RE: UNCW & Charleston Road Games This Week
It was a tough loss tonight. The first half I thought was terrible again offensively and the disparity in fouls was in large part to the fact that the Tribe was either not aggressive and was missing threes, or turning it over. The second half was a little better offensively, but the fouls piled up and they could not get stops. Toews absolutely shredded us. He could have had 35 as Nathan was really the only even potential deterrent to his drives which left Cacok and others open. Luke was simply overmatched tonight. I have not felt that way nearly as much as I did tonight. But, I am not sure what could have been done differently. LJ couldn't stay with him either.
Milon and Pierce were both very bad for long stretches again tonight. Matt finally caught fire late, but it was not one of his best games. Justin is missing something from his game. His shot is basically off and he is not cutting without the ball, or getting it in places where he can score. Justin should be a better version of Audige right now on the offensive end(based on experience and his height), but he is not. He still looks hurt to me. But, Justin is still a really important player. When the Tribe is playing well, Justin has a lot of rebounds, points, some assists, blocks, steals and even turnovers. You basically feel like he is everywhere. Right now, every game is a real struggle in part because the Tribe cannot sustain 15-20 minutes of solid basketball. Lots of turnovers(many unforced) and long cold, dry spells at the offensive end. On defense, there are a fair number of good efforts, but the team lacks cohesion and help. I think Nathan, Chase, LJ, and Justin can play defense individually, but they are struggling to play well together. If there is ANY silver lining, it is that there are still 6 more weeks to try and get healthy and find something together. None of the guys, even Nathan, will get to where they want to be without help from the team as a whole. You can tell some of them are frustrated, but I was pleased that they kept battling tonight.
I don't think UNCW is a weak team by any stretch, especially not at home, but I don't think right now that they are on par with the top teams either(even with Cacok and Toews). So, our loss leaves us around 7 or 8 in the league right now. UNCW was a lot better than the Tribe tonight. Now, we can to look forward to some Charleston home cookin and trying to find a way to stop Grant Riller for the first time ever.
(This post was last modified: 01-24-2019 11:13 PM by TribePride91.)
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