PeteCalvin
Hall of Fame
- Joined
- Aug 26, 2011
- Messages
- 8,779
- Like
- 11,737
For about a 10 minute stretch in the second half I thought we reverted back to our eggshell style from last year. When they started getting physical with us, we stopped going hard to the hoop. It was most evident in Kris and CJ. KJo seemed to stick to the perimeter and faded when he did get near the basket. The clearest example is when he missed that short shot off the glass. He didn't get the ball high enough on the square to bank it in. It hit off the board low, hit the rim flat and bounded off. CJ faded a few times and missed some easy chippys. Even Triche and Scoop stopped taking it strong and settled for jumpers. It wasn't until JB put Dion back in that we regained some of our moxie.
All that said, we fought through that stretch and managed to pick ourselves back up. We didn't look pretty, but we withstood their best shot and managed to give a few of our own at the end. The more I thought about it after the game, the better I felt about this being close and physical and not a 30 point walk-on exhibition. We needed a game like this. We needed to be kicked around. We needed to see how we would and could respond. I wish we had responded better (and sooner than we did), but we did what we needed to do and won a hard fought conference victory. That said, we were lucky to be on our home court today. A game like this could have easily gone south on us in a hurry at Marquette.
This is a solid, meaningful victory and hopefully one that will re-galvanize and re-focus the team on the areas we need to improve. It's obvious we need to get stronger both mentally and physically so we can respond more effectively the next time a team tries to lay a haymaker on us.
We are still undefeated and still #1. It's good to be Orange.
All that said, we fought through that stretch and managed to pick ourselves back up. We didn't look pretty, but we withstood their best shot and managed to give a few of our own at the end. The more I thought about it after the game, the better I felt about this being close and physical and not a 30 point walk-on exhibition. We needed a game like this. We needed to be kicked around. We needed to see how we would and could respond. I wish we had responded better (and sooner than we did), but we did what we needed to do and won a hard fought conference victory. That said, we were lucky to be on our home court today. A game like this could have easily gone south on us in a hurry at Marquette.
This is a solid, meaningful victory and hopefully one that will re-galvanize and re-focus the team on the areas we need to improve. It's obvious we need to get stronger both mentally and physically so we can respond more effectively the next time a team tries to lay a haymaker on us.
We are still undefeated and still #1. It's good to be Orange.
