Mitch pissed off and has the starters on the bench. Letting the freshmen play in an ugly ugly outing.
Starters back in, Lee drive and Huggins follow OR hits one of two FTs. Down 14 with 8:49
Iâd have a glimmer of hope if Wright State wasnât bouncing in 3s. Turns out they can shoot 60% from 3 all night.
Back to a 20pt lead. Wright State just toying with us.
Terrible effort all around. Players and coaches should be ashamed.
Losing happens. Losing like this is Joe Scott Era nightmare fuel.
So much for a âspecial season.â
I just hope they avoid collapsing. They could legit go 0-3 this tournament.
Thought the run by the freshmen was encouraging. Would be great if they could contribute meaningful minutes.
This feels very Carril-like to me for Mitch to pull the starters for most of the second half, seemingly as punishment for such a lousy effort. I hope they can bounce back from this. I just bought tickets to the Rutgers game at The Rock, but if they play like this, that game will be a blood bath.
Overreact much? It was a bad game, and the team has been bad in first halves all season. The lack of experienced and athletic bigs to support Pierce is no surprise; Abdulahi didnât impact this game and the other guys brought in didnât play much better against a pretty tough matchup for them.
It will be interesting to see if the benching of the starters and the charge of the reserve brigade wakes up the team going forward. MH is going to have to know when to unleash the ball-pressure dogs earlier when the Tigers are facing bigger and stronger opponents.
We had no answer for Noel inside which led to open three point shots after the double.
I think weâve felt the absence of Allocco so far this season. Itâs easy to say that youâre going to have your rising seniors replace his leadership, but he is an unusually strong leader.
Losing by 20 to Wright State is not acceptable. Especially with this lazy, lifeless effort.
So disappointed in this team - both players and coaches. They just donât put in the effort for 40 minutes. And thatâs perfectly okay with them.
That wasnât the most painful loss of the past few years, but it was probably the most pathetic. Even from a betting perspective, it was humiliating: 7pt faves losing by 18. Yikes.
The faces on the sideline said it all. This team isnât nearly as good as they/we/the media thought they were. They know it. We know it. Opposing teams know it.
At this point, the best case scenario is to âpuntâ the non-conf and just be ready for Ivy/ILT play. Play the underclassman a lot more, shoot a lot more 3s (getting blocked like crazy at the rim) and turn up the intensity on defense, even if it means giving up more FTs/foul trouble.
Very aggravating loss. I had to turn it off when the starters came back and still couldnât make any progress. However, it is still just one game. Albeit awful. My wife left the room. The ream can react either way. Use this as a turning point and put the pieces together or lose confidence in themselves and give up altogether. Iâm betting on number one. Prepare for the Ivies.
And Martiniâa few made threes from the corner would have drawn their big out and opened up the lane.
Brutal, ugly, dispiriting loss but it is only one game. Better to lay an egg during a meaningless early season tournament than later when it really matters. Letâs see how they play tomorrow.
Iâm extra bummed because they immediately moved to the loserâs bracket. Which means they donât get to face the two quality teams in the tourney: Bradley and South Florida.
The hard truth is that winning the next two games doesnât mean much. But losing them would be devastating to the teamâs dwindling confidence.
The last several games show some distinct weaknesses:
- With a rim protector in place, Xavian has a real problem scoring at the rim.
- Likewise Caden can be out-muscled at times.
- Jake wants to post up smaller guards a la Allocco, but heâs not that good at it.
- We REALLY need Davis to be a factor.
- We do not have a stand out defender.
- Our big must hit his threes.
I was at the game. I agree it was a
disheartening performance across
the board.
I did notice before the game that
players were taking breaks during
warm-ups, drinking watewr and talking to the trainer.
Both Lee and Pierce appeared to ask out of the game
in the first half, and played low minutes.
I donât know anything, but would not be shocked to
learn a bug was going through the team. If so,
tonight could be tough as well.
Across the board, ther teams down here are
bigger and more athletic than what we will
see in the Ivies.
This team feels like a lot like the infamous 2004 squad. Major expectations in the preseason; massive disappointments in the regular season.
I just hope they can channel the 2023 team (or last yearâs Yale team) and find their way by ILT time. Apparently, MH had another âtough talkâ in the locker room after the game. It didnât work last time, it wonât work this time. Heâs not a great motivator, so the leadership has to come from Pierce and Lee.
I actually expect them to look good against St. Joeâs and Rutgers. They just donât show up for the âlesserâ teams. I donât care what MH or the players say - they were clearly looking past Wright State and prepping for Bradley. Will they look past Dartmouth and Penn and Harvard too?
Oh yes, I remember that team well. I have always attributed the underperformance of Joe Scott trying to turn back the offensive clock.
This game reminds me of the Veterans Classic in Annapolis two year agoâwe were down about 20 early, and I was bitterly disappointed that I drove down to Annapolis in the rain. But we fought back and almost won. This team did not fight back in a meaningful way.
Other comebacks this year have been fueled at least in part by Dalen Davis; I hope he finds his touch.