grammudder wrote:

E.D.  Wanna know something good?  They can only play five at a time!!  There are statistics and damned statistics as Professor/Dr. Matlin used to say as I was working my way toward one of the few A's I got in my Bus. Adm. courses.  Their regular 8 man rotation scores about 64-68 agame.  Our team rotation scores 72.4 a game and gives up 72.6 a game.  We have a good chance for victory. I'm keeping the faith.

"Lies, dammed lies, and statistics". Attributed by Mark Twain to Disraeli.
 

Two years ago, Chaz Williams completely outplayed this year's supposedly NCAA Player of the Year T.J. McConnell.  Chaz can have an off game now and then, though.

Was Dayton Senior Day? We have another home game.

I understand it was senior day. I thought it was unusual too.

UMASS been working on their press and plan on using it more. Probably gonna be a lot of back and forth 2morrow nite.

I hope Jerry Jones gets a start tonight. I'm hoping that not starting him against Dayton was because the game was not at Palumbo.

ElDuque wrote:

Tough, tough loss tonight. You know me, no moral victories, but the Dukes played another 20+ win team to the wire. Remember that the next time we face them.

The key will be if we can carry this improved play over into next season. The fact that while Ovie is playing well, it's not a case of him out and out carrying the team, gives me some hope. If we can take care of business early in the year, I think we can get back on the winning side of the ledger. Some of the young guys will need to step up, but Mason and McKoy will need to have good years as our upper classmen, and leaders. Robinson is really going to be important. I will be watching him closely this summer. Let's hope Watkins can shake off the rust, and become another asset.
 

We discussed this last night during the game, any idea as to why Watkins sits at the end of the bench and never sees PT? If this was going to be the case, why didn't they redshirt him?

You can't redshirt too many players. If you do, it really clogs up your roster, and affects recruiting down the road. With Robinson basically taking a redshirt, you're down 2 scholarships if you do it with Watkins. He likely just never got into a groove after the late start. It was going to be either him or Gill getting what playing time was available up front, and Gill had the head start. Ferry really likes Gill's upside as well. With Jerry and Ovie graduating, there will be about 45 minutes a game up for grabs next year. There will be competition for those minutes, which is never a bad thing. JJ will have to fight to keep his minutes as well, so If Watkins steps up, he'll play.

There have been many disappointments this year, but the team has shown just enough in the last few weeks to make you say, hmmmmm! Of course, hindsight will be 20-20. If the team plays well next year, we'll all be saying how we could see it coming together at the end of the 2013-14 season. If not, these games will mean little.

WashPaRick wrote:

duq81 wrote:

There have been many disappointments this year, but the team has shown just enough in the last few weeks to make you say, hmmmmm! Of course, hindsight will be 20-20. If the team plays well next year, we'll all be saying how we could see it coming together at the end of the 2013-14 season. If not, these games will mean little.

Not really showing in the W column but we do seem to be playing our best basketball at the end of the season for one of the few times in the last several years.

I agree with both of you.  We lost to a clearly better team last night after fighting them down to the wire.  The team is no longer being in disarray for large segments of the game as it was earlier in the year.  We wouldn't have lost to New Hampshire or Robert Morris if we were playing at the current level back in December and I dare say we wouldn't have lost to Penn State, either.

Forward progress does seem apparent to me right now.  We'll see how this plays out in the non-conference part of the schedule for 2014-15.  I think we should play a more challenging schedule than we did this year and if we can come out of it with no more than let's say 4 losses then we could be pleasantly surprised when the whole season  has played out.

Jon Rothstein of CBS said on the radio today that he expects the A-10 to get six bids to the NCAA Tournament, and the Big Least to get two, tops. I'll digest a bite or two of crow because I thought coming into this season that the A-10 was heading for a letdown following the loss of Temple, Xavier, and Butler. Yeah, yeah, Charlotte left too.

And not that the loss of three strong programs is the reason, because two of them are having miserable seasons and Xavier is no lock for the Dance, but the teams at the top of the conference have had great seasons and have created a redistribution of power within the A-10.

It's good to know that the conference is in a good position right now. It was good to see more televised games, especially more televised DU games.

I agree with VBC that we have to play a stronger non-con next season. Of course we need to have Pitt, WVU, Penn State, Bobby Mo and St. Francis. Maybe a Big Least team (Xavier? Marquette? How about St. John's?). Maybe Ferry wants to play one at LIU?