3-12 is not going to get it done for the Tribe against Washington College, let alone High Point. Bad loss going into exam break. Not looking forward to ODU and UNC at the end of the month if we play like this against them.

Very disappointing. The ref's weren't good and the High Point announcers were horrible, but not nearly as bad as we played the last 10-12 minutes, and they didn't blow a 15 point lead.

We have to avoid those prolonged scoring droughts that we're prone to.

Do the refs suck or are we physically/ athletically overmatched and find ourselves reaching on defense?

High Point's coach is from Mason, BTW. He knows how to match up against the Tribe.

I don't think we can call out the refs after every loss. Both this game and Richmond had hue foul discrepancies. I think we just have a bad tendancy to fould

We went 12:20 (16:18 to 3:55) scoring only 4 points.

I thought the officiating was very uneven, but it doesn't matter if the ball isn't going in the hole.

When on the road in a snake pit; to win, you have to fill it up.

I wrote several times this team faced a cruel early road schedule. I thought we might win the High Point game but even that was going to be tough.

This team is still getting used to playing basketball together, getting familiar with new court combinations, and four first-year (two redshirt, two true frosh) players in the eight-man rotation will mean lots of inconsistency...which we are seeing.

As it is we lost two tough road games against quality teams by one and three points and, even with shooting just 19 foul shots to our opponents 47 (real even foul calling, eh?) this team might have won both games.

Even in losing our guys continued to play good, tenacious defense, something that will keep us in games and eventually pay off.

I am very disappointed with the two losses...and we're, other than having a night where we hit everything, going to lose at ODU and UNC...but remain solid in my belief that we will be ready
to win come CAA play.

My only real head shake is Marcus scoring zero in the first half last evening and then 12 in the second half.

I am going to attend Tony's Luncheon at Anna's this Tuesday at noon and look forward to his comments and analysis.

(12-07-2014 07:04 AM)BigTribe Wrote:  This team is still getting used to playing basketball together, getting familiar with new court combinations, and four first-year (two redshirt, two true frosh) players in the eight-man rotation will mean lots of inconsistency...which we are seeing.

I agree with this. I just didn't expect the inconsistent play to come from Marcus, Omar, and Terry.

(12-07-2014 07:04 AM)BigTribe Wrote:  I wrote several times this team faced a cruel early road schedule. I thought we might win the High Point game but even that was going to be tough.

This team is still getting used to playing basketball together, getting familiar with new court combinations, and four first-year (two redshirt, two true frosh) players in the eight-man rotation will mean lots of inconsistency...which we are seeing.

As it is we lost two tough road games against quality teams by one and three points and, even with shooting just 19 foul shots to our opponents 47 (real even foul calling, eh?) this team might have won both games.

Even in losing our guys continued to play good, tenacious defense, something that will keep us in games and eventually pay off.

I am very disappointed with the two losses...and we're, other than having a night where we hit everything, going to lose at ODU and UNC...but remain solid in my belief that we will be ready
to win come CAA play.

My only real head shake is Marcus scoring zero in the first half last evening and then 12 in the second half.

I am going to attend Tony's Luncheon at Anna's this Tuesday at noon and look forward to his comments and analysis.

------------------------------------------------------------------------
Who are the two "True Frosh" in the 8 man rotation?? I count only one, Malinoski.

I left Davidson's beat down of Stetson at the half so I could get to High Point by tipoff, mission accomplished, but now I wonder why I bothered?

The Tribe was disappointing, not because they lost to High Point, but because of the way they played. I disagreed with just about all of the charge calls, but we were weak with the ball on the perimeter, made lazy sloppy passes and we were so weak around the rim it was pathetic. Then the icing on the cake, with the game just about over, Tarpey goes strong to the hoop, finally, and clangs the dunk!

The Tribe had a lot of shots rejected without drawing fouls and we never took advantage of our superior size when Sheldon was in the game, does he have any post up game at all? We never passed it back to him on pick and rolls, I guess to avoid the embarrassment of another rejection of a weak layup attempt?

I know the make up of the CAA is different than in the "good old" days when VCU, ODU and Mason were in the league, but is this Tribe team big and tough enough to be a top team?

At the start of the second half, Marcus played off the ball and got some open looks and scored, the Tribe needs another point guard or someone else needs to hit a shot.

It was a real shock for me. Davidson has a very young team this season with three freshmen "bigs" playing significant minutes, and they have looked great. I was stunned by the contrast, the Tribe didn't even look like a work in progress, so weak inside it is scary. High Point plays a 6'5" jumping jack at center and W&M does nothing inside, accept get weak layup attempts rejected. Ugh! If not for the three point shot, W&M would have been run out of the gym by an undersized team.

Someone please tell this this was just a bad night.

I have already planned to take the 30th and 31st off work and attend the UNC-Cheat game, I am starting to regret this decision.

(12-07-2014 10:41 AM)62Indian Wrote:  

(12-07-2014 07:04 AM)BigTribe Wrote:  I wrote several times this team faced a cruel early road schedule. I thought we might win the High Point game but even that was going to be tough.

This team is still getting used to playing basketball together, getting familiar with new court combinations, and four first-year (two redshirt, two true frosh) players in the eight-man rotation will mean lots of inconsistency...which we are seeing.

As it is we lost two tough road games against quality teams by one and three points and, even with shooting just 19 foul shots to our opponents 47 (real even foul calling, eh?) this team might have won both games.

Even in losing our guys continued to play good, tenacious defense, something that will keep us in games and eventually pay off.

I am very disappointed with the two losses...and we're, other than having a night where we hit everything, going to lose at ODU and UNC...but remain solid in my belief that we will be ready
to win come CAA play.

My only real head shake is Marcus scoring zero in the first half last evening and then 12 in the second half.

I am going to attend Tony's Luncheon at Anna's this Tuesday at noon and look forward to his comments and analysis.

------------------------------------------------------------------------
Who are the two "True Frosh" in the 8 man rotation?? I count only one, Malinoski.

I think he's the only one. The other true frosh getting minutes (At least that I can think of) is Tot, but he's the 9th or 10th man in the rotation. There's also Glover, but he's also further down in the pecking order

That was my error...three, of course is correct.

I am not sure why the criticism of Sheldon. The Sheldon/Whitman combo scored 16 on 8 of 11 shooting. They were simply playing against someone better than they are.

The inside was dominated by John Brown, the returning Big South POY. It think most of his blocks were against Prewitt, who was the only Tribe player to show much of a drive-to-the-basket game in the half-court offense; then again, every time he was able to get to the basket it seemed his shot was blocked.

Thornton was absolutely unable to penetrate all night. The one time he got to the basket he was called for a charge, and very nearly got a "T".

High Point played with more intensity. Their defense made us look uncomfortable all night aside from that streak of four three-pointers early in the second half.

I am worried about the proclivity to pick up fouls. You can't play effective defense if your opponent is in the bonus with more than 10 minutes in the half.

Tough loss but I am still hopeful that the team is learning how to play with intensity every night and how to play defense without committing cheap fouls. It was a rough week but I think we all knew this team was not a finished product coming into the season.

I was really down in the dumps about our two frustrating losses this past week until I watched the Washington Redskins yesterday.

No matter how tough things are going with our young basketball team, viewing the Redskins
really shows you how bad things can get with a team!

(12-07-2014 07:16 PM)tribeinexile Wrote:  I am not sure why the criticism of Sheldon. The Sheldon/Whitman combo scored 16 on 8 of 11 shooting. They were simply playing against someone better than they are.

The inside was dominated by John Brown, the returning Big South POY. It think most of his blocks were against Prewitt, who was the only Tribe player to show much of a drive-to-the-basket game in the half-court offense; then again, every time he was able to get to the basket it seemed his shot was blocked.

Thornton was absolutely unable to penetrate all night. The one time he got to the basket he was called for a charge, and very nearly got a "T".

High Point played with more intensity. Their defense made us look uncomfortable all night aside from that streak of four three-pointers early in the second half.

I am worried about the proclivity to pick up fouls. You can't play effective defense if your opponent is in the bonus with more than 10 minutes in the half.

Tough loss but I am still hopeful that the team is learning how to play with intensity every night and how to play defense without committing cheap fouls. It was a rough week but I think we all knew this team was not a finished product coming into the season.

Good post.
Upside - going into this game Sheldon was averaging under 2 fouls/game playing 24 min/game, and not for lack of hustle. Last yr Rustoven averaged 3 fouls on 25 min/game and fouled out of several games - though I think he led the league in phantom calls against.

(12-08-2014 07:23 AM)BigTribe Wrote:  I was really down in the dumps about our two frustrating losses this past week until I watched the Washington Redskins yesterday.

No matter how tough things are going with our young basketball team, viewing the Redskins
really shows you how bad things can get with a team!

Agreed. The Redskins will never get better as long as they have the current ownership. Maybe they can get the #1 pick, but they will probably now win a few games to make it a #12 pick.

As for the Tribe, I was so bummed at our loss Wednesday night and corresponding 70 point drop in the RPI(I just don't understand that at all), that I failed to follow Saturday's game.

The tough thing with this loss is now we have nothing to talk about for two weeks but what might of been if a shot here or a shot there had gone our way (or even a foul or two!).