Bleeding Orange wrote:
And I realize that the radio is a very poor medium from which to judge, but I would be willing to bet more than a few pennies that the attendance was much, much more than 1,415. At a couple of points it sounded as if there were that many students there alone.
Personally I'm shocked to see the 1,415 number. If there were that many people there, then I'm stunned...looked like less than that. Fact is I had to buy a ticket, meaning I got one free as well. I couldn't find anyone that wanted to go with me, even for free. I got to the area around 6:20. I then had to drive around looking for a parking spot for almost 20 minutes. I wasn't being picky either. There was nothing in the overflow across from the cemetery, the health center lot was full. Finally somebody left their spot in the lot behind the Rec, and I got a spot in that far NE corner of that lot. The whole time I'm driving around I'm wondering if this team is really worth that. Combine experiences like that with the fact that we are not only very bad, but also very boring to watch play, it's no wonder our attendance sucks.
As for the game last night, you'd be hard pressed to blame the officials. Dan was on the court complaining, they gave him the T. Sure you don't like to see it with 18 seconds left, but it was a legit call. It was probably a makeup call from the 4 points the refs gifted us. Mawel thought he was in the WWE down low and somehow the ref only caught the retaliation, then the idiot compounded it by drawing a technical as well. If not for that generous call we wouldn't have even been in the game.
Why are free throws so lopsided? That's simple. We foul people. We MUG people. John Floyd cannot guard a single player in the MAC without fouling...he got away with a LOT last night. We're full of players that cannot guard quality opponents without fouling a ton. On the reverse we don't get to the line becuase we don't attack the basket. LeFeld was in obvious pain last night and was very ineffective in the post. Marschall started out pretty good, but was a nonfactor for the final 35 mins of the game. None of our guards can really penetrate a defense with any regularity. Instead we pass the ball and settle for three point shots or we get some clean layins. Unlike the guys on our team the opposition let's our layins go in rather than futiley foul them on the way up and give them the 3 point opportunity.
In the end we played like total crap throughout the entire first half. I told Option at halftime that we were gonna come back because we were far too inconsistent of a team to play that lousy 2 halfs in a row. Phillips provided a spark and Floyd made a couple nice plays and we cut the lead to 2. In the end we were fortunate to even have a chance to win the game with the way we played. The officials made a ton of calls, which is annoying, but most of them were probably justified. Until we find some way to guard people without mugging them it's going to be the norm. I wish I could say that the officials were obviously biased, but I'm not seeing it. We just couldn't guard UB.
