Our faux-rivalry with Notre Dame went better than I expected. I was surprised that we were only down nine at the half and we only lost by 17 overall. If you would have told me that we'd only lose by 17 against one of the better ACC programs on the road with this team currently winless against DI competition, I would have said you were nuts. One day we will regularly play against these caliber of teams and win but not in the near future.

That was easily our best performance of the season and is further evidence of reason for optimism under Coach McKay.

Very pleasantly surprised. I didn't get to see or hear the game, but looking at the halftime and final score, we played hard and competitively.

Dawson is proving to be the real deal and I am glad that we have him for several seasons.

Well we Beat Coastal at their place for our first Division I win of the year. Nice win on the road against a rival. Progress for our guys!

The guys are getting better every game. The defense seems to be working as well. We could be a though out by the end of the season.

DOH! I missed the game. I didn't realize we played tonight so I went to the gym to work out. Phoooey!! I am so glad the boys won. Congrats guys!!

Huge win for the squad! Dawson is more than living up to the hype thus far. Next up, Campbell in the Vines.

(01-06-2016 10:03 PM)army56mike Wrote:  DOH! I missed the game. I didn't realize we played tonight so I went to the gym to work out. Phoooey!! I am so glad the boys won. Congrats guys!!

I looked for it on the watchespn app but it wasn't there. So maybe it was just on the LFSN network and wasn't rebroadcast on ESPN.

It was on the Big South Network according to the LU athletics page.

Since we won and I didn't watch, or listen, does this mean I'm not allowed to watch or listen again this season?

Two in a row! We are starting to learn and improve. Look out Big South!

I thought we were going to get the win last night vs. Chuck So. Did Coach really call for a foul at the end of the game while we were winning? I'd like to hear the explanation for that. Regardless we still had several chances to hit a game winner in the final seconds.

We let a winnable game slip away. We were down by about 11 at halftime so I was pleasantly surprised when we pulled ahead at the end but we couldn't finish it. We are young so I'm hopeful.

Mistakes happen. But I continue to be impressed by the improvement of the team. We will start winning more of these close ones moving forward. The defensive improvement this season has been phenomenal.

(01-18-2016 10:41 AM)SlyFox Wrote:  Mistakes happen. But I continue to be impressed by the improvement of the team. We will start winning more of these close ones moving forward. The defensive improvement this season has been phenomenal.

I agree with all of this. It is night and day with how far our team has come from the beginning of the season and from last season. We need to learn to win and that will come in time (hopefully).

On a semi-related note, we are a team made up of almost entirely of freshmen and sophomores. I saw a tweet by Jeff Barber advertising us as the youngest team in America (not sure if this is true or not but irrelevant). How many scholarships will we have for recruits? I can't imagine many (one or two max) unless we take them from current players. There are always one or two players who transfer so that may be our only ticket improving (assuming incoming players have higher ceilings/better quality of play than outgoing players).

We signed several players in early signing period and have a number of offers and commits for 2017 already. Ritchie made some hard decisions that impacted short term success in exchange for building a program from scratch.

(01-20-2016 12:09 PM)SlyFox Wrote:  We signed several players in early signing period and have a number of offers and commits for 2017 already. Ritchie made some hard decisions that impacted short term success in exchange for building a program from scratch.

Thanks for the info. I've said it before but I'll repeat it anyway: I'm glad that coach McKay is taking the long-term approach. I'd rather give up wins now when the bar is so low than in the future when we should hit our stride and build ourselves up as a program. Ironically, our basketball team can be the vessel that gets our football team to FBS and I believe that if we could develop into a tournament regular in basketball then we'd be knocking down the doors of the Sun Belt, CUSA, and MAC.

And in case anyone missed it, we beat Longwood!

Longwood was a crazy game. Longwood showed a lot of heart in their comeback, and Liberty showed their youth and inexperience in allowing the comeback. A win is a win, no matter if by one or twenty.

Saturday will be a great opportunity to see how much the team has gelled and matured. High Point will be a quality opponent for us. I am hoping for a good showing. Not expecting a win, but think we can be competitive.

According to the RPI on ESPN, Liberty has climbed to 340th overall but still last in the Big South. Liberty has been the worst kind of conference member to have: win zero non-conference games (aside from non-Division 1 games) and then beat conference teams.

Well that was awesome. Great win for the boys. Lot of growth going on.