Nice win in a rivalry game today! Finished a close one out.

Good win for the Ramblers! I was a bit nervous in those last two minutes, but I'm glad we could close it out. We're now 2-0 against horizon league teams...makes me wonder how we would have done this year..

Glad to see you guys hold on at the end. Now keep it rolling.

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The Roundhouse

SUB !! PUHLEEEZE tell me that fat Ref is NOT opne of ours !!!!

Didn't actually see the game and can't find who worked it at the moment. I'll keep looking

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The Roundhouse

Hard to tell from the picture, but I think the one you're talking about was Tom O'Neill

http://statsheet.com/mcb/referees/tom-o-neill

The other two refs were Dan Chrisman and Brad Gaston

O'Neill works the MVC. He's normally fairly decent. Off night maybe?

I don't recognize the other two names, but that doesn't guarantee anything.

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The Roundhouse

Thanks 63 and Sub---Maybe its only me--BUT when a Ref plopis around yakkin' etc, he might think he IS the game.. I followed him as much as the feed would allow. Eg--He called Crisman for two fouls in two seconds --wth a lecture in between. I , of course do not know the new rules as yet-- BUT the only Ref in my mind who could get away with "antics" was JIM ENRIGHT late of the Big 10, DePewl and one of the old Chgo papers--Herald American?--AND he must have weighed 350 pounds-- He was a terrific Ref---This guy as far as I have seen is no Enright...

But then the Horizon is full of pretty awful refs--Ask 63 or any of the rest of us !!

Nice win--We are on the way--I believe. We are playing Hoops--what wioth the ' alley oops" Doyle and Keke with their moves-- Our Bigs really looked BIG tonight. Ifs---What if Thomas was 4 inches taller and fifteen pounds heavier ?? Oh Well --I'll take him as is.

Just got home from the game. Always good to see a win and a fairly exciting game.
Plusses....some great passing in the first half led to a lot of layups./kids were patient on offense and didnt just jack up the first 3 they saw./Osbourne makes a difference when he is in there./ Our zone defense was good to see and fairly effective./
Minuses.....man UIC seemed to get all the loose balls/Jeff White seemed out of it/ UIC also got a lot of offensive boards in the second half/ We made some horrible passes in the 2nd half.I think UIC started switching on the screens stopping penetration. /Crisman seems scared to shoot the 3 yet they ran a play for him at the end of the final possession which he air balled.

Observations...man I was hoping for a full house/Students were active and funny. they were all over UIC. Milton Doyle played way under control. The new foul rules suck and the refs seem really inconsistent . It really disrupts the flow of the game and the kids seem confused. Dont know what to make out of King and Johnson getting absolutely zero minutes
GO RAMBLERS

Yeah, it was nice to get the win, but when are we going to start cutting down on bonehead mistakes, and start learning which groups can play with each other? I thought we had a really good group on the court with Doyle, Thomas, O'Leary, Chrisman, and Turk (White was in foul trouble). But when Thomas got his second foul with 3:06 left in the first half and had to come out of the game, there was no leadership, and Doyle was double-teamed. Nobody else on the court seemed to know what to do, and no one seemed in any kind of rhythm. So Loyola's 3 point lead with 3:06 left in the first half turned into a 4 point UIC lead with :30 left. What I took from that is this team always has to have a big guy and a guard who can (and want to) score on the court at all times; if you don't have one or the other, the defense collapses and smothers us while the timid shooters keep passing between each other until there's a turnover. O'Leary doesn't really have the instinct to score first-- he's mostly a screener on offense, and a complimentary player. He needs to work on stepping up as a scorer when he's the only big guy out there-- posting up, working the high-low, piercing the zone. Thomas and Osborne do (or can do) that, so when they're missing from the court it causes us all kinds of problems.

The second half was full of moments where you could see the potential of the team, and some really silly mistakes. O'Leary's 50-mile an hour pass over the head of someone streaking to the basket, Crisman's air ball, Crisman's travel when UIC put on the half court press, leaving Humes wide open for 2 consecutive 3-pointers within 30 seconds near the end of the second half, etc.

I agree-- the crowd was very disappointing. I thought we'd have 2800 or so, based on previous games against UIC. I guess the higher ticket prices, the fact it's no longer a conference game, and the cold weather have really cut down on the UIC contingent. The students were good, but we need about 40% more of them.