Catcountry21

What could have been.

I remember watching that Harvard game and thinking, damn this team is solid. It's finally starting to click! 4-1 with a rebuilding URI team coming up then that cupcake Towson comes into our house. Wow, this team is going to be 6-1!

Not so fast.

Here we sit at 4-3 and looking ahead at the remainder of the OOC schedule things won't get any easier for us.

@ QPac (QPac will be favored)
Home vs Dartmouth (Will be closer then it should be)
@ Niagra (They just beat Loyola on the road)
Home vs Farleigh Dickinson (Should win this one)
Home vs Charleston (Charleston is a solid team and much more athletic)

So my prediction: 7-5 going into conference play

We lose to QPac (4-4)
Beat Dartmouth (5-4)
Lose to Niagra (5-5)
Beat Farleigh (6-5)
Beat to CofC (7-5)

The thing that has kept us a step above in the past is our defense, rebounding and foul shooting %. This team seems uninterested on defense and is just too soft around the hoop. Our foul shooting will improve I think and rebounds as well. Defense is a concern.

You can improve on the above with simply added effort, the thing you can't really improve easily is taking care of the basketball. This team is careless/reckless with the ball. Until we have a stretch of games where we commit fewer then 10 TOs I won't be convinced. C'mon coaching staff, time to step it up.

__________________
"Everybody pulls for David, nobody roots for Goliath." -- Wilt Chamberlain

UVM Hoop Cat

Q-Pac is going to be much like URI & Towson- Bigger, more athletic, talented scorers that can go one-on-one.

I think we probably drop this game to Q-Pac. They are a solid team, beat us last season (finally) and we'll be playing on the road.

That being said, going into the game I thought it would be really tough to beat Harvard and had that one down as a L, so you never know. Beating Q-Pac- who will contend LIU for NEC title based on what I've seen and Wagner not looking good- would be a big bounce back win.

We usually play well in state of CT so hopefully that continues. This team beat Iona and almost beat UConn, so will be tough.

__________________
"Let's win this game for all the small schools that never had a chance to get here"
- Hoosiers,
& UVM mens basketball NCAA's 2005

ecasadoSBU

Losing to towson... damn... That is almost as bad as losing to Sacred Heart at home... my god. I wish our teams would win the games that in theory should be easy victories...

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UVM Hoop Cat

No disagreement from me. Terrible loss.

The way we lost makes it even worse.

__________________
"Let's win this game for all the small schools that never had a chance to get here"
- Hoosiers,
& UVM mens basketball NCAA's 2005

Patch

Loyola is with out their best player Etherly separated shoulder - 16ppg and 8rpg

Catcountry21

Yup, terrible loss for sure.

Vermont is now 155 in rpi....huge drop. Towson is now at 149.

Sacred Heart is 216.

__________________
"Everybody pulls for David, nobody roots for Goliath." -- Wilt Chamberlain

Vermonster

Not too worried about RPI at this point. (or at all)

On a good night, Vermont can hang with almost any team in the nation. On a bad night.... well, we lose to Towson.

Let's not kid ourselves here. Coach Becker KNOWS what he's doing. He will pull the guys out of this rut and we WILL move forward and start stringing together wins. We go through this doubting process every year lol

UVM Hoop Cat

+1

Yep, all we needed the other night was the little things. Couple made FTs and 2-3 less turnovers and we would have won by a few points easily.

Players were making mistakes on things they have executed hundreds of times before.

__________________
"Let's win this game for all the small schools that never had a chance to get here"
- Hoosiers,
& UVM mens basketball NCAA's 2005

Patch

UVMHC for sure UVM will be fine but every once in awhile when UVM loses give credit to the other team.

It's always how you lost - it the other team never beats you.

After every loss most teams can say if we didn't throw the ball away or make some uncommon mistakes or if we made some of our easy shots.

Why not give some credit to your opponent.

We all know that the catamounts are the primary team in the AE but sometimes other teams do beat them.

THE802

UVM did give away alot of points on thier own but Towsons' Beniman is a beast

NotDeadYet

Beniman really shocked me with how good he is. You don't see someone his size who can drive the ball very often. He's sort of a NASCAR tank. Dom Morris could do it, if he had an attitude adjustment.

Patch

When most teams lose they give away alot of points. The point is that sometimes we have to give the other team credit.

UA was up 18 the other night earliy in the 1st half and then we seemingly made alot of mistakes but I think our opposition deserves some credit.

UVM Hoop Cat

Towson is a good team-they have much, much, much better players than they did a year ago. Total 180. Benimon would probably average 20/10 in the AE and Burwell/Dixon are all three good, experienced Big East transfer. The only player on our team that could come close to slowing down Benimon was O'Day but he couldn't stay on the court- Apfeld and Rugg had no chance, and Crenca was out.

For all I've seen from the CAA thus far, Towson could be as good as any team to win the CAA Tourney. I don't think we were "upset" by any means. Towson was talented, let's get that clear- but it was a winnable game at home though.

That being said- unlike the UConn and URI games where we were pretty much beaten for much of the game, this was a game that once we took over the lead we have routinely pulled away from and put away in the past. If it wasn't for own unforced errors (turnovers) and creating our own misfortune (missed FTs), we would have won- but certainly credit to Towson for making the plays we created for them.

__________________
"Let's win this game for all the small schools that never had a chance to get here"
- Hoosiers,
& UVM mens basketball NCAA's 2005

Alumni96

Patch, you make a credible point. Benimon stole our guys lunch money and then laughed in our big's faces. Still they fouled a ton. If the team had made anywhere near the normal percentage of free throws they do we would have been talking about an ugly win instead of the worst played game since last years Binghamton debacle.

UVM Hoop Cat

And we'll take the ugly wins!

__________________
"Let's win this game for all the small schools that never had a chance to get here"
- Hoosiers,
& UVM mens basketball NCAA's 2005