(01-27-2018 10:36 PM)Mrs. Got Ribe Wrote:  Gutsy win. Rowley made some clutch shots down the stretch.

It was definitely Paul’s best game in a while. Tony rode him over Milon down the stretch and Paul came up big! Good coaching move by Tony!

Pierce was awesome destroying the soft spot of the UNCW zone at the FT line, and Burch was huge as well.

I was screaming at my TV to foul UNCW to put them at the line for a 1 & 1...would have been super pissed if Talley had hit that three at the buzzer. Must protect home court next week against Elon & Drexel

(01-28-2018 12:02 AM)Tribester Wrote:  I was screaming at my TV to foul UNCW to put them at the line for a 1 & 1...would have been super pissed if Talley had hit that three at the buzzer. Must protect home court next week against Elon & Drexel

The way they shoot free throws and rebound, 1-and-1 might have been a better percentage play for UNCW. :)

Btw, Justin Pierce’s electric put back dunk/and 1 was awesome! Too bad UNCW never showed replays of our good plays ... if we were a bigger program, that play is on SportsCenter ...

A gut check win for this amazing team....would any of us on the board have predicted this.

Two wins on this three game road trip and the one loss was to the referees. Five CAA wins of their last six on the road.

Pierce shooting much better and gaining confidence with each game: he is turning into TarpeyII except he's two inches taller and shoots far better. His rebounding is remarkable.

And kudos to David Cohn: not only did he break W&M's all-time total assists record but he did it in two and a half seasons!! All the other guys had four years. David had nine last night.

Three of the next four games at home...I believe we'll see a far different team than we saw at the last two home games.

This team shows miles of heart on the road trip after a disappointing home stand. Great way to gut it out.

Milon has not been the same since Tony chewed him out at the first Towson game. Hope he can get it together.

Burchfield, Pierce, Rowley and Cohn cement this one. I was glad to see Harrison and Knight not backing down from Cacok physically. Can somebody please get Tot to shoot a little more? Congratulations to Cohn on a well deserved record.

These guys are a team and when they play together they are a thing of beauty to watch. This had to be a tough, tough outing after OT in Towson Thursday. Kudos to not giving in to fatigue. That is what it will take in Charleston.

I thought that it was interesting how Wilmington played pretty much the opposite defensive strategy from what Towson did. Wilmington took away the inside and let us shoot the baseline three all night. They weren't even considering Rowley as a threat. It almost seemed like all they cared about was Knight.

Now.....we can't lose to Drexel, Delaware, and Wilmington. Ten wins puts us in the top six.

It amazed me on how often Wilmington ignored the opportunity for dribble drive penetration. Towson showed how vulnerable we are time after time yet Wilmington’s offense settled for perimeter shots, offensive rebounds and the occasional post feed via entry pass.

I’ll take the win. “Gutsy” seems to be the word of the night. I couldn’t agree more.


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TEAM ball led to a TEAM victory last night. Both the coaches and players stepped up and dealt with a horrible road schedule. We continue our streak of winning all games this season when the margin of victory is under 10 (let us forget the 79-79 tie in regs at Towson)! If the game is close then we tend to have ice in our vines which bodes well for the tourney.

We have 5 home games left against 4 of the 5 bottom teams in conference and away games against the top 3 teams excluding us. Exciting time for Tribe ball so let us "Pack the Kap" for these remaining games to give the TEAM a deserved 6th MAN. Mark you calendar that we may be playing for the CAA regular season title in our final home game 2/24 against Charleston!

(01-28-2018 07:32 AM)Tribe32 Wrote:  Now.....we can't lose to Drexel, Delaware, and Wilmington. Ten wins puts us in the top six.

Top six? Granted, I believe in taking things one step at a time but my goals are higher. I'm aiming for top seed, or at least number two. The only way we sink to bottom four now would be if the team absolutely falls apart and the only way that will happen is if someone gets hurt (knock on wood that that doesn't happen). The only other way we lose that much would be a conspiracy where we get twice as many fouls and Knight fouls out each game -- the whole rest of the way. I'm thinking that that would be too obvious for the CAA to be able to pull it off.

The reason I am so positive on our chances is our 5-1 road record (should be 6-0). That is unbelievable, especially after last year's struggles (although, no question, this is a completely different team from last year). The tourney in Charleston is on the road! (or, at best, is considered a neutral site against 8 of the other 9 teams). Let's get that road mojo working in C-town.

May all boil down to our head to head matchups with CofC, and Towson's with Northeastern. Love to see these guys earn that NIT fallback with the #1 seed.

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I don't disagree, I want to be the number 1 seed, but we all know that we're not getting an at large bid so we have to win the tournament.

I'd actually like to see Shaver give some rest to the kids playing 35 minutes a game or we're going to burn out. I'd be okay taking a couple losses in exchange for fresh legs in March.

(01-28-2018 09:33 AM)Zorch Wrote:  

(01-28-2018 07:32 AM)Tribe32 Wrote:  Now.....we can't lose to Drexel, Delaware, and Wilmington. Ten wins puts us in the top six.

Top six? Granted, I believe in taking things one step at a time but my goals are higher. I'm aiming for top seed, or at least number two. The only way we sink to bottom four now would be if the team absolutely falls apart and the only way that will happen is if someone gets hurt (knock on wood that that doesn't happen). The only other way we lose that much would be a conspiracy where we get twice as many fouls and Knight fouls out each game -- the whole rest of the way. I'm thinking that that would be too obvious for the CAA to be able to pull it off.

The reason I am so positive on our chances is our 5-1 road record (should be 6-0). That is unbelievable, especially after last year's struggles (although, no question, this is a completely different team from last year). The tourney in Charleston is on the road! (or, at best, is considered a neutral site against 8 of the other 9 teams). Let's get that road mojo working in C-town.

Love the win and the efforts on the road. Now we need a good week of home performances. We easily could be 0-4 at home, but were fortunate to pull out wins over Hofstra and JMU. Elon beat Towson on the road yesterday and Drexel beat Northeastern, so we cannot just show up and expect to win. Great opportunity though made by tremendous road performances.

Shaver openly admitted yesterday during the postgame that he is guilty of sticking with his starting five too long, and knows he's got to get the bench more minutes.

As a previous poster said, I'd be fine with losing a couple of games now in return for fresher legs in March. Loewe, in my opinion, has got to get more time as we slog through the conference schedule. Tot and Williams need more time also.

On the other hand, we've gotten WAY more run out of Harrison than I ever thought possible at this point in the season.

Remarkable performance at the end of what I trust will be our worst travel trip of the year. First the gut punch conclusion to the Towson game and then the back-to-back bus trips from Towson and then to Wilmington. As a result, I am not surprised that any individual player did not look that sharp; this was a game to "survive and advance" and not to worry about style points.

Takes tremendous mental toughness to bounce and compete after Thursday's loss and then to withstand the repeated comebacks by UNC-W with so many opportunities to lose faith.

Observations:

1) Tremendous game by the bench. Harrison was everything we hoped to get out of him, particularly in the first half. Lowe and Tot played effective minutes. Rowley hit three huge 3s in the second half without which we would not have won. (He also benefited from our low foul total heading into the final minutes. He is a one-man fouling machine but didn't end up putting UNC-W on the line.)

2) I am not very concerned by Milon's slump. It does not seem to be affecting his play in other areas. His first two or three shots were all to the left, which suggests the ball is rolling off his hand towards the pinkie side. Hopefully some rest and some shooting practice at the Hall will fix that.

3) I wonder if Burchfield is not the team's "workout warrior". His quickness has not improved that much but he is getting loose balls and hitting 2s off the drive which leads he to believe his main improvement has been in strength and conditioning. He has become a much better all-round player than I ever thought he could be.

4) Pierce may actually be the guy we have been looking for against opponent's zones, particularly the 2-3. He showed he can hit that turnaround jumper and distribute the ball smartly from the high post.

It may well be the defining characteristic of this team is mental toughness. The talent is in the sophomore class but I suspect the leadership is coming from Cohn and Burchfield.

Harrison has more than exceeded my expectations. He filled in minutes yesterday and played well, giving up fouls when he needed to. IIRC, Nate went to the bench with a lot of time left in the first half and didn’t have to come back in due to Harrison keeping a lid on Cacok. A good friend of mine was optimistic on him at the beginning of the season—I, less so. Looks like he was right.

And Austin Shaver gets credit for development of our centers.

I think ultimately the starting 5 are the key to our season, but it was a very good night for Rowley, Tot and Harrison. Loewe also needed to play some to give Cohn a rest. So, that is 9 guys. I think that is probably enough for a solid rotation. Looking back before we lost the connection here last night, I thought the Tribe played poorly in the first half. I think in actuality, Ms. Got Ribe was correct that it was a good first half. I was focused on the shooting struggles of Pierce and Milon in the first half and the number of good looks we missed. Pierce had an unbelievable 2 games this week. As for Matt, remember Burchfield really struggled for a few games, too. Now, if we can just get the referees to let Nathan play his game, we will have something. Nathan did really battle through some adversity. Cacok continued to play very physically with him sometimes beyond the play and Nathan kept his cool. I hope play each of the next two games like we are underdogs and hunting for the lead.

Austin has done a good job over the years with development of Rustoven, Schalk, Sheldon and Whitman coming immediately to mind. Each of those guys made significant progress in their games during their time in Williamsburg. Credit to each of those guys for working hard to become better. Nathan and Cole have massively improved since their beginnings here as well.

As this season goes on, what a huge, enexpected void Burchfield has filled. With all the excitement with this team, and deservedly with all the players, it has been most rewarding to watch the blooming of Connor Burchfield.

Earlier this week I was just rambling on about Tribe basketball to my wife as I normally do, and she was nodding her head as she normally does to make me happy. At some point I told her that, while I was hardly a coach, I wondered if Coach Shaver would ever consider keeping Nate more on the low post on offense and put Justin at the top of the key, This was before Justin had the game of his carrer at Towson from the perimeter, which sort of made me rethink my position. My thought was that since Justin was not quite the perimeter threat of Cohn, Burchfield, and Milan, this would give him a great chance to define his own identity in the offense. He can certainly pass out of that position as well as Nate, he could use his wonderful athleticism to drive by defenders that guard him too closely, and he could hit that little shot from about 12 feet away. But the biggest reason that I thought about the change was that maybe it would stop Nate from getting those obligatory TWO MOVING SCREEN FOULS EACH GAME!!!

Justin was fantastic this week. Just one more thing for opposing coaches to have to plan for

I just wonder what last year's team would have done with this year's heart. This is the toughest, most resilient bunch that i have ever watched play. I am so proud of the way that they have played this year.