The good: NGU, Louisville, the first 59 minutes and 53 seconds at Belmont, the first half of Upstate. The bad: the last 7 seconds and OT vs. Belmont, Radford, Navy, the second half of Upstate. The ugly: last night. The last 4 games this team has not resembled the team that played the first 3 games with the possible exception of the first half of the Upstate game. Why? IMHO it very well could be mental stemming from the giveawy at Belmont. I am hopng last night’s loss that turned into a win will have the opposite effect and be very positive knowing they averted disaster and all the goals are still in front of them. If the team that played the last 4 games shows up Friday and next Tuesday we will prolly end up around .500 in the ooc season. Hoping the heads are clear and the team that played the first 3 games shows up and if that happens we should finish at least a couple games above .500 heading into the conference season. Really looking forward to the game on Friday.
I wish I was that consistent at 20 y/o haha
But just like you put the Belmont game into multiple categories I'm not sure last night doesn't fit in the same mold.
Sure, we played below potential for most of the game, but we made two huge plays to force OT and 2OT, and closed out HPU in the 2nd OT quite convincingly. And we won a road game, despite shooting 7-27 from 3 and only converting 13-25 from the FT line.
I'd net out what you said by saying "we are good enough to beat ACC teams when we play well, but when we don't play well we can lose to anyone". And that's probably been true for us for most of the last 5-6 years. We will never just out physcial/talent anyone....to win we have to execute on both ends of the floor.
Having said that, it's part of why it's tough for Freshman to have an impact for us. We have a system and its 5 guys playing together and trusting the other guys on the court to do what they're supposed to do and be where they're supposed to be. Especially on defense. We are working in 2 Fr (Pegues and Williams) into the rotation and Foster is just now getting real minutes. That's gonna take time to gel.