Game Thread: VCU @ Charlotte (Saturday 2/9/13)

[antboy]

Originally Posted by vaNtR

Listen, I watch Spencer Hawes play in the NBA regularly, and let me tell you, Braswell's defense can't be much worse. He may not be the best athlete on the floor, but I think he's going to get serious looks from the NBA.

He might get a few looks, but they'll just watch games where he had to play athletic bigs, and think twice about it. I think Braswell could be a great college player if he played with intensity all the time and had a little more support on offense around him. He already is a good college player. But NBA post guys would eat him up I think, they're just too tall, and he's not quick enough to avoid shotblockers.

If he can improve his consistency from outside, he can probably get a nice payday in Europe.

[Ninerballin]

This one's a good one so far. VCU jumped out to a 10 point lead, and the Niners storm back to tie it up at 22 all. Current score 25-24 VCU Niners ball.

Watch here: http://apps.ohlulz.com/ncaa/?lulz=rt...m-baskbl@31401

[BigE]

Rams lead all the way
49er's first home lost this year

[bprichard]

Props to VCU, solid win.

[antboy]

Not a great game for the Niners. Missed ft's, so many turnovers, not going to get it done against a tough opponent.

VCU fouls a lot, and only gets called for some of them. Wish refs would just call all those obvious grabs and holds fouls, despite Smart's complaining. But VCU also hit some big 3's and nice runners in the lane, and did play some solid D in the halfcourt. If that's the way the game is going to be called, Niners needed to play more aggressively to deal with it.

Niners need to steal one pretty soon, or they will be sinking into the lower half of the conference.

[vcurams05]

I don't think any real VCU fan will say that VCU doesn't foul a lot, we do. We play physical defense. We bump, we grab, we ride your hip, we reach, etc but we also get called for them too. Charlotte also plays a very physical brand of defense yet VCU was +8 in the foul department and Charlotte was plus +14 in the free throw department.

It was a hard fought game and VCU's offense pulled it out. If you look at statistics you would think Charlotte won. They outscored us in transition, in the paint, from the foul line, we were called for more fouls, got out rebounded and gave up a ton of second chance opportunities.

Also the first time we've seen a reaction from A-10 fans this insane. Antboy not pointing at you, more so niner nation and some of the bloggers.

[Bill Russell]

Originally Posted by vcurams05

I don't think any real VCU fan will say that VCU doesn't foul a lot, we do. We play physical defense. We bump, we grab, we ride your hip, we reach, etc but we also get called for them too. Charlotte also plays a very physical brand of defense yet VCU was +8 in the foul department and Charlotte was plus +14 in the free throw department.

It was a hard fought game and VCU's offense pulled it out. If you look at statistics you would think Charlotte won. They outscored us in transition, in the paint, from the foul line, we were called for more fouls, got out rebounded and gave up a ton of second chance opportunities.

Also the first time we've seen a reaction from A-10 fans this insane. Antboy not pointing at you, more so niner nation and some of the bloggers.

Charlotte fans have been known to go bananas about officials. It isn't to an ExplorerSteve level, though.

[rworkman09]

If we had any three point shooting ability or actually hit our FT's at a decent clip we win the game.

1 3 pointer in an entire game simply won't cut it unless you are holding your opponent to a much lower FG % than yourself. We did not.

This makes two games in a row where we had the superior box score stats and lost. Against Temple we shot like 60%, 70% from three, 77% from the line and lost. You don't see that very often.

[vcurams05]

Originally Posted by rworkman09

1 3 pointer in an entire game simply won't cut it unless you are holding your opponent to a much lower FG % than yourself. We did not.

And a banker at that. That also makes something like 4 of our last 5 A-10 games the other team has banked a 3 in against us.

[antboy]

Originally Posted by vcurams05

I don't think any real VCU fan will say that VCU doesn't foul a lot, we do. We play physical defense. We bump, we grab, we ride your hip, we reach, etc but we also get called for them too. Charlotte also plays a very physical brand of defense yet VCU was +8 in the foul department and Charlotte was plus +14 in the free throw department.

It was a hard fought game and VCU's offense pulled it out. If you look at statistics you would think Charlotte won. They outscored us in transition, in the paint, from the foul line, we were called for more fouls, got out rebounded and gave up a ton of second chance opportunities.

Also the first time we've seen a reaction from A-10 fans this insane. Antboy not pointing at you, more so niner nation and some of the bloggers.

I think a lot of Niners fans hadn't seen VCU play before that game and weren't used to seeing home games where the opposing team gets away with so much grabbing and bumping. That and we have a few fans that get really worked up after a game ends. SBU posters like to point this out though because they really were handed a home game against Charlotte by a terrible set of referees two years back.

I agree that Charlotte plays physical D too, particularly when opposing players drive the lane (our guys reach like crazy). I think VCU does take it up a notch and fouls guys further out more, given that they extend the defense.

It's not VCU's fault, Smart is just taking advantage of two simple facts of modern refereeing: a) referees don't want to call a foul every time down the court because no one wants to watch a ft shooting battle, and b) referees generally don't like the foul differential to look too great, even when the other team really is fouling a lot more. Smart follows that up with working the referees hard and pointing out that foul differential to try to get preferential treatment (he did both, a lot, in the Charlotte game). There's exceptions, some refs call all the fouls and VCU probably adjusts. And you could pretty much call a foul every time down the floor in the post if you wanted to.

It's be easy to cut back on the physical defense VCU plays (and Charlotte plays): just call them for fouls every time they do it. If half the team fouls out, they'll be forced to switch strategies. But the NCAA and officials need to decide to do that first and fans need to accept there will be some god-awful games to watch until adjustments are made.

[ShoeSh1ne]

Horrible reactions from the UNCC fans over on their boards, it's embarrassing. Taking up the #1 for complaining the most from Dayton. Congrats.

Good riddance.