(12-18-2016 05:03 PM)Sunny_BHY Wrote:  

(12-17-2016 08:54 PM)Wiessman Wrote:  Not even looking at the rest of the thread:

1. Pitt is a good team, maybe a top-25 outfit. They have a lot of really good players.
2. Number 4 for Pitt decided to have the game of his life against us.
3. Free throws. %#^&
4. Giving up 8 straight points after fighting back to get level at 50 was a gut punch.
5. This is yet more evidence that we are going to arrive soon.

Very, very frustrating. But we just need to keep up the fight until we turn the corner. We didn't deserve to win this one, but it was still there for us until about the last two minutes.

And I would add that part of the reason we were still there in the last two minutes is because the team clearly believes in itself. I was impressed with the way they battled back from down 8 a couple times. Had they been surprised by their own performance, they would've likely looked at a small deficit and thought "well here we go. We gave it our best." But they stepped up to the challenge. Lots of mistakes and terrible foul shooting, but Rhoades has these guys thinking they can make some noise. That's a huge step.

Exactly. Almost every Rice team in the past has gotten the "deer in the headlights look" on the road against quality competition and in some cases against not so decent competition. The stretch in the second half where they cut the lead to to two was keyed by the defense and transition offense. Down the stretch they kept to the game plan and exhibited no panic. FT misses bit us again and kept us from being 4 or less down with under two minutes to go.

Don't forget it took a career night by a 24 year old grad student to help Tech win and Saturday night it took a career night by a Sr to help Pitt win. There were some more steps made by the team even in a losing effort. It was definitely the return of a confident Marcus Jackson and Quez again showed signs of being a complete player. He often was paired with Evans bringing the ball upcourt when Egor was out.

Let's win the next two and get ready for CUSA and take it one game at a time from that point on.

(12-19-2016 10:09 AM)Tiki Owl Wrote:  Don't forget it took a career night by a 24 year old grad student to help Tech win and Saturday night it took a career night by a Sr to help Pitt win.

Look, I'm all for finding the silver linings. Rice had more moral victories than actual victories when I was in school.

But I find your frequent reference to the player's age to be out of step with your general view of "anyone, anywhere, anytime". We have had grad transfers in our program too. It is clearly within the rules--there is nothing untoward about it.

If the point you want to make is that we are young and there is cause for hope, I agree. But our two best players are Egor--no spring chicken in his 4th year of college--and Evans who is a sophomore, which is an old guy by the standards of the best teams.

I stated earlier I take it as a good sign that Mency and Drone don't play much--it means we have upgraded the roster from when we they were playing 28 minutes per game.

But we lost a winnable game at Tech due to a not very smart play on the last Tech possession combined with some untimely FT misses. If the presence of talented seniors--or God forbid--redshirt seniors (which is what a grad transfer really is)--becomes an excuse for losing, then we will have an excuse for losing every game we play.