The Best Feb/March Team in 19 Years..

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Blue Man
Tyson Wheeler
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The Best Feb/March Team in 19 Years..

Unread post by Blue Man »

One thing that always stuck to me was the collapses. I think everyone remembers them.

"Peaking" in early January. Getting a high ranking. Fattening up on a weak OOC plate. Getting into a position where tournament talk was a near-sure-thing, and then pissing down your leg.

So familiar I'm sure everyone can remember where they were with every soul crushing loss that could've put us over the edge: the Dayton's, Temple's, Xavier's, St Joe's - or the head scratching, testicle smashing bad ones to the St Louis', Duquesne's, Charlotte's, and UMass' that took a sure thing and took us out.

6-5 going into the NIT in 03-04, 2-11 in 04-05,dropping 8 of 11 in 05-06, 6-5 and falling short in 06-07, 3-9 with 5 straight losses in 07-08, 7-3 could've done it in 08-09...but of course they lost their last 2 to UMass at home and Duquesne in the first A10 game, 6-6 in 09-10, and then the real dark times. All of those years had promise at some point, and then they just fell apart at the end.

When Hurley finally started to get his program in place in 14-15? 7-4 with a quarterfinal win. Last years injury ravaged team without EC and Hass? Still managed a 5-6 mark with a win AT a ranked Dayton team.

This years club? Started 14-7, .666 - are currently 8-2, .800. 6 straight. 5 of which were top 100, 1 was top 25. Still going. Have every chance to seize the first A10 crown since 1999.

EDIT: 9-2, .818, 7 straight, 6 of which were top 100, 1 was top 25, 5 on the road or neutral sites.

You want to know why I'm so defensive when people come at Hurley?

It's because of this. We get BETTER as the season wears on.

Everyone who bitches about things in December and January conveniently forgets everything the said when they get rolling. Hurley knows what he's doing. He's still learning but he's no slouch. The difficult OOC, every rotation he's made, questionable sub, questionable minutes...whatever it is...it's all worked out to make this team battle hardened for this run. It's working.

This is not the same Rams that everyone here is afraid of showing up. It's a god damn new era. Time to recognize and believe.

LETS GO FUCK UP SOME WILDCATS AND GRAB OUR DANCE SHOES!
Last edited by Blue Man 7 years ago, edited 1 time in total.
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ramster
Frank Keaney
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Re: The Best Feb/March Team in 19 Years..

Unread post by ramster »

It was a common belief that Baron teams might win the first game against A10 opponents but then would lose the second game because they would make adjustments and Baron's teams would not. That was our February's for 12 years.
Those February's are gone.

Another huge difference is the defense and the toughness. Never forget when Baron decided to change his strategy and become a running team. It was like they became a running team alright, but defense went out the window. Opposing teams had tons of wide open 3's and opposing teams would get breakaway layups and our concern would be how fast could we take the ball out of bounds. Defense was no where near like today.

Baron did a lot of his recruiting late, signings in April, May and often players who were hard to find information on. Might have 2-3 players rated 3 star.
Hurley has 3 star players biding their time redshirting or 8,9,10,11 on the bench. It is a deep bench. He multiple 4 star players on the team.
He recruits from Teams ranked Top 10 like IMG Academy, Imhotep Charter, St John's College HS, The Patrick School, etc.
Last edited by ramster 7 years ago, edited 1 time in total.
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Rhode_Island_Red
Carlton Owens
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Re: The Best Feb/March Team in 19 Years..

Unread post by Rhode_Island_Red »

I'm excited, too, but to quote Winston Wolf . . .
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reef
Frank Keaney
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Re: The Best Feb/March Team in 19 Years..

Unread post by reef »

We are finally healthy and playing our best hoop of the season at the right time

I just pray that it's good enough for the big dance
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