded us by 20 but just as crucial was the fact they had 11 more turnovers than us too. Scoop's dad is one of the most vocal fans I think we've had. He reminds the refs constantly of the 3 second rule, which they totally ignore. Saw GMac's wife and new adorable baby boy. Caught a t-shirt thrown today. The t-shirt highlighted rivalry week and our February Georgetown and UConn home games and says it's "time to take the dogs out". Nice sentiment. I almost caught Brandon Triche in the first half when he was heading out of bounds too. Humbly I admit that I secretly granted him hoops mojo when we touched, blessing him with special scoring powers that I was happy he utilized so well. Goal tending - yes - recognized it right away but no I'm not apologizing for the missed call. As other have pointed out there were a number of missed calls throughout and some ticky tack calls targeting our centers. Looked to me that WVU got the ball back for a chance to tie after the contraversial missed goal-tending call by missing a call in WVU's favor too. It just happens and we know that well. By the way Baye has to have hip pointers from those high pick and roll plays - he took some big hits. Makes me wish for AO for payback, he must have made opponents pay on that play. Also JB seemed to be very irritated and frustrated with the teams' performance. His sideline demeanor with the team has definitely become much more animated. Hopefully our shooting improves , bad time for it to go south with our inside game more limited with the loss of Fab and some big games ahead. No sleeping on SJU! Go SU! 22-1 overall record 9-1 in the conference plus Georgetown lost - life is good! [/QUOTE]

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