Reply To: Re: Stony Brook

[LU65Participant]

Bison 137, I wish more than you I had the answers to your questions. If only we had some posters with some inside information. No such luck, I’m afraid.

As a fan, I’m disappointed to say the least in our performance last night. But, you had to know when the starting lineups were announced (Zahir Carrington neatly attired in a suit, Justin Mineri nowhere to be seen, and Jordan Hamilton on the mend recovering from the flu) that this was going to be a challenging game to say the least. Wonder if our perimeter shots didn’t fall? Where would our rebounds come from (SB had won their rebounding battles in all preceding games)? Who would go "toe-to-toe" with SB’s Joyner (6’7" 250), Adedeju (6’10" 305), Goba (6’9" 235), Carter (6’9" 210) and to a lesser extent Brenton (6’5" 215)? As it turned out, our shots didn’t fall and we were out-played and out-muscled in the paint on each end of the court (pts inside….. SB 18/LU 10, second chance points…..SB 18/LU 6).

Things I hope I never see again:

A. "One-fers"
Hopefully we’ll never see another night with so many "scorers" fail to find the mark as we did last night.
Gabe Knutson 1 for 4
CJ McCullom 1 for 8
Prentice Small 1 for 4
Rob Keefer 1 for 8
Michael Ojo 1 for 4
Overall , the team recorded 8 field goals in each half of play. A made bucket every 2 1/2 minutes!

B. Minute Leaders? Hopefully, our top three minute men will not all be freshmen as was the case last night.
Holden Grainer 23 minutes
Gabe Knutson 25 minutes
CJ McCullom 25 minutes

C. Over at the half. Hopefully, we can come out with enough passion and energy – especially at home -to make it game at the 20 minute mark. That wasn’t the case last night as we were "on our heels" throughout the opening frame, giving too many free looks from beyond the arc to a team that we appeared to overlook. Unwise. They are big, athletic, and – as Bryan Dougher proved – a team full of scorers. Dougher’s five 3’s (consecutive) buried us at the 20 minute mark. Fifteen points had been his career high.

D. David Safstrom, our 7’1" junior center who scored his first points in a college uniform a couple of games ago , getting 15 minutes of playing time. He did, however, pull down 4 boards and block one shot when we wasn’t mishandling a feed or turning the ball over.

E. Marquis Hall on the bench for not just 8 minutes, 12 minutes or 16 minutes but for 21 minutes as we was last night! Say what! Can only assume Coach Reed knows what he’s doing and wanted to see Small with increased minutes (17) and experience, hoping it’ll pay dividends when the games begin to count in January.

F. While I’m not sure if this qualifies (things I hope I never see again), I just don’t know what to think of John Adams (6’6" 220 forward) throwing up 6 of his 7 FG attempts from beyond the arc. Yes, he hit three, but………? Is he really the second coming of Phil Anderson (.378 distance shooter from last year)?

G. Perhaps in the same category of "F" above, do I really want to see the bench be so dominate? Can we get our starters to be starters? Again, last night, the subs racked-up 87 minutes (43.5% of the time) and provided 48% of the points (25 out of 52). That’s great, I guess, but it’s time for the seasoned players to take the reins. If and when they do and play as we expect them to, we just may have a team to be reckoned with. Until then, there may be more nights like this.

H. Extended dry spells. Going scoreless for a brief period of time – say 2-3 minutes – in one thing but when it reaches 5, 6, of 7 minutes, it’s another! Last night was a case in point and only made worse on one occasion when we actually held Stony Brook scoreless for approximately 8 minutes and we couldn’t score (except for 2 or 3 points) to capitalize on our good play! At the end of that sequence we still trailed by twenty.

Let’s hope it was just "one of those nights" and normalcy quickly returns.
Next up: Levien Gym, Columbia. See you at 7pm, this Thursday!