Who Dat Who Dat Not Gonna Beat Dem Saints?
Albany 74
Siena 82 (OT)
Pepsi Arena
Gotta' admit, I'm writing this with about the same amount of urgency the Danes displayed in the first half of today's game. We should just spot our opponents 12 points at the start of every game, play one half of basketball and save everyone an hour of their time.
I was really excited about the game-- very nice crowd at the Knick and an especially great turnout by Danes fans. Although Siena definitely had us outnumbered, their crowd could not match our intensity or enthusiasm. In fact, I don't remember a single "defense" chant issued by the Siena faithful today. I was actually pretty unimpressed with Siena's crowd, to be honest. Their crowd was pretty loud at the end of the game and that was about it. I was half-expecting an "overrated" chant and I didn't even get that.
Siena shot lights out tonight and for some reason we simply refused to guard them on the perimeter. Its like we were daring them to take 3's and Siena was more than up for the task this afternoon. I haven't seen a stats sheet but Siena simply did not miss in the first half. Oh, and other than Lucious-- who called a big game today and delivered on his promise-- we had a heck of a time hitting shots today. Outside shots. Inside shots. Three-point shots. Free throws. We were dreadful from the line today. Heck, we even got smoked in the Albany-Siena student free-throw contest. Their guy had 8. We had 2.
Jamar's play was pretty out of control at times, making a few bad passes and poor decisions. Of course his drive to tie the game with 2 seconds left in regulation was a thing of beauty, and he did come up with a few big offensive rebounds. To be honest, Jamar looks frustrated out there at times. It appears to me as if he feels he is trying to do too much, and he only gets into trouble when he plays as if he needs to carry the team on his back.
A Siena fan on the bigpurplefans site raised an interesting point. He questioned whether or not the Danes might be playing a little tight right now as a result of Coach Brown's contract status. I'm not sure whether or not I agree, but the team is obvliously very tight right now. Coach Brown alluded to his team's tightness in his post-game remarks, and nowhere was this better illustrated than in their 12-21 shooting from the charity stripe. This same team shot over 72% from the line last year.
(BTW, although I'm not a Siena fan, its good to see the civility and the sportsmanship displayed by both sides on the message boards.)
A couple of insanely bad calls. The no-call on Jamar was bad, along with a jump-ball call that gave Siena possession late in the game. However, if we played with the same intensity in the first half as we displayed in the second, those non-calls would never have been an issue.
Of course, its is going to be tough for a team trying to find its stride to do so when it plays two games in two weeks-- next Saturday at Cleveland State and the following Saturday when a surprising Harvard team comes to the RACC. I'm sure the team is champing at the bit right now and it has to be frustrating for the team knowing that their next game is not for another week.
Despite the disappointment, the team did not give up and did come back from an 18 point deficit with 13 minutes left in the game. Siena had the chance to put us away and they couldn't. We're a talented team, but we won't be a good one until we can get 40 minutes of solid play. Good teams also find ways to win, even when everyone is not playing well and firing on all cylinders.
Siena 82 (OT)
Pepsi Arena
Gotta' admit, I'm writing this with about the same amount of urgency the Danes displayed in the first half of today's game. We should just spot our opponents 12 points at the start of every game, play one half of basketball and save everyone an hour of their time.
I was really excited about the game-- very nice crowd at the Knick and an especially great turnout by Danes fans. Although Siena definitely had us outnumbered, their crowd could not match our intensity or enthusiasm. In fact, I don't remember a single "defense" chant issued by the Siena faithful today. I was actually pretty unimpressed with Siena's crowd, to be honest. Their crowd was pretty loud at the end of the game and that was about it. I was half-expecting an "overrated" chant and I didn't even get that.
Siena shot lights out tonight and for some reason we simply refused to guard them on the perimeter. Its like we were daring them to take 3's and Siena was more than up for the task this afternoon. I haven't seen a stats sheet but Siena simply did not miss in the first half. Oh, and other than Lucious-- who called a big game today and delivered on his promise-- we had a heck of a time hitting shots today. Outside shots. Inside shots. Three-point shots. Free throws. We were dreadful from the line today. Heck, we even got smoked in the Albany-Siena student free-throw contest. Their guy had 8. We had 2.
Jamar's play was pretty out of control at times, making a few bad passes and poor decisions. Of course his drive to tie the game with 2 seconds left in regulation was a thing of beauty, and he did come up with a few big offensive rebounds. To be honest, Jamar looks frustrated out there at times. It appears to me as if he feels he is trying to do too much, and he only gets into trouble when he plays as if he needs to carry the team on his back.
A Siena fan on the bigpurplefans site raised an interesting point. He questioned whether or not the Danes might be playing a little tight right now as a result of Coach Brown's contract status. I'm not sure whether or not I agree, but the team is obvliously very tight right now. Coach Brown alluded to his team's tightness in his post-game remarks, and nowhere was this better illustrated than in their 12-21 shooting from the charity stripe. This same team shot over 72% from the line last year.
(BTW, although I'm not a Siena fan, its good to see the civility and the sportsmanship displayed by both sides on the message boards.)
A couple of insanely bad calls. The no-call on Jamar was bad, along with a jump-ball call that gave Siena possession late in the game. However, if we played with the same intensity in the first half as we displayed in the second, those non-calls would never have been an issue.
Of course, its is going to be tough for a team trying to find its stride to do so when it plays two games in two weeks-- next Saturday at Cleveland State and the following Saturday when a surprising Harvard team comes to the RACC. I'm sure the team is champing at the bit right now and it has to be frustrating for the team knowing that their next game is not for another week.
Despite the disappointment, the team did not give up and did come back from an 18 point deficit with 13 minutes left in the game. Siena had the chance to put us away and they couldn't. We're a talented team, but we won't be a good one until we can get 40 minutes of solid play. Good teams also find ways to win, even when everyone is not playing well and firing on all cylinders.
posted by L3K at 2:14 PM
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