Saturday, January 29, 2005
SHOW US YOUR SAGACITY
Sometimes talent, speed and skill get thrown out the window in college basketball, and the one cardinal rule takes place: Seniors win ballgames. AU has four who play serious minutes: Jason Thomas, Matej Cresnik, Raimondas Petrauskas, and Patrick Okpwae. Bucknell doesn't really have any. The AU seniors took control in the absence of Andre Ingram's jump shot, and got a big win that puts them back into contention for the PL title.
Also absent was Kevin Bettencourt's jump shot. He and Ingram covered each other for most of the evening, and both had open looks that they just plain missed. Otherwise, BU got beaten in every aspect of the game-- on defense, on offense, and in transisiton. Chris McNaughton showed flashes of taking over when he was in one on one play, but those chances were rare.
Of note was Jason Thomas getting crazed throughout the game. Thomas showed up sporting a miniature mohawk, and played with the passion of freaking Geronimo. He ended up talking too much shit after a BU offensive foul, and got into it with BU freshman and Toronto Blue Jays right field prospect John Ford Griffin.
A quick aside about Griffin-- he's going to be good, but he would do well to not wear freaking hair gel while playing basketball. It's the hair equivelant of an earring of those dangling cross earrings Deion Sanders used to wear. OK off the court, not okay on it. Especially as a freshman.
AU was in control for the entire game, with the exception of the last 3 minutes, when Bucknell put on a full court press and surprisingly enough, AU's press break sucked. It's sucked for a while now. Enough on that, since you've read it in every game report I've written in the last year.
Other things of note:
- After the win, Jeff Jones gathered the team on the court and sent them into the crowd to give high fives in the student section, the first time I ever saw such a thing. Usually it's the crowd that rushes the team, not vice versa. A very cool and classy move by JJ.
- The crowd was probably one of the best I've seen at AU, with the student section on its feet and loud for nearly the entire game. That may not sound like a lot, but I'm used to crowds of 600 or so at AU games, so anything resembling enthusiam for the program is welcome. They were also mean spirited, implying certain things about where the "product" that Griffin was using in his hair came from. Nice.
Before the game I said these things would be important:
1) Contain McNaughton. They did this pretty well, utilizing a good zone defense.
2) Limit BU free throw attempts. They didn't do this very well, although it had a lot more to do with the refs than with anything else.
3) Lots of Linas Lekavicius. Again, I was wrong
4) Matej Cresnik 3pt shooting. He did a good job here, freeing up the post for one-on-one play for Petrauskas and Okpwae.
5) Pray. I really meant that they need to hit their jumpers here, which doesn't really have anything to do with strategy. They did that, shooting ~50% if you take out Andre Ingram's terrible 1-13.
Holy Cross is now tied for first, with LU and AU back a game. Looks like we have a race on our hands.
@ 1:34 PM
Sometimes talent, speed and skill get thrown out the window in college basketball, and the one cardinal rule takes place: Seniors win ballgames. AU has four who play serious minutes: Jason Thomas, Matej Cresnik, Raimondas Petrauskas, and Patrick Okpwae. Bucknell doesn't really have any. The AU seniors took control in the absence of Andre Ingram's jump shot, and got a big win that puts them back into contention for the PL title.
Also absent was Kevin Bettencourt's jump shot. He and Ingram covered each other for most of the evening, and both had open looks that they just plain missed. Otherwise, BU got beaten in every aspect of the game-- on defense, on offense, and in transisiton. Chris McNaughton showed flashes of taking over when he was in one on one play, but those chances were rare.
Of note was Jason Thomas getting crazed throughout the game. Thomas showed up sporting a miniature mohawk, and played with the passion of freaking Geronimo. He ended up talking too much shit after a BU offensive foul, and got into it with BU freshman and Toronto Blue Jays right field prospect John Ford Griffin.
A quick aside about Griffin-- he's going to be good, but he would do well to not wear freaking hair gel while playing basketball. It's the hair equivelant of an earring of those dangling cross earrings Deion Sanders used to wear. OK off the court, not okay on it. Especially as a freshman.
AU was in control for the entire game, with the exception of the last 3 minutes, when Bucknell put on a full court press and surprisingly enough, AU's press break sucked. It's sucked for a while now. Enough on that, since you've read it in every game report I've written in the last year.
Other things of note:
- After the win, Jeff Jones gathered the team on the court and sent them into the crowd to give high fives in the student section, the first time I ever saw such a thing. Usually it's the crowd that rushes the team, not vice versa. A very cool and classy move by JJ.
- The crowd was probably one of the best I've seen at AU, with the student section on its feet and loud for nearly the entire game. That may not sound like a lot, but I'm used to crowds of 600 or so at AU games, so anything resembling enthusiam for the program is welcome. They were also mean spirited, implying certain things about where the "product" that Griffin was using in his hair came from. Nice.
Before the game I said these things would be important:
1) Contain McNaughton. They did this pretty well, utilizing a good zone defense.
2) Limit BU free throw attempts. They didn't do this very well, although it had a lot more to do with the refs than with anything else.
3) Lots of Linas Lekavicius. Again, I was wrong
4) Matej Cresnik 3pt shooting. He did a good job here, freeing up the post for one-on-one play for Petrauskas and Okpwae.
5) Pray. I really meant that they need to hit their jumpers here, which doesn't really have anything to do with strategy. They did that, shooting ~50% if you take out Andre Ingram's terrible 1-13.
Holy Cross is now tied for first, with LU and AU back a game. Looks like we have a race on our hands.
@ 1:34 PM
