“It don’t got to be pretty, but it got to be gritty.” - Drew Valentine
The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly:
1. Ugly: Fouls were an issue again. The A10 seems to be treating us like a red headed stepchild. I watched the Dayton/VCU and they let them play. We don’t seem to get the same courtesy. Although, I will admit, we do commit too many silly fouls. Was it fatigue today? Not sure, but we need to clean this up a bit.
2. Bad: The T on Mwamba was a joke. The baseline ref was right there and he did not call the T. It was a trailing ref out high who called that. I have seen much worse. It seemed like his momentum forced his legs forward and once he was vertical he let go. The announcers were, again horrible. They actually said we don’t defend, despite being ranked 4th ranked defense in the conference according to KenPom. DO a little research!
3. Good: The fact that the above 2 paragraphs are getting shorter is GOOD! We again had multiple players in double digits. Norris and Quinn just missed getting 9 pts a piece, Rubin with 6. When the scoring gets spread out like that, it is awfully hard for the opponent to defend you. This is a product of body and ball movement. Our shooters have also done a great job recognizing where the open space is, being ready and looking to shoot it. We are also not just blindly dribbling into traffic, and our guards are pulling the balll back out. We did a great job in two catergories that paid dividends. We out rebounded them 45 to 38. We had 13 offensive rebounds and found a way to get 9 more shots than GW, Our shooting wasn’t great overall 43.5% (20-69) from the floor, 32.1% (9-28) from the arc. The important factor regarding the 3s were we got out of the gate quick and hit a couple of clutch 3s in the second half when we needed them. FTs were sterling again today as we shot 85.7% (12-14). At one point very late in the game we only had something ridiculous like 4 or 5 attempts. Dame’s 3 and 1s and then good FT shooting by Dez and Sheldon sealed it. As a side note, on this two game trip we were 32-40 or 80% from the line! We only had 8 TOs in the game. That’s a total of 14 for the two game trip as we only had 6 against GM, This is how you win close “gritty” games.
We continue to show mental toughness and execute when we have to. It’s hard to win a conference road game. We now have 5 road wins, which is currently more than half of our total Al of 9. As a comparison, Richmond has 4 current road wins, Dayton has 4 road wins, VCU has 4 road wins.
Final Thoughts: St. Joe’s on Wednesday at the Joe. After two tough road games, this is a trap game for us. We need to get up and take of business on our home floor. They have been playing better and we need that “road dawg” mentality. I suspect the place will be packed and kids should be FIRED UP! The GW announcers keep saying how much “energy” there was in the building (it was their Homecoming today), but I didn’t feel it on the telecast and seems their Student section is not right on the floor of close like ours. Hopefully, the Pack will be LOUD and BOISTEROUSLY into the game making it tough on St. Joe’s and the announcers!
Our schedule does get tougher down the stretch as we still have GM, Bonnies, Dayton, and Davidson. It’s gonna be wild ride.
This team is together and believes. Drew has done a great job as the guys, the coaches looked like they are connected and have fully bought in. Success has a way of doing that. Drew, if you’re reading…you’re turning into a fine coach…but you’re 32 and not ready to move on yet!
