The RAC is one of the truly great things about Big East Basketball. First of all I love the huge R in the center of the court. There is no mistaking that it is their building, and that it is old fashioned college basketball spirit. Then there is the fact that the Scarlet Knights are a perennial non factor, but can beat anyone on their home floor. They have great fans, and if they could even win 3 or 4 road games a season they would be a tournament contender.
Here is the question I want to throw out, is there another team in a major conference that is so good at home, yet so bad on the road? I can't think of anyone of the top of my head, but I'd like to see what you all think.
Post by BubbleVisionBiff on Feb 4, 2005 10:02:22 GMT -5
Can't think of one, 1803, but the way FSU has pulled off ranked upsets the last few years (I think all in their building?), they might be headed in that direction. But I suspect Leonard hamilton has his sights set higher.
Having said that, this game scares the bejeezus out of me. I think we're a little tired, we haven't shot that well lately, our execution hasn't been great the last two games. I know Rutgers is in a spiral, but isn't that all the more reason for those guys to dig down and find some pride and poop on our cornflakes?
We calmly grabbed our free beers and sauntered out. To add to the fun, we made T shirts that read "thanks for the memories... of kicking your AS#!" on the back along with a picture of a hand crushing an orange which we calmly unveiled in the final few minutes so the thousands of Cuse fans sitting behind us could enjoy. May have been the perfect day.--DaymondMyles
The RAC is one of the truly great things about Big East Basketball. First of all I love the huge R in the center of the court. There is no mistaking that it is their building, and that it is old fashioned college basketball spirit. Then there is the fact that the Scarlet Knights are a perennial non factor, but can beat anyone on their home floor. They have great fans, and if they could even win 3 or 4 road games a season they would be a tournament contender.
Here is the question I want to throw out, is there another team in a major conference that is so good at home, yet so bad on the road? I can't think of anyone of the top of my head, but I'd like to see what you all think.
Florida State is the Rutgers of the ACC. USF is the Rutgers of the WCC. I'm sure there are others.
"The ball should move, bodies should move. You talk about being an undisciplined, unselfish group. That's what you do. If the ball's sticking, great defensive teams are going to load up. If you don't move the ball and [be] unselfish, it's gonna be long nights, so you better learn to move the ball, share, and play with a sense of urgency on every possession. Our teams will always be unselfish, our teams will always be physical, and our teams will always do our best to defend."
Can't think of one, 1803, but the way FSU has pulled off ranked upsets the last few years (I think all in their building?), they might be headed in that direction. But I suspect Leonard hamilton has his sights set higher.
Since the start of the 2001-2002 season, in ACC games Florida State is:
16-14 at home 1-27 on the road
They won at NC State this year to break what I think was a 26 consecutive road conference loss streak.
During that time, at home they've beaten Duke, UNC, Wake, and Georgia Tech twice, and Maryland once.
"they are calling him "beavis" vasquez on their board and have been Editeding and moaning about him all summer. it makes me chuckle. i told them a g-town education should require a more creative nickname than "beavis"." -TerpSportsReport.com Message Board
This game is enormous for us, due to the way the schedule is set up. There has been some concern expressed that the team has seemed stale in its last three games. After Rutgers, we have a week off before West Virginia comes in. That should be a great time for III to fix whatever problems he sees. If we can win tomorrow (and it will be very tough), I think there is a good chance we will be able to achieve the unthinkable, and go dancing in March.
I was just examining our schedule and noticed the same thing. If we are able to stay strong and get a hard-earned W tomorrow at the RAC, the team will have an entire week to rest, re-focus and prepare for the final push towards March.
Although I usually can't stand not having a Hoya game to look forward to during the week, I must admit that even I am somewhat looking forward to this break. I feel emotionally exhausted as a fan - obviously not in the way that I did the last few years, but rather in a way that's different, because every game means we are inching our way closer to the unexpected.
Not only do I have a busy work week in front of me, but I think this opportunity gives gives us a chance to step back and look back on the season to date. We can take this chance to appreciate how far we've come, and perhaps more importantly, how far we may go. Also, at least for us out-of-towners, it's the perfect time to start making plans for what games we wish to make the trip down to D.C. for before the season ends. It's a good time to start getting our BET plans ready, and what not.
Beyond that, we can prognosticate, observe the college basketball landscape around us with a little more attention, and then refreshed, renewed, and re-focussed, like the team, we can prepare for a month/plus of HOYA PARANOIA.
Post by Nevada Hoya on Feb 4, 2005 20:44:14 GMT -5
You are right, Megafan, we (at least you and I) are feeling the mental strain of the season. We expected a mediocre season with a couple of wins, but mostly loses as we found a new direction. As it is, we have been in most of the games and between the nail biting and near heart attacks, we are exhausted. Of course, we wouldn't have it any other way, considering the results.
GO HOYAS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! VANQUISH THE SCARLET KNIGHTS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
does anyone have any insight on whether i can get this game at a bar out here in Michigan? I initially thought that this game was being broadcast of FullCourt, but I was wrong - any ideas?
tyler needs to see at least 15 minutes every game. just from what he's shown in this game and the BC game, he is the first guy off our bench. he knows the offense, plays with confidence, and comes with intensity on both sides of the ball. his smooth 3 at the end of the half to give us the lead was huge. i'd love to see him get more minutes just to see what he can really do.
We seem to be doing a much better job on the boards. Tonight we had 11 offensive rebounds compared to Rutgers only pulling down 14 defensive rebounds. We got 11/25 (44%) rebounds off our missed shots!
On the other end Rutgers had 6 offensive boards and GU had 19 defensive boards. So we grabbed 69% of the possible rebounds.
I think I remember a stat (kenpom.com?) that on average one should expect to grab about 33% of the rebounds off your own missed shots. If that's about right, then we held our own on the D-boards and really hit the O-boards hard.
That is great to see. Early in the year I think about every third message in HoyaChat was "boxout!"
Post by Nevada Hoya on Feb 5, 2005 22:02:59 GMT -5
Good to see the Hoyas win at the RAC. From what I see in the box score, Cook was big, especially at the FT line (7-8; rest of the team 5-9). Tyler had another good game. Good to see that he is contributing.
Really a solid game for the team. I was very pleasantly surprised, especially since I thought they had been sliding backwards the last two games. But to go in and execute the way they did in a tough place says a lot. I like this team. It's a tourney team - maybe not a lock yet, but it's good enough to be in there and make some noise. And that's really saying something.
Two things though: I think Brandon might have gotten on JT3's bad side for a few moments during the game. First of all, he didn't start the second half, which was odd. And then a few minutes after he got in, he slammed the ball down hard on the court when JT3 called a timeout. Coach said something to him, and Brandon came out of the game for a few minutes again. Didn't seem like a big deal, but I liked the way JT3 handled it.
Oh, and why in the world does Kilkenny-Diaw show up in Yahoo box scores as "A. Fall"? That's funny.
The other thing I thought interesting was that I don't think we saw Roy at all in the second half. Seem like JTIII is not afraid to adjust the lineup to account for who's hot and who's not.
The other thing is that if Crawford and Diaw start getting playing time and Crawford keeps contributing in this manner, is our bench just getting stronger? Is it possible for the bench to go from glaring weakness to serviceable?
great win for the hoyas, especially with bowman and green not scoring. great job by cook and crawford. akd gave us some good minutes in the first half. defense is winning us these games.