Chris Datres

I agree with ya here. I said after the Colorado game that DW seemed to be the only player who could create his own shot. After seeing him a few more times, I think he'd be better off trying to get his offense off the dribble and creating for others rather than standing out and taking 3's (unless it's a kick-out situation and he's open). His shot is a little slow to get off (kinda like Holden's was) and with his height, it might be an easier to shot to defend because it is slow. But when he gets into the lane, it opens up a lot of options, especially if he's able to consistently finish. He does make mistakes that a player of his experience tends to make but the last 2 games, he's ironing those out better. Hicks might be a better defender and that's where his niche has been the last couple of years. Plus, he'll be good to spell DW for 10-12 mins per night. But if we want to start establishing a flow, DW needs to be the starter full-time.

Because there are some that don't understand basketball no matter how long they've been there. Want to play a buy-in schedule like Coppin or Morgan does and get your brains beat in by 30 every night? Then you'll whine about not having any home games. This schedule has been the perfect mix for the type of team that we're fielding this season. With Tarke coming back and May awakening, it sets up for the next 2 games to be a very enlightening preview for conference season. And Loyola is scared. Pat's talked about wanting to schedule them but apparently, they're too good for us there. But they'll happily bring in the Mount to smack them today.

We should be playing Loyola. It seems that the Hounds are either too good to schedule us or they're scared. I'd like to think it's the latter. I know that the caliber of basketball in Baltimore isn't what it is in Philly but there has to be some sort of benefit to all of us playing against each other. Sure, our stature is a bit above the others (even with that UMBC 16 seed win) and losing to one of them would be a big knock but those are the chances you have to take. Villanova finishing 6th in the Big 5 this year (giggle) is shameful for them but they'll learn from those losses -- unless they can't figure out how to play against a zone. Plus, these are also built-in home game opportunities. The more effective way to get decent home games would be to get as much locality in the schedule as possible -- Navy, Mason, VCU, Richmond, Philly schools. I know we shoot for the stars with a WVU, Pitt, or our white whale Twerps to get them into (checks notes for name change) TU Arena but being able to get into these home-and-home contracts with the likes of UMASS is a good start.

Those were the good ole days of bars looking the other way many times at the under-21 crowd. Being on the 'old side' of campus, it was a lot easier to walk uptown for options rather than trying to figure out a ride to the south end of York Rd and those destinations. The easiest spots were Mia's (in the building next to the bank across from what is now Starbucks), Poor Richard's uptown, and The Crease (also uptown, right next to what is now I think the traffic circle on York Rd...been a while). But outside of those, there were plenty where you didn't need much of a budget to get wrecked on a particular night. Could feel it changing right around the time I graduated in late 90s as the town was starting to evolve and re-develop itself.

A keg of Natty Boh.

Party time…(Tarke is in) https://twitter.com/jonrothstein/status/1733120439184920879?s=46&t=EVKcQgftLjvvjND07GaBLQ

Nice of Flo to have this one for free. Of course, it was on a night where I was doing other stuff. Went back and watched it and I was most impressed at how we worked inside out with drives rather than just standing around and trying to play a 2-man game or letting Charles pound the rock into the floor. Great to see May break out of his funk and I made the joke to a buddy that his slumpbuster probably lives in Tower C (it's a baseball joke). After the anemic outputs the offense put out, it's evident that as May goes, so will go this offense. DW going to the rack as much as he did needs to continue to happen. I've thought since Game 1 that he's the type that can create his own shot when needed. When Hicks comes back, I wouldn't mind seeing DW at the 2 a little bit. Of course, if Tarke is indeed coming soon, that's going to give us an extra dimension and allow for less pressure on Lowery and DW to handle the ball. While listening to Patsos tests the limits of one's eardrums, he did make one very good point -- our schedule has been pretty difficult for a team looking for its identity. The fact that we've been playing 9-10 guys every night is going to be beneficial when we get into conference, which is looking like it's gonna be a real wagon what with P6 wins in the last week by Wilmington, Drexel, and the Chickens (rather not acknowledge those last 2), plus Monmouth's opening-week win over WVU. Depth won't be our problem if/when we get Tarke & Hicks in the lineup. But will it be effective depth? The one concern when Skerry plays a ton of players is will there be enough basketballs to go around. If you're getting contributions from someone different every night, that's going to encourage buy-in from everyone. Now let's take care of the puppies from Catonsville on Saturday.

Ohio St QB Kyle McCord in the portal. Go get him, Coach Pete!!! Hey, aim high. He can make it to the league just as easily putting up stats at the 1-AA level.

Nice to be back in the house for another win. I’m 3-0 in the ‘name your price’ Arena. Though, should I have been surprised that the secu signage is still on the outside? General Services moves as fast as the NCAA with the Tarke decision. To quote Bill Walton - This is the best game I’ve seen Chase Paar play. He was assertive and seemed confident with the ball in his hand. That slam in the first half was the strongest I’ve seen one of our big men take it in a while. It bothered me even more to see it in person how CT refuses to go to the basket and instead does that fade crap. He’d have 6-8 more points per game if he’d just go into Hulk mode at the rack. But that’s something you have to instill and reinforce in practice. Guard play…tough to watch at the end. We played with a double digit lead like we were down 4. But that’s youth for ya. We missed a number of PNR opportunities and when we finally went to it, CT got it to May for a corner 3. It’s almost like the guards don’t know how to make an entry pass. Both Paar and CT, and even Sulaiman, were showing their numbers deep in the paint and there was no pass. Again, inexperienced guards are still tentative to make those passes. All told, take the win in a shorthanded situation and move on. The Bunnies are gonna be tough on Friday night so we’re gonna need to be a lot more buttoned up.

Anybody but the fucking Chickens Delaware needs to go FBS and take all their stupid teams with them. Great run, ladies. Sucks it has to come to an end to those jackasses.

I like where we're at defensively and on the glass. But offensively, good lord. There isn't anyone YET who can get their own shot. Williamson and Tejada are most likely to succeed in that department. We've got good pieces with Sulaiman, CT, Messiah, and Lowery. However, these guys are horrendously weak on drives to the basket and finishing at the rim -- the guards take one or two too many dribbles and go from having a nice 8-10 footer to a contested shot at the rim that usually rolls off with no foul. CT said in the preseason zoom that he was looking to be better at decision making. He can't be a black hole in the post like what I saw tonight. That hook shot is just not dependable and everyone seems to stand around when he gets the ball in the post. There needs to be more cuts and more off-ball moves so CT can pass out of that post. Then maybe he gets a re-post with leverage to the basket. But for someone as big as he is, he's the worst offender when it comes to finishing at the rim. It's incredibly frustrating to see all that size go to waste because we don't want to absorb contact. All that said, I don't believe in moral victories but there's encouragement to having played Houston well in the 2nd half and being there with Wake. Until we find our shots, we're gonna be stuck in rock fights. Speaking of, if you want the definition of rock fight, watch Sunday's game. If that game touches 60, I'll be surprised. North Texas brings the D and the rebounding and their offensive game is a work in progress thanks to a lot of transfers out of last year's team.

Thursday is gonna be ugly. No two ways about it. I haven't seen Wake or Utah yet to know anything about them. Other side of the bracket, the only team that we might be able to clip is Dayton. I don't want any part of North Texas and if we happened to get St. John's, Pitino will probably treat us like he treated Stony Brook to start the season. I'll say this about SJU thru 2 games -- they're terrible defenders, which is very unlike a Pitino team.

Both CAA losses this year to teams on the other side of the bracket who we could very likely see in the championship game, if we get there. So a question for the great Vball guru here @tigerstigers, would you say that this team has really hit their stride in the 10 matches after getting swept at home in the 2nd Campbell game? With the exception of the weekend at A&T, they've steamrolled the rest of the competition. It would be great to wrap up a really successful fall season on the women's side with another NCAA bid.

Gotta hand it to the various committees when our women’s teams make their first NCAA Tournament: 2019 volleyball - Penn St’s bracket (but an opening win over American) 2019 basketball - UCONN 2023 soccer - UNC Nice to play the royalty of the sport but maybe not in the early rounds. Might as well spring an upset.

That first 10 minutes was something. We were fortunate that our defense was decent and Colorado was huckin up bricks. It was very encouraging to see the way we closed the half and got it down to 4. What wasn't encouraging was what ended up continuing in the 2nd half -- it was very difficult for us to find a shot. There wasn't anything that gave an indication that someone was gonna get a decent look. Credit Colorado's defense for that. I'm getting sick of CT missing layups and not taking it strong and drawing contact. Someone long ago should have had a blocking dummy from the football team and pummeled the hell out of him with it in the post during practices. Williamson was impressive in a first look. Maybe he's the guy that can be the one to create his own looks. It was disappointing to see the stat line on May as he had looks, he just couldn't get them to drop. Really, the name of the game was Colorado hitting all those 3's to start the half. If that's clipped to 50% then maybe we have a decent shot in the last 5 minutes. As for Tarke, I'm not pining for him because I'm going under the assumption that his waiver is gonna get denied. If it miraculously gets approved, then that'll be an added bonus. But I think we should be prepared to get bad news about his situation if and when the NCAA decides it wants to make a ruling.

Those with the Pac-12 Network will be able to dial this one up. Those of us who don't will have to find 'other' means to watch it. I'm not sure if flying out today was the right move because you need a day in the gym to acclimate to that altitude but I also don't handle the budget. Nothing really jumps off the page about Colorado stats-wise but our usual keys of staying out of foul trouble and taking care of the ball will be utmost importance. It'll be interesting to see where our primary scoring is gonna come from and hopefully May, Hicks, and one other guy not named CT can step up to show they can carry the load.

And don't forget the altitude factor. Hopefully we can get a practice in on Sunday to get somewhat acclimated.

Some decent info there tonight. Bill and Ed asked both my questions about NIL so I guess 'great minds'. It was real nice that they made a couple players available to talk as well. It's a nice step forward with engagement with the fans & donors. It would be fun if they can keep this going maybe prior to conference season starting and with other sports down the line.

Welp, that nice consolation prize for winning the conference regular season title is out the window thanks to the elitists in college sports. At least we got to experience it once. https://www.ncaa.com/news/basketball-men/article/2023-10-27/nit-board-announces-changes-nit-and-use-experimental-rules

Great that they made some bye week adjustments and jettisoning a player who was costing the team on the field and then finding the right adjustments to get a big road win. Keep on building on this. Amazing what a little patience will get you.

Given how much UNH has bribed the playoff committee in the past, you gotta think there's money in the budget for the officials too!

The back and forth of this game reminded me a little of that wild Coastal Carolina OT win years and years ago. Kudos to the kids for never giving up on it even though they kept allowing scores. Bad news though...this just gave UNH the tiebreaker for a playoff bid over us if it comes down to that. IYKYK

Geez, I woke up expecting this place to be burned to the ground only to find balloons and presents (well, sort of). I guess we put the torches down for this week?

My biggest surprise is that the ‘Fire Pete’ thread hasn’t been started. I thought that’s how it worked around here.

The 3 games they lost on Saturday could have very easily been wins. They sorta hit a wall when they'd get to 17-18 points and had a 5-6 point lead. A few more service errors than on Friday and a couple of missed opportunities, especially when up big in Game 3 doomed them. But it's still nice to walk into an SEC school and serve notice (pun intended) that we're a force. I don't know how anyone gets in front of some of these kill attempts to dig them. These girls just crush the ball.