(01-23-2014 08:44 PM)Buccaneerlover Wrote:  I don't get why they don't just keep playing and not trying to squat on a three possession lead with this much time left.
Does Bartow not grasp that this isn't 1987?

Very risky.

This is arguably Petey's best game as a Buccaneer: 7 pts., 5 rebounds, 9 assists. Beastly games from Hunter and KGG and key off-the-bench points from Jalen.

We are 30-31 from the FT line.

They finish this off and rattle off the next four it sets up an interesting stretch run.

I kind of wondered if we would just lay down the rest of the year after this last stretch. I guess the answer to that is no! A great battle today.

(01-23-2014 08:58 PM)Bucfaithful Wrote:  We are 30-31 from the FT line.

That statistic is the most unexpected that I could have imagined. We are historically poor free throw shooters, and this has been a great free throw shooting game. If we didn't shoot those as well, we probably don't win the game.

On the other hand, we let yet another player have his career high in points and 3 point shots against us. Drives me nuts.

32-33 from the FT line.

(01-23-2014 09:06 PM)ETSUfan1 Wrote:  32-33 from the FT line.

Amazing. I wish we we could shoot like that every game. I have to wonder if this is our best free % ever in a game with 30+ attempts.

Has to be.

It might even be with 20+ attempts. Since I've been following ETSU Basketball I can't ever remember us shooting that well from the FT Line in a game

A fantastic free throw shooting game for the Bucs! It obviously won the game for us. It is still distressing how we can give up points like a machine gun. Without the free throws that machine gun probably beats us.

Great free throw shooting !!

Riley and others came off the bench and helped us get a big lead.

Number 2 was a punk. Good shooter , but a punk. Nobody was harassing him in the stands until he showboated.

Horrible refs. That one blocking call was one of the worst I have ever seen. Our player could have read War and Peace by the time the other guy hit him.
GO BUCS !

This game is how the Bucs are going to have to play in order to win. We are not good defensively, no matter what kind of look we throw out there, so we have to play fast, loose, and aggressive. Will we make mistakes? Sure. Will we lose a high scoring game or two? Of course. But if we want a chance to make a run at the league, we have to let our talent play and let the cream rise to the top. We have good enough talent when we aren't handcuffed by coaching style. If we are going to give up 90+ points, I'd much rather score 99 than 62.

(01-23-2014 09:16 PM)Bucster Wrote:  It might even be with 20+ attempts. Since I've been following ETSU Basketball I can't ever remember us shooting that well from the FT Line in a game

Why the improvement? Could it be one of the new assistant coaches?

This was a pretty good young North Florida team with half a dozen long athletic guys, 6’6” to 6’8”. Not to mention the 6’11” 235 freshman. And 3 of those guys are knocking down 3 pointers at over 40% in conference play. In fact they shoot 39% from 3 as a team in the ASun. They beat Mercer, and came within 2 of FGCU. Nobody in this league is going to run away from them.

So it is no surprise that it took a heck of an effort to beat them. Although, frankly, I am a little surprised that the Bucs managed to produce that effort tonight. Following the road trip to Florida, it took a major effort to put disappointment aside and produce tonight.

So many good things about this effort. Despite their length and athleticism, UNF is not as physical as some teams, and Hunter Harris was absolutely on fire, driving hard to the hoop at every opportunity, and racking up 24 points on 9-15 from the field, 18 of those points coming in the first half, and ripping down 6 rebounds with 2 blocks, an assist and a steal. Most surprising of all is that he was also 5-6 from the free throw line.
Driscoll started the second half going right at Hunter time after time and succeeded in getting him into foul trouble. This slowed him down, but he did not foul out, and continued to produce, albeit at a lower rate.

A surprising indicator of ETSU winning the physical battle inside – we actually outrebounded UNF 35-34, although they are 3rd in the ASun in rebounding margin, 6.5 boards per game ahead of the Bucs. But not tonight. This was totally a team effort, with nobody getting more than 7 boards (KGG), Hunter getting 6, A.J. and Petey (!!) getting 5, Rashawn 4, Jalen and Lukas 2, Devin 1, with 3 for the team. That’s a team effort.

KGG, as well as leading the rebounding effort, also muscled to the hoop several times, got 19 points on very efficient scoring (7-14, 2-2 from 3, 3-3 from the line) and swatted 3 blocks. He did get 5 turnovers to go with one assist – but I’ll take that if we can get the rest of his stat line along with it.

When foul trouble slowed down Hunter in the second half, Rashawn, Jalen and KGG stepped up their scoring. Rashawn got 15 of his 22, KGG 12 of his 19, and Jalen 14 of his 18 points in the second half. Jalen, who had also been struggling in conference play, was even more efficient than KGG, shooting 4-6 from the field, 1-2 from 3 and 8-8 from the line, and getting 3 assists to go with only 2 turnovers

I agree with Bucfaithful that this may have been Petey McClain’s best game – 9 assists and 0 turnovers, to go with 2 steals and 7 points and 4-4 from the line. He drove it up the floor like a madman at every opportunity, forcing the tempo and leading to transition scoring opportunities – the transition opportunities that we were missing at Stetson and FGCU. I don’t know what gave him the energy boost, but that is exactly the type of play that can make him a very effective player.

Even Lukas made important contributions – only 7 minutes, 2 points and 2 rebounds and some good defense – but they were key, at a time when Harris was in trouble and we had no one else that could do what he did.

The big move was made in the second half when we went from down 67-68 at 8:25, to up 83-70 at 4:59, a 16-2 run in 3 ½ minutes that was keyed by good defense (Rembert steal, KGG block, KGG deflection, 3 UNF turnovers)as much as by good shooting (Rembert 3, KGG 3, A.J. layup on assist from KGG, Jalen jumpers) and finally, by good free throw shooting. That’s the kind of explosion that this ETSU team is capable of when they get offense and defense working together.

The last 5 minutes, incredible free throw shooting kept UNF from getting close, even though our 3 point defense was not good.
So a team that could have folded didn’t. And several guys that had been struggling posted big nights.

All in all, most of us there seemed to think that it was well worth a cold walk across campus.

http://www.johnsoncitypress.com/article/...o-beat-unf
Interesting acknowledgement from Bartow:
I tried to turn them loose a little more," said Bartow, whose team had lost four of five coming in. "We'd gotten a little stagnant. We were running a few more sets. I just felt because of some things I had done, we had slowed them down a little.

If this team plays with a little faster pace they seem to operate more efficiently. When they took over last night in the second half, this team played like a group. All the things we complain about offensively, the isolation basketball, the lack of ball movement/distribution, they did that. The offense ran through Riley/McClain and got to Rembert, Harris, KGG as well as Riley. It looked good. What impressed me the most was they hustled, they crashed the boards on missed shots on both ends and picked up the 50/50 balls. If they can do that more consistently, this team very well could make a nice run come conference tourney time.
And yes, I realize a kid from UNF went crazy last night, guess what? The right column for them increased by one last night, and that's all that matters.

So maybe we've been over this, but why is the band sitting in the center section of where the students should be closest to ETSU's bench? Wouldn't it be better to have them on the opposite end in that corner section, aka the furthest they could possibly be from Murry's team huddles during timeouts? It's just a thought, but that seemingly would make more sense.

(01-24-2014 02:05 PM)Buccaneerlover Wrote:  So maybe we've been over this, but why is the band sitting in the center section of where the students should be closest to ETSU's bench? Wouldn't it be better to have them on the opposite end in that corner section, aka the furthest they could possibly be from Murry's team huddles during timeouts? It's just a thought, but that seemingly would make more sense.

That is where the band used to be, not sure why it was changed.