VCU 75, Albany 57
12/6/06
SEFCU Arena
Albany, NY
Record 2-4
I know the semester is wrapping up, but the attendance tonight was slight-- just over 2K. Don't blame the students-- those sections were nearly full. Its a tough time of the year, I understand, but this was an opportunity to watch a good basketball team visit Albany, and I, for one, was certainly- well, not disappointed--but definitely a bit surprised by the low turnout.
Weird night, weird game. I arrived at the arena early enough to watch VCU during their warmups and I didn't like what I saw, which was, frankly, a team that hit all of their shots during practice. During warmups, three guys would huck up shots at the same time and all three shots would drop. I was nervous.
Then the game began, and the Danes looked terrific early as they broke VCU's press with relative ease. Brian handled the ball a bit more tonight, but everyone did a nice job at the onset of breaking the press and finding the open man for easy layups.
When we play wiffle ball, we start each at-bat with 2 strikes. In the same fashion, it seems like Jason and Brian start each game with two fouls. As the team tries to find itself, especially against good teams such as VCU, those two need to find ways to stay on the floor and out of foul trouble. 24 or 25 minutes from those two against a team like VCU just isn't enough. With Brent ailing a bit right now and without Jason in the game, we don't have much in terms of another scoring option outside of Jamar. Without Jason and even Brian on the floor, teams are able to focus squarely on Jamar.
With respect to tonight's game, in losing Jason and Brian to early foul trouble, we also lost two capable ballhandlers who were used effectively to help break VCU's press.
As coach Brown said in one of the papers, the team plays poor defense when they play poor offense. Despite forcing 2 more turnovers than Albany tonight(12-10), VCU managed to outscore Albany 12-6 in the points-off-turnovers category.
Even before VCU made their run, one thing was apparent, and that was Albany's inability to rebound the basketball in this game. The most glaring statistic from tonight's game was not necessarily that UA was outrebounded 39-26 by a smaller team, but that VCU destroyed us on the offensive glass, 18-8. Ouch.
The most important thing right now is for the team not to get down and for the fans not to get restless. Has the team played well in their last 4 losses? Of course, not. However, this team is work in progress right now-- a work in progress that has played against some very good basketball teams. Soon enough things will improve and these early-season losses, as bad and as ugly as they are, will only be looked back upon as growing pains. This team has proven talent and excellent coaching. We'll be fine.
I would be remiss not to add that VCU is a very good basketball team and I, for one, am squarely on their bandwagon. I loved Capel as a coach and Grant seems to be a great hire. A lot of frineds of mine pull for the Spiders-- well I am going with the other team from Richmond. Though predicted in the preseason to finish something like 6th in a tough CAA, I would not be surprised to see VCU challenge for their conference championship.
SEFCU Arena
Albany, NY
Record 2-4
I know the semester is wrapping up, but the attendance tonight was slight-- just over 2K. Don't blame the students-- those sections were nearly full. Its a tough time of the year, I understand, but this was an opportunity to watch a good basketball team visit Albany, and I, for one, was certainly- well, not disappointed--but definitely a bit surprised by the low turnout.
Weird night, weird game. I arrived at the arena early enough to watch VCU during their warmups and I didn't like what I saw, which was, frankly, a team that hit all of their shots during practice. During warmups, three guys would huck up shots at the same time and all three shots would drop. I was nervous.
Then the game began, and the Danes looked terrific early as they broke VCU's press with relative ease. Brian handled the ball a bit more tonight, but everyone did a nice job at the onset of breaking the press and finding the open man for easy layups.
When we play wiffle ball, we start each at-bat with 2 strikes. In the same fashion, it seems like Jason and Brian start each game with two fouls. As the team tries to find itself, especially against good teams such as VCU, those two need to find ways to stay on the floor and out of foul trouble. 24 or 25 minutes from those two against a team like VCU just isn't enough. With Brent ailing a bit right now and without Jason in the game, we don't have much in terms of another scoring option outside of Jamar. Without Jason and even Brian on the floor, teams are able to focus squarely on Jamar.
With respect to tonight's game, in losing Jason and Brian to early foul trouble, we also lost two capable ballhandlers who were used effectively to help break VCU's press.
As coach Brown said in one of the papers, the team plays poor defense when they play poor offense. Despite forcing 2 more turnovers than Albany tonight(12-10), VCU managed to outscore Albany 12-6 in the points-off-turnovers category.
Even before VCU made their run, one thing was apparent, and that was Albany's inability to rebound the basketball in this game. The most glaring statistic from tonight's game was not necessarily that UA was outrebounded 39-26 by a smaller team, but that VCU destroyed us on the offensive glass, 18-8. Ouch.
The most important thing right now is for the team not to get down and for the fans not to get restless. Has the team played well in their last 4 losses? Of course, not. However, this team is work in progress right now-- a work in progress that has played against some very good basketball teams. Soon enough things will improve and these early-season losses, as bad and as ugly as they are, will only be looked back upon as growing pains. This team has proven talent and excellent coaching. We'll be fine.
I would be remiss not to add that VCU is a very good basketball team and I, for one, am squarely on their bandwagon. I loved Capel as a coach and Grant seems to be a great hire. A lot of frineds of mine pull for the Spiders-- well I am going with the other team from Richmond. Though predicted in the preseason to finish something like 6th in a tough CAA, I would not be surprised to see VCU challenge for their conference championship.
posted by L3K at 6:27 AM
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