They Can't Hide

[BPR2010]

Neither is a tournament team thus far. The loss of Cotton and Batts has shown with PC. Very young, very inexperienced. Also, losing Fortune for them I think is being overlooked. As for us, without winning the league tournament/running the table in conference, we aren't dancing this year. With Nebraska losing tonight, that win is looking less impressive. Teams will continue to play zone on us until we can prove we can not just play well, but WIN a game against a team playing us with that for 40 minutes. We still shot 14 3 pointers tonight. I just thought tonight was the worst we had done on the glass all season. Harris killed us on multiple occasions with putback dunks and 2nd chance points.

[peeps4life]

we weren't even that much better. you need to hit FT's and catch the damn ball. butterfingers city.

however, this wasn't like we won because this was our best game like you stated. far from it. trust me... i'm not high on this win.

[TruePoint]

we weren't even that much better. you need to hit FT's and catch the damn ball. butterfingers city.

however, this wasn't like we won because this was our best game like you stated. far from it. trust me... i'm not high on this win.

That's probably fair. But you didn't shoot yourselves in the foot too much, either (aside from turning it over against pressure down the stretch, which was too late to matter). Much improved from the Brown game.

[Billyboy78]

But Dunn was very good tonight, scored at will early, had a bunch of rebounds and I think had only 2 turnovers.

[peeps4life]

they played the brown game like they expected them to miss every shot and like they didn't need to try. brown earned it by executing, but we were friggin garbage. not playing in the real big east allows me to say that we will have a strong opportunity to be a bubble team, but the RPI hit from brown makes it a year long climb from the abyss to even be in the conversation. what a garbage loss.

[The Dude]

I have to give props to Cooley. The guy knows how to coach...at least against Rhody anyway.
I wonder if Dan truly grasps the importance of this rivalry. PC had one day between the Brown game and tonight's game to prepare. We had 3.
Everyone on this board knew the zone was coming. Yet, Rhody struggled to break it.
We have talent this year. No more coaching excuses. I know these guys are young, but it's time to start seeing results. After looking at the schedule if the team loses more than 1 of the next seven games, I'd be hard pressed to say that the coaching is improving much. We better beat VCU because quality wins are now going to be in short supply.

[rambone 78]

Both teams have holes. Both will be up and down.

Our loss tonight was largely self inflicted, with the FT fiasco and all.

If Dunn doesn't play his best game, PC loses in spite of our issues.

Winning tonight would have been great, but like beating Nebraska, it still doesn't cover all the holes.

The thing is, with the A10 as it is, who do we play the rest of the year, that's much better than a mediocre PC team?

Think about that. VCU? Maybe Dayton and GW?

That's all folks!

[rodfromcranston]

We can't shoot.
We can't shoot free throws.
We don't have any player over 6'8".
We have three players taller than 6'7".
He knows he needs to get a big man or two.
He knows he needs a shooter.
He knows he has a core of young players, and so so seniors
and juniors.
So, what exactly do you people expect Dan to do about any of this,
beyond the recruiting end of things?
No matter what the game plan, without execution, it's meaningless.

[bigappleram]

We will enter every A10 game with a chance to win. Haven't been able to say that in years. This team should be much better in Jan and Feb.

[El Diablo]

Well I'll be damned.

You guys came off two terrible games and played your best game. We came off our best game and played terrible. It happens. Based on what I saw tonight, if URI and PC played 10 times we'd win eight. So enjoy it. I think it'll be your last one for a while.

Why are you coming at me?

In this thread all I've stated is that Nebraska sucks(what the hell is the name of the school they lost to tonight?), and that I was surprised about tonight. I'm sure the guy who made this post feels pretty dumb at the moment.

And Cooley is 4-0 against URI at this point, so I'm not so sure I'd bet on that.

[BPR2010]

We will enter every A10 game with a chance to win. Haven't been able to say that in years. This team should be much better in Jan and Feb.

There's 2 frames of mind at looking at this comment. Just want to say I agree with what you're saying. One is that we are improved, and really have been in every game so far. We do have a chance in every game going forward. However, the other mindset is that we have a shot in every game because no one in the A-10 looks that great this year. Just by default of a down year in the conference, I think you could honestly say even last year's team would have a shot against this year's A-10. That being said, if we get our FT shooting together, we can win this conference. We have had the most consistent defense in the conference so far. That alone makes me believe we have a shot at the title. I hope the offense improves, I really do. Just assuming we'll be facing quite a bit of zone going forward, it's the easy thing to do when a team can't hit jump shots.

[TruePoint]

I'm not coming at you.

[rambone 78]

Rod, you're right on all counts.

I know this. But these are winnable games. That's what's frustrating, and it's the SAME things that are beating us.

FT's we CAN get better at. I know this team won't be great at them, because they can't shoot. Sure.

Let's hope Terrell and Garrett CAN shoot at some point, or what do we really have there????

We need a PG that can run the team, make guys better, and score some himself. We don't need a Cotton-like scorer at the point, because we have EC.

I do know that we have holes to fill. A wing scorer and a good big man for starters. I mentioned on another thread that this team's ceiling isn't NCAA tourney level this season.

BPR. We'll see a lot of zone for sure. But those other teams are just as challenged to score as we are, or even more so. Even VCU in the half court. And our defense is better than most of them, if not all.

[El Diablo]

I'm not coming at you.

Just kidding around, it's only basketball.

[peeps4life]

[TruePoint]

We can't shoot.
We can't shoot free throws.
We don't have any player over 6'8".
We have three players taller than 6'7".
He knows he needs to get a big man or two.
He knows he needs a shooter.
He knows he has a core of young players, and so so seniors
and juniors.

All true, and yet what we do have was good enough to have won tonight despite that. I respect what Dan wants to do with this team and what he still needs to do it, but in the meantime he has to figure out how to put the personnel he has in the best position to win.

[Seawrightspostgame]

Thing about sports is you just have to win the game.

It's always about winning now everywhere. The Patriots are the best example of what sports should be. You get some known commodities and then you tweak the rest to make your chances as high as possible to win.

With all the media coverage people get too caught up in individuals and archetypes of what they need to have. URI just needs to keep pounding away at getting better and playing to what ever they can do good. We had a tall guy and he quit twice. Nothing is guaranteed. Finish December strong. Shoot for the tourney. There's never a perfect time for anything.

[seanmc94]

Well I'll be damned.

You guys came off two terrible games and played your best game. We came off our best game and played terrible. It happens. Based on what I saw tonight, if URI and PC played 10 times we'd win eight. So enjoy it. I think it'll be your last one for a while.

Pretty sure you guys said the same thing LAST year. Don't know what game you were watching; but if Henton and Dunn don't get two phantom fouls to send them to the bench with 8 minutes to go; this was a rout. PC is a better team than URI this year. Too much size, too much Dunn.

EC is lights out, and Terrell will be very good; but PC will get bigger next year. Hope Dunn and EC make the right call and stay b/c the Ryan Center will be electric next year.

[rodfromcranston]

Um, what about Desroisiers two uncalled fouls on Martin early in the game?
How about Gil, clearly tying the ball with Henton, after no call, throws the ball
in the basket and they call a foul on Gil.
There's four possible points for us and minus three for PC. Seven point turnaround on
three plays. Also, EC was never fouled once on a made basket drive?
Garrett was hit on the arm shooting a three. Replay showed that it should have been
three shot foul. No call.
The bullshit call on TJ in the second half. Replay showed TJ never touched his man.
It was still a winnable game.
You don't want to talk about the refs. I haven't until you brought it up.

[rambone 78]

Officials are bad everywhere it seems.

Too many D1 teams and not enough qualified refs.

These guys for the most part have other jobs and some don't devote enough time learning their craft.

And it shows. A lot of times, there are 3 guys out there calling things differently.

The charging and hand check rules are not being followed uniformly, by a long shot.

The speed of the game and the athleticism of the players are past some of these refs capabilities.

Hardly a game goes by without major complaints. It affects both teams, but not equally in a lot of cases.

[hrstrat57]

Woulda coulda shoulda....

Didn't bottom line.

[seanmc94]

refs were lousy on both ends. very inconsistent. one trip down they would allow contact; the next whistles blow when you breathe on a guy

[ATPTourFan]

Sean I agree the first 10 mins of first half were allowing contact then the next 10 mins they were pushing both teams to the bonus and foul shots. No flow in the game up til the half.

[Shinze88]

Well I'll be damned.

You guys came off two terrible games and played your best game. We came off our best game and played terrible. It happens. Based on what I saw tonight, if URI and PC played 10 times we'd win eight. So enjoy it. I think it'll be your last one for a while.

Is this a serious comment? I dont know how you could possibly come to that conclusion if you actually watched the game last night and watched URI play this season. We have come up short against any decent team we've played this year making the same mistakes over and over. In the Nebraska win, we did some good things defensively, but our offense was awful, and Nebraska just lost to a some team named Incarnate Word in their own building, so that W is looking more and more suspect. I'm truly amazed at some of the things I read on this board

[TruePoint]

Yeah I wasn't impressed with PC. They had a good plan and Dunn is a player. Beyond that I wasn't blown away. Other than EC, I don't think we did a lot right and it was a one possession game with under a minute to play.

[Captainron@]

Other than a few stretches on defense, this was hardly PCs best game. How many bunnies did Henton miss? 5? 6? Then he and Dunn miss huge chunks of the second half because of foul trouble. The outside shooting was nonexistent. The starting 2 guard took one shot? The refs were inconsistent. That is always bad. All in all though I thought it was an interesting game to watch and think both teams will probably get better.

[Ramulous]

The friars got good games from 4 of their players.....Dunn, Henton, Chukwu and Harris......we got good games only from EC and Hassan......they were better than we were....

We have no right to crow and boast that next year we will beat them......DH has to bring in players that are better than EC, Hassan, and JT.....the others have either shown they cannot contribute at this level or the jury is still out on some of them....

[adam914]

DH has to bring in players that are better than EC, Hassan, and JT...

So Hurley now has to bring in a bunch of Top 30 recruits? You may be in for a lot of disappointment if those are your expectations.

[bigappleram]

Agree with that last post, we don't need 5 Top 125 recruits to win. In my lifetime our two best teams (88 and 98) had 3 stars (Tyson, Cat and Luther / Silk, Tommy and Kenny) and a bunch of good role players. The problem with this team is that our role players are subpar at their roles and our 3 "stars" are FR and SO. Guys like Josh King, David Arigbabu, Preston Murphy, Bonzie Colson, Mergin Sina, John Evans were not highly heralded guys, they just played their roles to perfection in those magical seasons.

Par for the course that folks are stretching for analysis after a disappointing loss. Flat out, they had 3 guys play to their potential (Dunn, Harris, Henton) and we had 2 (EC and Hassan). It was a 3 pt game under 2 minutes.

We could easily have a season similar to PCs last year, on the outside looking in all season with a strong finish and win the A10. Not saying it could happen, but it is not outside the realm of possibility. People here always pined for a team that got better in Jan and Feb, I predict that is what we will see with this team.

[rambone 78]

Ramulous, better than EC, JT, and Hassan?

I'd take a few more close to them! They are clearly our best players, and will remain that way all season.

We have one guy who COULD join them, and he might end up being the most important of them all: Jarvis.

He's the one guy who could tie our offense together. We still aren't going to shoot great, but we should be better at it, once he gets better.

If Dan is going to fulfill his promises to this program, he needs to bring in more top talent, and NEXT season, not the season after.

Easier said than done.

[Ramulous]

Obviously I mis-typed...... We need a better surrounding cast for EC, Hassan and JT...

[rambone 78]

We can all agree on that, Ramulous.

Note to Dan: Besides more talent, bring in guys who are GOOD FT shooters. If at all possible.

Yes, Jarvis might turn out to be a good FT shooter. As our supposed PG of the future, he's going to need to be.