UVM7680

Voelkel fouls out. Rusin's 3pts too little, too late.

UVM7680

More depressing than the Towson game? Hard call.

UVM Hoop Cat

No, that was the worst as we had that game then gave it away.

We were beaten for much of this one and never really in it in the second half after halftime.

__________________
"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

Jim Patrick

On the positive side we should be leading the nation in fouling the other team in the act of shooting a 3 pointer!!!!!

VT Cats Fan

True, but we had four guys with 8 points (Sandro, Candon,Trey and Luke).

I think the main difference was the number and percentage of 3 pointers we gave up. They took a boat load of them and made a pretty high percentage.

We had way too many turnovers in the first half, it seemed like we cleaned that up a little in the second half. We were probably lucky to be down 1 at the half.

We've got to get better.

UVM7680

Cats 4 from 11 3pt attempts. Niagara was 6 for 26. Why are the Vermont players so reluctant to try those 3s?

Alumni96

I suddenly very glad I missed this seeing or hearing this game. Sounds like more of the same.

lbvterp

Reading all the comments sounds exactly like the conversation I was having with a UVM season ticket holder last night. This team struggles offensively. There is no go-to-guy, no one who can get points on their own like a Blakely, Coppenrath, Sorrentine, etc. Lots of decent players, but no stud like Niagara has in Mason.

At the URI game the difference in skills/athleticism was noticeable, and it sounds like the same here. The Cats have to shoot 50% and not turn the ball over to win. Maybe one of the 2 transfers will be of help next year. Trey Blue can shoot the 3, but he drives me crazy at the FT line!

UVM Hoop Cat

This statement is confusing- Niagara attempted 26 3s and only made 6. That's 23% 3pt FG shooting. That's definitely not a high percentage. 3pt FG% defense may be one of the few things we did right tonight.

That being said, I will say a few of those 6 were big shots and came at moments of the game when we started to chip away at the lead and would get it to around 7/8 pts.

We shot 4-11 from 3 on the other hand, a respectable 36%.


Now- the second part of your post, that's right on. Turnovers really hurt us again.

__________________
"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

UVM Hoop Cat

Yeah, not sure if anyone has listened to the Cats Den with Chris Villani the last few weeks since the Towson game, but from the interviews it sounds like Coach Becker is really happy with the grind it out wins and made it sound like we were playing "well". Maybe that's just something to say to the public because you never want to be too candid, but I wonder if he really feels that even in the wins over Dartmouth and Q-Pac that we truly played "well". Good enough to win, sure- but are we playing good basketball? Not by my eyes.

It's not a bad strategy- to try and keep games in the 50-60 score range and control possessions and try and win by 1-2 points if you can do it- but in order to be successful you have to be a lot more precise and strong with the ball, and this group is not doing that. Not over the last 4 games. When you miss easy shots in close range- lay ups, miss FTs, or turn the ball over near 20 times it will be very, very, very hard to win those games.

Anyways, hopefully we can improve and get better.

__________________
"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

UNHFan

Ten games into this season I\'m not sure of what to make of this team. We should have won the following games...

NJIT, UCONN, BC, CCSU. Can you imagen if we had won those games. Then were sitting here at 8-2 and Marty is signing Billy to a nice 4 year extension and everyone feels this team is moving in the right direction. But sadly here we are 4-6 and at times look no better than we have over the past years. Penn State needed OT to beat Del State last weekend so this is another game we can go out and compete with a BCS conference school but I'm sick of competiting I want to win some of these games.

c00per

... or at least find the guy with the hot hand and get the ball to him. Haven't looked at the box score yet, but surely somebody shot ok, no? I have a feeling the assists are going to be single digits and the TOs double digits.

UVM Hoop Cat

Voelkel played real well on offense today I thought, despite the turnovers. He did a great job rebounding as well- if it was not for his rebounding we would have lost by 20pts.

It's too bad a charge counts as a turnover because he had at least two charge calls, maybe even 3 (?) where a couple were questionable, and a charge is something that's going to be the referees discretion and not as direct as throwing the ball away or throwing out of bounds or double- dribbling.

Anyways- yeah, Rugg and Blue shot well- but they took 3 and 4 shots each total, respectively. Rusin only took 6 shots, Sandro 7.

When some of our better scorers only take a few shots a game, it's hard for anyone to get hot.

__________________
"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

UVM Hoop Cat

The frosh seem to have hit some sort of a wall. Both O'Day and Kilpatrick have been struggling recently. We need these guys to step up and be more solid.

__________________
"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

UVM7680

Maybe it's more that we need the experienced players on the team to step up. Some of them were nearly invisible today. And perhaps we ought to temper our expectations of the freshmen.