DailyPress:Issues With TO's, Rebounds,ODU fades in 2nd half

districtballer

districtballer

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Darius James limped to the microphone, an ice pack taped to his right ankle. ( :shock: :lol: ) Frank Hassell struggled to explain how his team got outworked inside. And Blaine Taylor put the obvious into words: His Old Dominion team missed a huge opportunity.

ODU led by as many as 10 first-half points Saturday against VCU at the Siegel Center, but turnovers and a rare rebounding deficit allowed the Rams to pull away to a 70-58 victory. VCU big men Larry Sanders and Kirill Pischalnikov combined for 28 points as the Rams (17-5, 9-4 CAA) dropped the Monarchs (18-7, 10-3 CAA) out of a tie for first place and reasserted themselves as a contender to repeat their conference crown.
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"We just should have played more physical and strong in the post," said Hassell, who had 10 points in 19 minutes after first-half foul trouble cooled his hot start. "We usually do. We just weren't mentally ready. We came out good. I guess the foul trouble just kind of shook our heads a little bit. I know I was worried about it for a little bit, but we should've still come through and played like us."

Holding Sanders in check in the first 20 minutes took a toll on the Monarchs. Hassell and fellow big men Gerald Lee — held to nine points, five fewer than his season average — and Keyon Carter each had two fouls at halftime.
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http://www.dailypress.com/sports/dp-spt_odu-vcu_0207feb07,0,5209503.story
 
Stats:

Points in the paint - 40-24, VCU
Bench points, 25-11, VCU
Points off TOs, 17-4, VCU
Fast break pts, 10-4, VCU

Pretty impressive against a team with a top 20 in the nation front court and the best bench in the CAA.

darn, if we hadn't let up on 'em in the last couple of minutes, we might have scored 50 points just in the paint.










HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA I kid, I kid. :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol:
 
VRam said:
Stats:

Points in the paint - 40-24, VCU
Bench points, 25-11, VCU
Points off TOs, 17-4, VCU
Fast break pts, 10-4, VCU

Pretty impressive against a team with a top 20 in the nation front court and the best bench in the CAA.

darn, if we hadn't let up on 'em in the last couple of minutes, we might have scored 50 points just in the paint.

ODU had more than 4 fast break points in the first 10 minutes of the game when they were destroying our full court press. They were killing our press early on until they got the "T" for slapping the backboard after the dunk.

The only thing that kept that game from being a 20 point win for VCU was all of the missed free throws in the first half. We shot 36% from the charity stripe in the first half.










HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA I kid, I kid. :lol: :lol: :lol: :lol:
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Pavarotti said:
Hassel said:
Gerald Lee is soft.
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There is a reason my name is HASSELL 4 prez.

He came and played like a man before the fouls. Wasn't the same after that. I do agree with what some are saying. We will not have as big of a drop off last year as some had predicted because we are no longer losing the best player on our team...
 
We were having a discussion on whether ODU would fall off next year on the 'Around the CAA' boards, but I'll repost what I posted there since it's the same discussion here:

Yeah I've been saying this for awhile. Lee has never been as good as ODU fans claimed or wanted him to be. He's a good big man with a nice, soft touch. He has good games on occassion and has the skill set to probably play with anyone in the country. He lacked the desire and the fire to take over a game or impose his will on it. Lee could play a whole game and you would never notice him, but at the end of the day he'll have a decent stat line. Larry in contrast, marks his stamp on every play that he makes. His impact on the game is unmistakable, both when he plays with passion and when he disappears.

For this reason, although ODU fans probably wouldn't like the above statement, there is a positive. Next year they won't be hurting nearly as much since Lee really wasn't that much of an impact. I think Hassell has always been a raw big guy who benefitted from the attention defenses gave to Lee and got easy buckets. I'm not sure I've ever seen him create his own shot, which Lee can do. I don't expect Hassell to improve much, if at all, his senior year. I do think that he'll still be able to get a lot of garbage buckets and bully his way to points due to his size and girth. He's a load for sure down-low. I think Kent Bazemore could be a really good player for the Monarchs, but he turns the ball over like crazy, too much to be a point guard. He has great athleticism and quickness for his size and I think he will be an All-CAA type player before his career is done at ODU. Chris Cooper, Keyon Carter, and Nick Wright are a good CAA frontcourt. The guards will continue to be mediocre...their incoming guard Dimitri Batten can't shoot a lick from outside either. Their redshirt freshman Josh Hicks is a decent 3 point shooter, but they redshirted him for a reason.

I see ODU as being a very similar team next season: a slow, plodding, methodical team that beats you down on the boards with size and gets easy baskets in low scoring games. They'll still be a poor outside shooting team with mediocre guards except for Bazemore who I think could be a legitimate star if he could keep the ball and develop a more consistent outside shot.
 
Maybe this time Lee didn't play well because James hurt his ankle?
 
districtballer said:
I see ODU as being a very similar team next season: a slow, plodding, methodical team that beats you down on the boards with size and gets easy baskets in low scoring games. They'll still be a poor outside shooting team with mediocre guards except for Bazemore who I think could be a legitimate star if he could keep the ball and develop a more consistent outside shot.
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That says it all.

I admit it, I read their boards all the time. I post some, but refrain from debating them too much. It is hard sometimes, because they make way too much of the "national ranking in defense" thing. Their fans just don't understand how they get the numbers. Well, the above explains it. Control the tempo, force a slow game, kill the clock, take high percentage shots, get lots of offensive rebounds. Repeat as necessary. Therefore, you limit the other team's possessions and they score fewer point. Bingo- you look like you have great defense. But in reality, you don't. If you play a team that is able to challenge you up and down the court, forces you into speeding up YOUR game, gets after the ball as you pass it around, you panic and lose. Not every team has the speed and quickness that VCU does, but we are the type of team that gives them fits. We run, we challenge the ball handler, we force slow teams out of their game. On top of that, we shoot pretty well, both inside and out.

VCU is getting better every game. Nobody seems to notice but us. The win over ODU was our 8th out of the last 9. Yet, nobody notices. Good. I hope nobody notices until we are comfortably in 2nd or 3rd, and sitting back getting ready of the tournament. This is getting to be lots of fun.
 
Larry's rebounding in the 2nd half was one the big reasons VCU won.

fmrick said:
VCU is getting better every game. Nobody seems to notice but us
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Other teams are noticing, they just don't want to talk about it.
 
I suggest you hold off on all of your accolades just a bit.............we still have games @ GMU, @ODU, and at home against Drexel. We are 0-3 on the road against the upper half of the Colonial. That could be 0-5 unless we knock off GMU or ODU. A 12-6 conf finish is still realistic and that could place us 5th or even 6th (depending on tiebreakers). Our best road win this season is against #177 Hofstra.

It's easy to play well at home (many teams do)...............you have fans cheering for you, whistles that don't get blown (when perhaps they should), and calls that oft times go in your favor.

Let's see how the team fares tomorrow night..........should be a good barometer. Mason is tough in Fairfax, but certainly beatable. If we've truly made all these strides that we claim, and if the urgency is there as the players/coaches claim it is, then we should see an inspired performance tomorrow night.

If we lose tomorrow night, we could be looking at a Friday CAA tourney game............and of course, any at-large chance is gone as well.
 
debbie_downer.jpg
 
I agree, I've been telling people we need BOTH games and GMU may be the more difficult game to win. The next hurdle we need to overcome is our performance on the road.
 
and if by some reason we lose tomorrow night, not sure we will but if we do and we still beat DU at HOME and beat ODU again it is still good...what if...just play the games and see what happens...if we play on Fri so be it...we have the depth to be able to be the first team to pull it off...
 
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