Here is the Durham, NC newspaper and their take on the game.

http://www.heraldsun.com/view/full_story...in_article

I don't know about you guys, but I'm tired of falling just short. I'm ready to get over the hump and win the big one.

I'm not ready to talk about this yet. My heart still hurts too much.

2002 - I'm with you when you say "I'm tired of falling just short" and "win the big one" but it wasn't that long ago that Belmont was losing to teams like Troy and UCF. The fact that Belmont can go into Cameron, get down by 12 points more than once and still come back to lost by one is RIDICULOUS. Yeah, it sucks they lost by one (again) but my guess is there will only be a handful of teams the rest of the season who will go into Cameron and keep it that close.

This is one of, if not THE best coached team and the most talented team across the board. Belmont's going to be fine. They may not pull 30-4 again, but I'll be surprised if they don't win 25 games. They'll have a chance to win a few games in the tournament and THIS YEAR they'll have the experience of playing one of the best teams in the country.

We will see you guys in Memphis on Tuesday.

Here is the Blue Ribbon Report on Memphis.

We will likely be playing Duke too in Maui provided we beat Michigan and they beat Tennessee.

OK, now that I've had time to collect my thoughts and clean up the blood on the floor...

As stated, losing by 1 is tough. Losing by 1 to Duke at CIS is really tough. Continually losing by single digits to "the big boys" is heartbreaking, and gets worse every time. (Fill in the blanks if I leave any out) Tennessee (3 times now), Vandy, and of course I was in DC in '08 for the big one. We've seen this movie over and over again. Belmont fights hard, falls short, everyone says it's a "moral victory" etc. At what point do we start looking at our moral victories for what they are? A loss. Don't get me wrong, I could not be more proud of our boys. Duke is a great and legendary program with a great and legendary coach, there is no doubt about that. I just think it's time that we stop selling ourselves short, as if it's an honor to only compete with these teams. We are capable of Ws.

Our offense was shaky. It didn't seem like we were really moving the ball as comfortably as usual, which may be Coach K doing what he does and being well-educated on our game. However, this led to a screen and penetration offense that we don't usually see out of Belmont. Ian didn't have a great first half, and no one could hit a 3 (usually our game) until Drew hit two to start our run late in the 2nd. We did see some classic Belmont moves though: five players with over 10 points, lots of forced turnovers and at least 9 guys getting over 7 minutes of playing time. As TennTex, standing next to me at the bar, pointed out) "we are pressing Duke, AT Duke" which is a pretty cool thing. It's encouraging to see that we kept fighting after Duke went on a 12 point run, to bring it back to single digits the whole time. I would hope that we beat every Atlantic Sun team by a 10 point margin (but I know this won't happen). I excited for the season, because we kept it close with Duke, and did not by any means play our best game. For the first game of the season, I'm impressed.

I was going to write about the poor officiating as well, but I feel like that wouldn't be necessary. You all saw what happened.

This all being said, really looking forward to Memphis on Tuesday. I'm worried because they aren't really a good matchup for us (Duke, surprisingly, is). Neutral site and coming out with fire under our @$$ from this game should work in our favor.

(11-12-2011 12:27 PM)SNIURB06 Wrote:  OK, now that I've had time to collect my thoughts and clean up the blood on the floor...

As stated, losing by 1 is tough. Losing by 1 to Duke at CIS is really tough. Continually losing by single digits to "the big boys" is heartbreaking, and gets worse every time. (Fill in the blanks if I leave any out) Tennessee (3 times now), Vandy, and of course I was in DC in '08 for the big one. We've seen this movie over and over again. Belmont fights hard, falls short, everyone says it's a "moral victory" etc. At what point do we start looking at our moral victories for what they are? A loss. Don't get me wrong, I could not be more proud of our boys. Duke is a great and legendary program with a great and legendary coach, there is no doubt about that. I just think it's time that we stop selling ourselves short, as if it's an honor to only compete with these teams. We are capable of Ws.

Our offense was shaky. It didn't seem like we were really moving the ball as comfortably as usual, which may be Coach K doing what he does and being well-educated on our game. However, this led to a screen and penetration offense that we don't usually see out of Belmont. Ian didn't have a great first half, and no one could hit a 3 (usually our game) until Drew hit two to start our run late in the 2nd. We did see some classic Belmont moves though: five players with over 10 points, lots of forced turnovers and at least 9 guys getting over 7 minutes of playing time. As TennTex, standing next to me at the bar, pointed out) "we are pressing Duke, AT Duke" which is a pretty cool thing. It's encouraging to see that we kept fighting after Duke went on a 12 point run, to bring it back to single digits the whole time. I would hope that we beat every Atlantic Sun team by a 10 point margin (but I know this won't happen). I excited for the season, because we kept it close with Duke, and did not by any means play our best game. For the first game of the season, I'm impressed.

I was going to write about the poor officiating as well, but I feel like that wouldn't be necessary. You all saw what happened.

This all being said, really looking forward to Memphis on Tuesday. I'm worried because they aren't really a good matchup for us (Duke, surprisingly, is). Neutral site and coming out with fire under our @$$ from this game should work in our favor.

The game is in Memphis at the FedEx Forum not a neutral site. We (Memphis) are pretty deep with at least 9 players in the rotation. It will also be hard to press us since we are a guard oriented team. Last year our problems on offense were: poor 3-pt shooting and turnovers. The turnovers could be attributed to 5 of our 7 players being freshmen. On defense we allowed too many offensive rebounds and didn't close out well on the 3-pt shooter.

(11-12-2011 10:01 AM)TennTexBruin Wrote:  2002 - I'm with you when you say "I'm tired of falling just short" and "win the big one" but it wasn't that long ago that Belmont was losing to teams like Troy and UCF. The fact that Belmont can go into Cameron, get down by 12 points more than once and still come back to lost by one is RIDICULOUS. Yeah, it sucks they lost by one (again) but my guess is there will only be a handful of teams the rest of the season who will go into Cameron and keep it that close.

This is one of, if not THE best coached team and the most talented team across the board. Belmont's going to be fine. They may not pull 30-4 again, but I'll be surprised if they don't win 25 games. They'll have a chance to win a few games in the tournament and THIS YEAR they'll have the experience of playing one of the best teams in the country.

Tenn, I'm not worried about the year. We'll be fine. I've been a season ticket holder since we went D1, so I lived through those years. I hate it for the fans, but I hate it for the players too. I'm ready to win some of these games, but I'm not discouraged. I can't wait for the next game.

(11-12-2011 01:25 PM)mairving Wrote:  

(11-12-2011 12:27 PM)SNIURB06 Wrote:  OK, now that I've had time to collect my thoughts and clean up the blood on the floor...

As stated, losing by 1 is tough. Losing by 1 to Duke at CIS is really tough. Continually losing by single digits to "the big boys" is heartbreaking, and gets worse every time. (Fill in the blanks if I leave any out) Tennessee (3 times now), Vandy, and of course I was in DC in '08 for the big one. We've seen this movie over and over again. Belmont fights hard, falls short, everyone says it's a "moral victory" etc. At what point do we start looking at our moral victories for what they are? A loss. Don't get me wrong, I could not be more proud of our boys. Duke is a great and legendary program with a great and legendary coach, there is no doubt about that. I just think it's time that we stop selling ourselves short, as if it's an honor to only compete with these teams. We are capable of Ws.

Our offense was shaky. It didn't seem like we were really moving the ball as comfortably as usual, which may be Coach K doing what he does and being well-educated on our game. However, this led to a screen and penetration offense that we don't usually see out of Belmont. Ian didn't have a great first half, and no one could hit a 3 (usually our game) until Drew hit two to start our run late in the 2nd. We did see some classic Belmont moves though: five players with over 10 points, lots of forced turnovers and at least 9 guys getting over 7 minutes of playing time. As TennTex, standing next to me at the bar, pointed out) "we are pressing Duke, AT Duke" which is a pretty cool thing. It's encouraging to see that we kept fighting after Duke went on a 12 point run, to bring it back to single digits the whole time. I would hope that we beat every Atlantic Sun team by a 10 point margin (but I know this won't happen). I excited for the season, because we kept it close with Duke, and did not by any means play our best game. For the first game of the season, I'm impressed.

I was going to write about the poor officiating as well, but I feel like that wouldn't be necessary. You all saw what happened.

This all being said, really looking forward to Memphis on Tuesday. I'm worried because they aren't really a good matchup for us (Duke, surprisingly, is). Neutral site and coming out with fire under our @$$ from this game should work in our favor.

The game is in Memphis at the FedEx Forum not a neutral site. We (Memphis) are pretty deep with at least 9 players in the rotation. It will also be hard to press us since we are a guard oriented team. Last year our problems on offense were: poor 3-pt shooting and turnovers. The turnovers could be attributed to 5 of our 7 players being freshmen. On defense we allowed too many offensive rebounds and didn't close out well on the 3-pt shooter.

My mistake, I for some reason had the assumption that they were playing this at a neutral location. Thanks for clarification.

Really looking forward to playing you guys, hopefully we can make it a regular regional matchup. When I said it's not a good matchup for us, I meant that we don't match up well against yalls style of play and size/athleticism. Should be fun to watch.