TSU88

We absolutely should play UMBC, Morgan, & Loyola every year. It creates the potential for rivalries/ bragging rights, not to mention it makes sense economically. (Really inexpensive road trips). As I mentioned previously, this is all about $. If we want better OOC home games, we’re going to have to pay to play. I suppose this is the only way to get certain mid-majors to come here.

I suspect this is a $ issue. My guess is that other OOC mid-major’s won’t come to SECU unless we pay them. So, if that’s the case, it would appear we have a Hobson’s choice-either continue to schedule a lackluster OOC home schedule or fork up & pay to get teams to play us at SECU

EK is like that little girl with the curls-when he’s good, he’s very good, but when he’s bad....Well, you can figure out the rest. I cringe when he lowers his shoulder & drives to the rack like a bull in a china shop. Having said that, when he plays smart he can hit an occasional 3 & score inside. Sort of like our Swiss Army knife. Notice how I worked in China & Switzerland both in the same post.

Gonzaga, St. Mary’s & BYU are mid-majors in name only. Also interesting we’re ranked below Bucknell, which has a losing record, although they’ve played some big time teams like MD & UNC

I love how so far we’ve become a pretty good 3-point shooting team. Hopefully that’ll hold up as the season goes on. With ZM, Morsell, Starr, McNeill & occasionally EK, we have a number of viable 3 point options. Great combo-shooting 3’s well & one of the best teams in the country so far in defending the 3.

In the Sagarin ratings, we’re #83 out of 351, which still puts us in the top 25 percentile

Has us at #42, out of 351 D1 programs.

Georgia Southern was ranked 9th in a recent poll of top 25 mid major programs-they’re no cupcake. Nor is Penn for that matter. Our RPI hopefully will get a nice little bump. Well, my work here is done. I’ll leave the dreary 80 degree weather behind, in time to get home for turkey ? day tomorrow, with my GCS tournament champs t-shirt in tow, & some cool video from my iPhone, taken from on the court while the team was presented the championship ?

Jumped out to a 12 or 14 point lead in the 2nd half, only to see Georgia Southern make a furious rally & go up by 4 or 5. Great resiliency to come back & win, on another night where ZM was not on his game. Morsell, tournament MVP, came up big, as did Starr, who also made the all-tournament team. Given our lack of a true backup PG, I could make a case that Starr is our most important player, and thus far he’s playing exceptionally well. Morman had a big 1st half. Great win!! Is this our 1st tournament win of any type since 1991?

Penn came out hot & jumped to an early double digit lead, but we withstood their early punch & wore them down. Some shaky free throw shooting almost bit us in the end, but we held on. Despite ZM not having a great night, some other guys picked up the slack-pretty even scoring distribution with Morsell, EK, Starr & Gorham picking up the slack. Sparse crowd again, but we’re on to the championship game of the tournament tomorrow night vs Georgia Southern.

Agree with you about our ineptitude when it comes to getting a last shot before the end of the 1st half. Maddening. i feel like we’ve given up a lot of offensive rebounds in this tournament, notwithstanding that we’re 2-0. I thought the big loss with JD & Moto would be replacing their 25ppg, but it’s really more so their rebounding. Thomas is a liability as I see it-he’s not scoring & he’s in constant foul trouble. Agree with you on Starr. He’s scoring, dishing & not many TO’s. I was really impressed with Ingram in the 1st half tonight, even though he only scored 2 points. Was a bit surprised he didn’t see floor in the 2nd half. We wear teams down with our depth & defensive tenacity. And with ZM, Morsell, and, to a lesser degree, Starr, Morman, EK, Gorham & McNeill, we have really balanced scoring. So, if one guy is off on a given night, it seems like someone else will fill the void. Looking forward to the matchup vs Georgia Southern

There were about 100 people, in an arena that seats like 6K, at the game tonight. ZM was hands down the best player on the court. EK came on strong at the end. Tomorrow will be a stern test against Penn, a disciplined team which shoots well from the outside. Penn dropped 93 on NIU to win going away.

Hah!!! My detective work was wrong!! I thought it was Samir Stewart. Good thing I didn’t give up my day job to become a detective!!

Like I said, neither UD or UNH deserved to make the playoffs. This was a down year for the CAA-Richmond & Nova were mediocre & quite frankly I don’t think Elon or Stony Brook are anything special.

UNH has a lame resume. They did beat an FBS team, Georgia Southern, which has a record of 1-10, making it one of the worst FBS teams in the country. They got blown out by Holy Cross, a 4-7 Patriot League squad, & lost to Albany, who finished 4-7. It’s nothing short of disgraceful they get an automatic bid every season.

Neither Delaware or UNH should have made the playoffs. UD has a legit grievance, up to a point. If it had beat Nova yesterday, they (presumably) would have gotten in over UNH, so, by losing, they put there fate in the hands of the committee, which will ALWAYS side with UNH.

My flight into Ft. Myers lands tomorrow afternoon. I should have time to check out most, if not all, of the Penn-NIU game, before we play FAU at 7:30pm

Hopefully Miller signs early & we also get the JUCO. Add them in with Stover and a nice competition could ensue

I’m not asking you to divulge any confidential information, but I notice on our verbal commits page, there’s a PG who goes to prep school in Fla, but is from Philly. PS has recruited heavily from both areas, & I believe you quoted him recently as saying the kid was waiting to go home for thanksgiving break. Just following the clues ??????

Intriguing. To the extent you know, is he HS, transfer, JUCO?

I see your point, to a point. Whether they like it or not, all HC’s are accountable, with the ultimate barometer being W’s & L’s. I simply rhetorically ponder whether given that Mahalak was coming off an injury from last season, whether it might have been prudent to bring in another QB as a potential alternative to handing the keys to a RS freshman. Well, in any event, this season is now in the rear view mirror & the off-season is officially upon us. Given that the early signing date has been bumped up to 12/20, I suspect the off-season will soon begin in earnest, if it hasn’t already begun

Mat, do you mean somebody is announcing for us next week, or somebody we’re targeting is announcing, & he may or may not commit to us?

Tough to lose your starting QB & RB, no doubt. OTOH, the coaching staff has to be accountable for not having an adequate backup to plug in, especially in view of wasting a scholarship on Williams, the grad transfer RB from Bucknell. Hindsight is 20/20, I get it. But the coaching staff also left the QB position in a precarious situation by not having an experienced alternative in the event Mahalak went down. Lots of holes to plug in the off-season. To be continued

The head coach of URI. His last name is Fleming

Sorry to see the season end. In the last 3 games, we’ve averaged 28 ppg. “If” is loser’s talk to some degree, but if we had beaten Elon, we finish with a winning record, which, considering we had a RS freshman at QB, & no running game, wouldn’t have been bad. URI has a pretty good offense, and we effectively shut it down, with 5 sacks. D wasn’t great this year, but it was improved. Jury is still out, at least for me, on Stover as the future QB. He threw 4 TD’s today, but overthrew & underthrew passes, & missed Gallahan on a sure TD. His completion percentage for the season was pedestrian and he threw more INT’s than TD’s. He does do a good job running the ball on designed plays, though I don’t think he does well when the pocket breaks down. i think there’s decent talent at the WR position, but we need stability and productivity at QB, improved run blocking & improved play at RB. On D, we lose Anderson, who had 1/3 of our sacks this year. Desperately need to upgrade the D-line