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No one ends the 1st half with fewer than 2 losses. Suck it up, guys. 5-2 for the 1st half of the season. How many of you would have needed long, long odds to put money on that back in November?
American cannot be taken lightly from here on. At the very least, it appears that the Patriot League has one other team (besides Lafayette) that can defend the perimeter. Lot of bitching about the refs, but isn't that the usual loser's mantra? American just out-physicaled the home team if you can make anything out of that. Carr lived up to his hype (32 pts.) even though he was a marked man. Player of the year? The Eagles only grabbed 5 more rebounds than Lafayette, but it seemed that they got a lot of 2nd chances.
It is hard to foresee an Army win at Bucknell tomorrow, so it looks like the Pards and the Buffalo will be tied for 1st at the break.
Great season so far. The most hoops fun in Leopardville in a long time.
Pard Promise
The officials were bad...
The refs were bad, and apparently this is the best we can do in the Patriot League. It's unfortunate. There is no consistency. Some games they let them play (as they should in conference play) and other games they call like they did today. For what they are being paid they should be able to get better officials.
That said, LACK OF EXECUTION cost Lafayette the game.
Lafalum
This was the worst officiated game I've been to in years. Three tehnicals...one on O hanlon..please. These guys should be refereeing a grammer school game. Would we have won other wise..I don't know ..all I know is we would have been closer and not taken out of our game. Bruce and the other AD's are you even watching the games???? The only thing consistent about officating in the PL is how terible it is. Something should be done.
American was not bad but we can beat them!!
Kiltedpard
I don't know what it is with us and AU, but, they always seem to get us at home. I was so glad to see Ingram graduate or use up his eligibility, whatever, and now we have to suffer through Carr having carreer games against us! The guy can just flat out shoot the ball. Argh! Brown had 22 but wasn't a factor. Tied for first, but, the second half will be tougher with BU and HC at their places. J Jones is my second least favorite PL coach, just behind PF. Stop talking to the officials and coach your player's for God's sake! I didn't like this matchup from the start. Let regroup and get ready for the second half! Go Pards!
TheTruth
I'll admit the officiating in the first part of the first half was.....God awful! But it did seem the officials straighten out the calls with about 7:00 to go int he first half. BTW, Fran worked for that technical. He was trying to get the team going. Noticed he waited until after we scored to let loose on the official. The bad thing about the calls is it took Abdullah and Betley off the court and forced Brown into defensive mode which is not his strength.
having said all that, the real reason wwe lost is American was quicker then we were. Carr is a pure shooter. Everytime we made a run in the second half, American answered. We simply could not stop them from scoring. The zone is probably the best way to play American but it hurts our rebounding. Abdullah needs to be more active on the offensive side. American had no one to guard him off the dribble. He could have driven to the basket anytime and needs to in the re-match at the end of the season. For some reason our inside guys played very soft yesterday. The freshman (Mintz, I believe) was the most aggressive one inside.
American is a hot and cold team. I can see why they are 4-3. Teams with quicker guards and active inside players will beat this team. While their inside guys are very athletic, they are also very foul prone if you pound the ball inside. Problem is we didn't do it. had many opportunities to dumped th ball inside but we seemed intent to shoot the 3 instead. Not bad strategy consider all the shooters we have but Schmidt does have a big body and a few moves. He needs to be more aggressive in the second half of the season. Abdullah needs to go to the basket more and let Detmer, Betley and Schmidt pund the boards.
Yes, i am extremely pleased with our 5-2 start. Great coaching job by Fran. Great leadership by the seniors. They need step it up in the second half and realize they can win this league. I can see us going 5-2 or 4-3 in the second half of the season. There is no team we can't beat in the league. Like I said earlier, we are the toughest team to prepare and defend. Now we need to execute.
Refrider
While I agree with alot of what you said"the Truth", I disagree that Mintz was the most agressive inside. I liked the kid. He has a good upside. Yet, if he keeps on holding the ball underneath the basket waiting for the defender to jump pass him, it just hasn't worked. At his size, I want him to take it directly to the hoop. Yes, he may get blocked, but on most occasions, he probably should be able to draw the foul and help get some of these big guys on the other team some bench time.
Go Pards!
Lafalum
The need to go to the basket is evident, I saw Brunner with clear lanes several times stop to kick the ball out. Goin to the basket will get the defense to collapse a little and make the perimeter defenders something to think about. Everyone has seen us once so they are going cover our guards like a blanket!!
Steve
I agree with much of what Truth said, especially about the impact of the officiating. After that stretch a little past the midway point of the first half, I don't think their calls favored either team too much (although there were blown calls on both sides). The biggest impact, as Truth noted, was in forcing us to go the latter part of the first half without Abdullah and Betley, and with Brown having to focus on not picking up his third. Truth is correct that Fran basically decided to get a T as a tactical maneuver. I didn't see the post-whistle interaction between Betley and Gilmore (?) that resulted in the double T (and Matt's third foul), because my sons were keeping my hands full at that time.
The biggest difference in the game, as Truth noted, was American's quickness. Even their inside players were quicker than ours, and outmaneuvered our defenders around some inside screens for open layups. Carr was outstanding -- very accurate from 3-point range, but with the ability to penetrate as well. Also, AU really hurt us off the offensive boards, getting rebounds on more than 50% of their missed shots -- a very high number. A number of the rebounds were long ones, in which we had a chance at the ball, but they beat our players to the ball. (They also got a clear majority of the loose balls in non-rebound situations.) Although we can play better than we did yesterday, American's quickness will continue to pose a problem, so I'm not confident about our chances to win in D.C. We shot our threes pretty accurately yesterday, and still lost decisively.
I also would have liked to see Bilal have played more aggressively on offense. Although Mintz gives us a good physical presence on defense and in rebounding, he isn't that aggressive yet on offense. I recall the one play when he got the ball down low with nobody between him and the basket, but he hesitated until the opening was closed. Hopefully, he will develop more confidence on the offensive end with greater experience.
The stretch where we let the game start to get away was at about the 5 minute mark of the first half. Brown had just hit two threes to tie the game at 23 after we had absorbed AU's huge run. I was extremely happy at the prospect that we might be tied, or at least very close, at the half, given the way the first half had gone. Unfortunately, AU got an offensive rebound off a missed shot and passed it out to Carr for a three. Then, Gruner made a bad pass that led to an AU fast break. Finally, Brown badly rushed a 3-point attempt with at least 28 seconds on the shot clock, and AU scored again. We never reallly recovered from that 7-point deficit.
I don't think that we will stop AU by playing zone. Fran opened the second half in a 2-3 zone to try and change things up, and AU quickly hit a wide open 3-pointer. When we briefly played a 1-3-1 later in the half, AU again was able to get great looks and hit 3-pointers. Maybe a 3-2 zone would work better at limiting open looks from the perimeter, but I tend to doubt it.
The league is incredibly wide open this year. (It looks like Bucknell is losing to Army today at home.) The tournament may well be decided by how teams match up agains each other, and even though American may not be the best overall team in the league, I don't want to see us play them in the tourney.
seenalot
I may be a Tom Davis fan, but with the right players I love that 1-3-1 and it strikes me that Detmer out front and Kari roaming the baseline would make that work - even against a good 3 point shooting team. At least as a change of pace against an athletic team like AU.
Steve
Unfortunately, the effectiveness of a 1-3-1 zone was undermined by the creation of the 3-point shot. The 1-3-1 tends to lead to open jump shots from the corners, because the wing defenders extend above the foul line to pressure the ball. Once an uncontested jumper became worth 3 points rather than 2, that vulnerability of the 1-3-1 became much more costly. I believe that AU hit two 3-pointers from the corners in the brief period that we played it yesterday. Not many teams use the 1-3-1 to any great extent anymore, although West Virginia under John Beilein used it with some success over the previous few years. Although we might be able to use it very briefly as a change of pace, any team with shooters who can hit the corner jumper could really hurt us with it.
Kiltedpard
Great 1st half of the season, in spite of this home loss. I just didn't have a good feeling about this game and I was right. Carr must be off and on because he lit us and LU up pretty good, but, only had 11 against Navy. I thnk with his and Mercer's size we could get a mismatch and take them to the hoop and get them into foul trouble. The AU big men's tactic was obviously have no easy baskets since any inside game resulted in a foul. Pretty stupid when down the stretch they committed a couple fouls inside that could have resulted in 3 point plays the old fashion way with the clock stopped.
Hopefully we hold serve at home, get Army up there and maybe steal one from BU (who seem to be a mess right now without PF) we'll be looking at a rocking good time at KSC for the playoffs. Let's enjoy first place, rest up, and prepare for HC.
Go Pards!
