78-68 final

Disappointing. Oregon is a mid-level PAC 12 team. If we want to be taken seriously, we need to win games like this. Interior defense not so good, like last season.

We better win the conference tournament. I really want to see Juice and JD on the biggest stage before they leave us. I'd mention Drummond but apparently he doesn't want to show up in big games.

I compare the situation to when Naama was at UT. Sure, the WNIT was nice but I wanted to see a healthy Naama against the top 63 teams. Sometimes playing superior competition brings out talent you never thought you had.

If we don't make the dance this year, I fear it may be several more years before we get another opportunity...

I think emotionally we were a bit shot after that tough loss at VCU. I think the Rockets really thought they would win that one. At least we can now dispense with the "bubble team" talk at an early date. Focus on getting better and win the MAC which is really the only path to the NCAA anyway.

I am not discouraged by these two losses. They competed against two talented power conference teams on their home courts. VCU is very good and Oregon is much better, in my opinion, than people think they are. I know it would be awesome to win one of these games, but there is a lot of basketball to be played. We will be fine. Just keep on getting better and we will have a shot to win the MAC Tournament. Teams don't earn NCAA Tournament bids in November.

(11-21-2014 09:22 PM)RocketBBallFan Wrote:  I am not discouraged by these two losses. They competed against two talented power conference teams on their home courts. VCU is very good and Oregon is much better, in my opinion, than people think they are. I know it would be awesome to win one of these games, but there is a lot of basketball to be played. We will be fine. Just keep on getting better and we will have a shot to win the MAC Tournament. Teams don't earn NCAA Tournament bids in November.

As you may know, I'm not typically the optimistic one on this Board, but I agree completely with you. Oregon is a young team that has a great coach and much better talent than many may realize. They'll make some noise this season. Last years Rocket team tried to "earn" an NCAA spot in November/December against much weaker teams than the 2 we just lost to, and then lost steam in the MAC season and got clobbered by WMU. I'll take a team that (hopefully) learns from playing tougher opponents than they'll face in the MAC and then end the drought come tournament time.

Plus we just had to fly across the entire country when this game was supposed to be against michigan. Thanks scheduling gods.

I know Toledo just played two of the better teams on their schedule, but if they don't start guarding teams better we can expect the same as last year; a great regular season and a great record, but will stub their toe during the tournament when every possession counts. There is very little team defense that takes place.

(11-21-2014 10:19 PM)letsgoblue Wrote:  I know Toledo just played two of the better teams on their schedule, but if they don't start guarding teams better we can expect the same as last year; a great regular season and a great record, but will stub their toe during the tournament when every possession counts. There is very little team defense that takes place.

Defense was horrible.

I think that this is a game the Rockets should have won. Oregon lost 10 players from last year's excellent team. They have 3 returning scholarship athletes: (1)Young-SR, who played 31 minutes last year and averaged 18.9 pts; (2)Cook-Jr, who played 16 minutes last year averaging 6.7 pts, and (3)Bassit-SR who played 6 minutes last year averaging 1.9 pts. These are 3 of the 8 player rotation in the game tonight. They also played 4 freshman and a junior college transfer (Benjamin).

Against that the Rockets started 3 seniors and 1 junior from a team which won 27 games last year and has only one player from their rotation who graduated. And of course the four Oregon freshmen are only into game 3 of the season so they have not had time to acclimate to the college game and get through the learning process. They may develop into significant players on a significant team in the PAC-12 but I doubt that it has happened as of yet. The coach certainly didn't think so in his comments leading up to the game. And, as regards the star potential of the freshmen recruits, the PAC-12 experts who do the preseason predictions put Oregon 8th of 12 teams.

So it would seem to me that Oregon was ripe for exploitation especially early in the season before they have developed team chemistry and before their freshmen get their confidence playing on the bigger stage. And the Rockets had a veteran team with the talent to do it. Lets see how the Oregon season unfolds but I suspect we will look back at this as a game that got away. Certainly the loss of the BIGs for major portions of the game was a huge factor.

No way to go but forward. Move on and expect that they will play better.

Wouldn't expect anything different from people on here - always bitching and complaining.

I would hate to be some of your kids. They probably come home getting an A- on their report card, and you take 'em out back and whip 'em for not getting an A.

(11-21-2014 10:50 PM)MidnightBlueGold Wrote:  Wouldn't expect anything different from people on here - always bitching and complaining.

I would hate to be some of your kids. They probably come home getting an A- on their report card, and you take 'em out back and whip 'em for not getting an A.

If their kids get A-'s, they're probably smart enough to listen to.

(11-21-2014 10:50 PM)MidnightBlueGold Wrote:  Wouldn't expect anything different from people on here - always bitching and complaining.

I would hate to be some of your kids. They probably come home getting an A- on their report card, and you take 'em out back and whip 'em for not getting an A.

You can't seriously be content with our 2 losses thus far? Oregon was picked to finish 8th in the PAC-12....8th!!! I'm sick of always being the team that almost pulled it out. Thanks to these 2 losses that we could have won, we have no choice now except to win the MAC tourney...and we all know how that usually goes.

Sure, there's still Duke left to prove ourselves on the national stage, but they just handled Michigan State the other day so not much hope there.

Lol if we were 30-2 wed be in at a 4 seed. Lets get real. Chances are awefully slim to win out but those games arent the end of our season. There is a middle ground between giving up after starting 1-2 and happy with these losses. Oregon isnt as good as VCU, so to me it stung a little. When you get in bad foul trouble though you wont win a ton of games.

(11-21-2014 10:50 PM)MidnightBlueGold Wrote:  Wouldn't expect anything different from people on here - always bitching and complaining.

I would hate to be some of your kids. They probably come home getting an A- on their report card, and you take 'em out back and whip 'em for not getting an A.

So it's ok to accept where we're at, don't expect improvement? Defensively we're not any better than last year, that was and will be our achilles heal.
Remember: "If your not improving, you're getting worse."

Too much competition, too close together with too much travel thrown into the mix.

But remember, college basketball teams are primarily remembered for what they do in March, not what they do the first four months of the season leading up to March. This is particularly true for the MAC where a team has to win the conference tournament to have any real chance at the NCAA.

In a sense the first four months of the season is really only practice in preparation for March. UT's tough preseason schedule will help them IF they make the NCAA tournament this year, but it was never going to help get them an at-large bid. It would have been nice to win some of these games and flirt with a national ranking but that was always a long shot at best.

Win the tournament and we're in. Life in the MAC. No other way. Well, yeah, 30-3 might do it.

(11-22-2014 09:34 AM)H2Oville Rocket Wrote:  Win the tournament and we're in. Life in the MAC. No other way. Well, yeah, 30-3 might do it.

We are going to have about 10 top 150 rpi games if the MAC has a few teams in the mix. Add cleve state, bucknel, oakland, detroit, duke, robert morris, oregon, VCU... Some of those teams are no joke. We have the opportunity to have a good record still. The oregon loss hurts yes, but geesh its week 2 of ncaa. No need for crabby pants.

Its not h20 with crabby pants lol

(11-22-2014 01:09 AM)inductchuck16 Wrote:  

(11-21-2014 10:50 PM)MidnightBlueGold Wrote:  Wouldn't expect anything different from people on here - always bitching and complaining.

I would hate to be some of your kids. They probably come home getting an A- on their report card, and you take 'em out back and whip 'em for not getting an A.

You can't seriously be content with our 2 losses thus far? Oregon was picked to finish 8th in the PAC-12....8th!!! I'm sick of always being the team that almost pulled it out. Thanks to these 2 losses that we could have won, we have no choice now except to win the MAC tourney...and we all know how that usually goes.

Sure, there's still Duke left to prove ourselves on the national stage, but they just handled Michigan State the other day so not much hope there.

Some people think that the important dichotomy in "fandom" is the difference between the "good fan" and the "bad fan". Many people who think in these terms are not necessarily tolerant of the other viewpoint. The "good fan" variety commonly take personal pride and perhaps a slight air of moral superiority in their unquestioning optimism and unfailing support of the team in contrast to the "bad" fan whose behavior spans a wide spectrum ranging from harboring totally unreasonable expectations to being mildly critical of poor performances.

However, these people are actually mistaken because the "good-bad" fan dichotomy is NOT what is important to the well being of a program because good or bad they are still fans which is what is really important.

The important dichotomy is between "fan" and "non-fan" or "former fan". Get enough former fans and you can become something like EMU and the butt of attendances jokes. Most "former fans" are the types who live and die on each and every possession and at some level of disappointment and frustration finally realize that it is masochistic to invest that much of their emotional well being (and perhaps their money too) in the hands of a bunch of 18 year old college students and grossly overpaid coaching staffs, therefore they totally abandon the sport and find less stressful ways of entertaining themselves. Needless to say, these people are not found on team message boards criticizing coaching or team performances because they have moved on and just don't care anymore.