POST HOLIDAY PROPAGANDA

Sorry for the lack of updates-- the holidays are a particuarly lazy/busy season for your PL blogger, full of bowl games, car shows, and general family fun. But enough about me, let's see what happened during the best holiday season ever.

I caught two AU games, both losses. First, AU battled Maryland, and did surprisingly well. With 10 minutes left, somehow AU was still in the game. My crew and I were boggled, since we went in hoping to break double digits. There's not a lot you can say about the game-- their guys were just bigger, stronger, and faster, and when they started hitting their three pointers, we struggled.

Jeff Jones did a great job of coaching in this game, switching up defenses, going from man to man to 2-3 zone. The zone looked as good as I've seen AU execute it in the past. This was the first time I've seen them use it this season, but maybe I wasn't paying enough attention or they have used it on the road before.

AU looked much worse against LaSalle, a team that just wasn't very good. Again, their guys were a lot bigger and faster, but only one or two seemed to be real ballplayers. But AU simply didn't seem motivated for most of the game. Jason Thomas played like a freshman, going for a dunk and missing when he should have simply laid the ball up, infuriating Coach Jones and causing a 4 point turnaround during a critical part of the game. You'll note this is not the first time JT has made such a mistake-- it more or less loss the game for AU during the debacle that was LC at AU last year.

Often I think it's silly to tag one play or one possession as the reason things go wrong for a team. If there are 70 possessions in a game, then how could one be so critical?

But mental mistakes like going for a dunk when a layup will do can kill a team, and cause their coach to lose his hair prematurely. They can ruin seasons, not just individual games. Think about it-- a layup last year in the LC game wins it for AU. That would make AU the outright #1 seed going into the PL tournament, meaning the final would have been at AU, not Lehigh. Who knows what happens then..

Yeah, I know. If ifs and buts were candy and nuts, we'd all have a great halloween (or something like that). But that's not what I'm getting at-- I'm not trying to say that one play ruined AU's season last year. Rather, it's important to stay focused on the court. Playing smart is often more important than anything else.

Which brings us to the LaSalle game. It's not that AU was beaten by LaSalle, it's that they beat themselves. People have cold nights, but going 1-11 (Thomas) and 0-9 (Lekavicius) is not something that has anything to do with talent or ability. It has to do with mental focus.

Maybe the problem was the lousy crowd-- those winter break games always suck and it's hard for anyone to really get excited about them, whether it be the fans or the players.

Alright, enough about my favorite squad. Let's talk about what everyone else did on their winter vacation.

Bucknell is on a real hot streak, beating Mid-Major darling Niagara and former powerhouse St. Joseph's. What I missed earlier in the Niagara game is that BU held them to 74 points, well below their 90 point average. Why? I'd say Chris McNaughton has a lot to do with it. McNaughton held Canadian national hero Juan Mendez to 18 points, drawing 3 of the 5 fouls that led Mendez to leave the game with 6 minutes left. McNaughton also shut down St. Joe's post players, limiting their 4 and 5 players to 6 points.

While Bucknell has an answer to offensive threats under the hoop, it seems Holy Cross is not as certain about their post players. You'll remember that last year, I thought HC had three main tenets in their trifecta of league titles two of which were missing.

1) Own the low block on offense with bigger and stronger players, rebound and deny easy looks down low on defense
2) Play good half-court D
3) Have the experience to hit clutch shots and know how to take a game away

I'm not sure they have #1 right now, but it looks like they're getting closer to #3 than they were last year. However, they're getting away from their half court defense, allowing around 70 points a game in their last three games. Other folks (my pal Chris at HoopTime and Kyle at MidMajority) are arguing that this is a dangerous way for HC to go, and it seems like Coach Ralph Willard agrees, from his quotes in the media.

I'm not so sure about whether it is such a bad thing. If HC doesn't have the post presence they used to have, then slowing a game down to a half court contest doesn't seem to make as much sense as when they had Szatko or Whearty to go to. HC may give up more points, but if they get into a quicker game, they allow their best players, Hamilton and Simmons, to get more looks and shoot more threes.

They'll run into problems when they play teams that are more athletic than them, like AU or Bucknell with that sort of strategy. But then they can hunker down and switch to the half court offense.

It's a pretty simple concept: If you think your team is faster and better shooters than the other team, then you want to play a game with a lot of running and a lot of possessions. That's why you see major conference schools put full court pressure on mid-majors whenever they play. Those schools have better athletes and shooters in the long run. So if HC thinks it's got a more athletic squad than its opponent (as they did against Brown and Northeastern), then an up-tempo game ain't such a bad thing.

Will they stick with it? Probably not. Ralph Willard has been watching basketball a lot longer than me, and knows a lot more about it than me, and he seems to be sure that strong defense is the way to wins. But as an outsider, I'm not sure he's got the personnel to survive a half court game in league play. Especially when they play Bucknell and lose any advantage in the post.

I'm off to buy a cheap bottle of champagne and carry it around pretending it's Cristal and I'm P Diddy. Have a great 2005.  @ 3:51 PM