Entertaining Season

[MolivaManiac]

I'd like to put aside the frustrating result tonight for a moment and say this was a pretty fun season. Plenty of highs and lows, and every emotion in between. New friends. New enemies. 2 wins over the sheep. Bandana guy.

We WILL go to the NCAA next year. Jump on the bandwagon now.

 

[MolivaManiac]

I'll also add that we just graduated a legend. Come back and see us Kendall.

 

[TBSpyder]

There's still plenty of room on the bandwagon, but hurry, it's filling fast.

 

[SpiderK]

+1 on both MO.

 

[97spiderfan]

I agree. Tonight's collapse not withstanding, we really finished the season as strong as we could. I am excited for next year and think we will have a really good team next year. But we have got to figure out how to not get destroyed night in, night out on the boards and also figure out how to play to win the game instead of playing not to lose.

Tonight's loss should provide the impetus for the coaching staff to make those changes. Those issues were not a tonight issue, they were a season long issue. It is somewhat fitting that both of them came out tonight in the most devastating of fashions.

 

[MidloTrader]

Agree, 97, that unless our coaches figure out their own issues with not continuing to play the game that gets you an 18 pt lead, we'll have another roller coaster season next year. All the O-D subbing simply seemed to kill any rhythm for offense. And we certainly weren't getting any stops on D, so seemed pointless (our bench guys could have fouled them). Can only pray they're embarrassed enough that they work on the D rebounding (at least) since it comes down to skill, technique and practice. We used to be "not good" at it but now we're downright HORRIBLE. And if they don't know how to do it, bring someone in who does. Tonight's performance in 2nd half was a replay of nearly all our losses this season with not rebounding and not hitting enough of our FTs.

 

[SpiderAlways]

Yeah milo, 5 guys should play all 40 minutes! dumb and dumber around here with our arm chair coaches

 

[SpiderK]

Midlo I agree, nice thoughts. Those kids never know who is on the floor with them half the time. I am tired of seeing a team out there where only 2 guys have any chance in hell of scoring. Take clock down to 3 seconds and throw it to a covered 5'9" guard and then blame him for missing!! Poor excuse for an offense.

 

[TBSpyder]

I did not see us play to not lose tonight. In fact, when we had openings, we attacked the basket early in the shot clock. The final minutes of games, intensity can pick up considerably. We could not match Miami's intensity, they were a bigger, stronger, more athletic team, and we have a short bench, and it's been a long season. We had opportunities at the end, but Miami took advantage of their opportunities, and we could not. Miami is a better team, no disgrace in having battled a close game. I hope we play them again next year.

 

[SpiderK]

TBS, I was getting text during the game from all over the country, including Florida, asking why UR went to the PREVENT offense. It was pretty obvious what was happening. It was very disappointing. I know you are disappointed to.

 

[SpiderAlways]

Prevent my ass. Miami steeped up their D

 

[bongturk]

when the shooters aren't scoring and the other three won't shoot, I wonder if playing Josh Jones who can and will shoot would make any difference? Where was he in the second half? Did his foot fall asleep????

 

[MolivaManiac]

You guys have derailed my thread.

 

[97spiderfan]

Originally posted by MolivaManiac:
You guys have derailed my thread.

What a thread get derailed. That never happens here.

 

[SpiderAlways]

Sorry Mo. It was a fun season. For me at least.

 

[SpiderFan26]

A disappointing season, but it does show some bright spots. NCAA or bust next year, and next year is the final "next year". Eventually we have to get it done and I think we will

 

[MidloTrader]

Don't be ridiculous, Always. But too often we seem to end up with only couple of shooters out on the floor. Know our coaches value D more but you can't stop scoring and being aggressive. Hope we can have a rotation of at least 9 or even 10 next season with better subbing patterns and not just the O-D stuff.

But it would also be nice to go with the "hot hands" when it's happening on the court and see how an extra minute or so for them might give us a few extra points. We had our opportunities down the stretch tonight, but unfortunately shots and FTs didn't fall our way.

Up to coaches to do the postmortems and if they can only improve 1 thing next season, I hope it will be to win the rebound battle at some kind of improvement -- 20% of the time next season would be amazing, since I think we only won it in 1 or 2 games all season.

 

[Eight Legger]

Lots of fun moments and great memories from this season. Lots of frustrating ones and disappointment, as well. I guess I'm too spent from it all to really be that upset about tonight. Looking forward to November.

 

[MidloTrader]

Definitely a roller coaster ride of a season. But fun down the stretch. Guess we all forget that only 1 team is 100% happy at the end of the season. So glad we got to see Kendall and these guys play together for 3 more home games. Thanks for the memories and best of all, beating VCU twice!

 

[kneepadmckinney]

Will always--ALWAYS--love me some Kendall Anthony, from his very first game against American to tonight. Tremendous heart, and tremendous skill.

Great job by the team in circling the wagons after GMU and making something memorable out of a difficult situation.

Shooting coaches and box out drills for the summer.

 

[SpiderK]

I am the first one to admit at 13-12 I thought we had nothing and would win 2 more games. TA picked up his game and stopped turning it over so much. TJ became a pass distributer and worked hard on his D and got more minutes. SDJ, started to show how special he is. Kendall was Kendall.

My family and I were there for 20 games and lived and died with you guys and the team. Wouldn't have missed it for anything. Can't wait to see what's in the box of chocolates for next year.

 

[HuntsmanSpider]

"Entertaining" is correct. I'm proud that our guys finished the season strong, and they were fun to watch throughout that process. Should be a fun 2015-16.

 

[Spider B]

I too thought we were in trouble when sitting at 13-12. I give CM and the team a lot of credit for turning the season around. I still think this should have been an NCAA year and am dissapointed it was not. That beinf said, I had a great time attending NIT games at the RC. NCAA or bust next year. We have a lot to build on and a few things to work on this off-season.

 

[SpiderFan]

Thoughts on how we're going to replace 17ppg next year? I don't think Allen and Cline will pick up too much more of the scoring maybe a couple points per game each. Shawndre will obviously get more (hopefully) but he had started to develop the bad habit of going into the lane out of control and hoisting up wild shots that wouldn't come close to going in. Maybe Wood gets 6-7 per game. We know David and Taylor won't be picking up the scoring slack.

 

[SpiderTrap]

Have to be proud of how this team finished down the stretch. 9-3 in the last 12. We beat VCU twice this season, and even were able to finish 4th in the A10. The future looks bright again for next year, even with Anthony departing. But as someone else posted - I think the success at the end makes next year the last "next year" and an NCAA or bust season.

I would have two concerns though heading into next season.

1) How do you replace Anthony? Its not so much his scoring, but it is easy to see he was the leader and pulse of this team. As he went - so did the rest of the team. He seemed to get other players pumped up with his play and hustle, and that might be something we miss next year more than his 17 points.

2) Have we seen this before? Last season - we finished pretty strong. not so much in a win/loss perspective - but with guys getting more minutes and expanded roles due to the Ced injury and Williams leaving the team. ShawnDre played very well at the end of last season, and seemed to pick up steam this year come A10 play. Same with Allen - he played great towards the end of the season last year, and seemed to really pick things up and become more consistent when we hit A10 play. And Cline - he was up and down during the first part of the year - but came on strong towards the end. But this year should serve as an example - our NCAA bid is can be lossed in the OOC schedule. We did not perform well out of the gate and early losses to ODU, JMU, Northeastern, Wake really put us behind the 8 ball. Assuming next year's schedule will be tougher - how does this team come out ready to play from day 1. VCU showed that you win your bid in the OOC. They did all their work in the OOC, then got hit with injury and even finished behind us in the A10, but still got a 7 seed in the tourney. They did come on strong in the A10 tourney - but I think it goes to show - you need to be ready in the OOC to get that bid, and next year is a bid year for UR.

 

[MrTbone]

I think we will be ok on point production. I am expecting we will have four starters who will average double figures each (TA 15/16, TJ 15, SDJ 13, ANO 10) and I can't remember any recent time when I expected that to be the case. My ANO projection is based on how he was closing the season, not where he started, although that could be said of all four guys.

So other points need to come from the 2guard, either Trey or some combination of him and bench. I don't know if CM feels he has a gap there or not, he's been pretty willing to play guys who are not offensive threats and are role players.

The OOC is clearly important. I still trace our NCAA bid miss to in conference though, the GMU loss. We win that game and I'm pretty sure we are in. Obviously there were more chances in OOC to secure our bid as well, we just didn't perform there.

We have shown a habit of playing to the level of competition (both up and down) in the OOC. Some of that happened this year. Not sure how to break that cycle other than to know you should win.

 

[HuntsmanSpider]

The offense may struggle a little, esp early, but we won't have to score as many. I predict 2015-16 will be our best defensive team since 2009-10....it was tough to get stops with 2 undersized guards on the perimeter.

This post was edited on 3/25 10:20 AM by HuntsmanSpider

 

[mcspider]

It was a fun season filled with some epic games. There were several games that were simply fantastic as basketball games period. VCU home game, Arizona St., Davidson to name a few. Kendall Anthony is surely going to be missed. But with the close of any season comes the hopeful excitement for next year.

 

[spideroo]

Mo - +1000 on the sentiment that began the thread.

I had exactly the same thought as I left the Robins Center last night. My family and I made new friends in the arena this season and shared a ton of great experiences with a bunch of neat folks. If I ever bump into any player or coach, I will absolutely thank them for a really fun ride.

Only eight months until opening night. Let's go!