districtballer
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That team is not as bad as their record. They were given a brutal start to the conference with probably all the top 5/6 teams in the conference so far. Combine that with a lot of youth and inexperience and it's easy to see how they are winless in CAA play. Although we led pretty much the whole game, I can't say I was ever really confident we would put them away. They were pesky up until the final buzzer sounded. They have some really good 3 point shooters and Harris is very good in the open floor. Harris is undersized but a very athletic guard. They have the tools to be CAA contenders again in the next year or 2. I hope no one is beating their chest over beating these guys though, if anything we probably should have beaten them by more considering how young they are. These guys will be tough for the foreseeable future and I don't think we can count on easy wins in the future. Coen's doing his thing there.
I tend to think that NU is a bad matchup for us in general. We probably will never really blow them out since Coen runs a very tight ship there. His system drives us nuts in general. I am glad we won't be seeing Chaisson Allen again though at the Stu. That kid is a stud and scored 16 with our guys hanging all over him. NU did a great job setting screens to open up their 3-point shooters and they stroked it really well all game. 56% on the road is very good shooting. I'm glad we pulled it out.
This VCU team is not the dominant VCU team we've had in the past, but we're sitting nicely at 5-1 in conference with our 3rd leading scorer out in Brandon and Toby Veal sitting on the sidelines. Rob and DJ gave us good minutes today. That one sequence where DJ was cleaning up the boards and owning the paint was very nice to see. Juvonte looked a little lost out there and I anticipate that will happen with some of the bigger teams in the league (like Northeastern). Rob got plenty of nice 3-point looks that didn't fall for him, that's how it is for most freshmen. Apart from that though, he undeniably has a big effect on the game as well as the flow of the offense. I found myself thinking that we need Rob most times he was on the bench. He brings some intangibles to the game that you can't teach. That 3-point play was probably the biggest of the game and it's great to see a freshman with the willingness and ability to make that play.
For those of us that might be getting our heads too high in the clouds, a word of caution. We have had a pretty easy first 1/3 of the CAA slate and this record was to be expected if we are truly a good team. In fact losing at Georgia St. was a bad loss that we should have won, but those games happen in the CAA. The latter part of our schedule is going to be where we really earn our stripes and find out if we are a good team or not. I'm reminded of the George Mason team of last year that went 10-1 or something like that with as cupcake a CAA schedule a team in this league could receive. They started playing the CAA top-dogs and tanked from there on out. I'm not saying that we will do the same, but we should understand we are simply beating teams we should beat, and in one case we didn't. We're going to have to do more than that if we want to go dancing.
At the end of the day, a W is a W. I'll take it. Props to Northeastern on some gutsy play and great shooting (esp. from 3) and I'm happy that we've gotten that monkey off our backs and finally beaten them.
I tend to think that NU is a bad matchup for us in general. We probably will never really blow them out since Coen runs a very tight ship there. His system drives us nuts in general. I am glad we won't be seeing Chaisson Allen again though at the Stu. That kid is a stud and scored 16 with our guys hanging all over him. NU did a great job setting screens to open up their 3-point shooters and they stroked it really well all game. 56% on the road is very good shooting. I'm glad we pulled it out.
This VCU team is not the dominant VCU team we've had in the past, but we're sitting nicely at 5-1 in conference with our 3rd leading scorer out in Brandon and Toby Veal sitting on the sidelines. Rob and DJ gave us good minutes today. That one sequence where DJ was cleaning up the boards and owning the paint was very nice to see. Juvonte looked a little lost out there and I anticipate that will happen with some of the bigger teams in the league (like Northeastern). Rob got plenty of nice 3-point looks that didn't fall for him, that's how it is for most freshmen. Apart from that though, he undeniably has a big effect on the game as well as the flow of the offense. I found myself thinking that we need Rob most times he was on the bench. He brings some intangibles to the game that you can't teach. That 3-point play was probably the biggest of the game and it's great to see a freshman with the willingness and ability to make that play.
For those of us that might be getting our heads too high in the clouds, a word of caution. We have had a pretty easy first 1/3 of the CAA slate and this record was to be expected if we are truly a good team. In fact losing at Georgia St. was a bad loss that we should have won, but those games happen in the CAA. The latter part of our schedule is going to be where we really earn our stripes and find out if we are a good team or not. I'm reminded of the George Mason team of last year that went 10-1 or something like that with as cupcake a CAA schedule a team in this league could receive. They started playing the CAA top-dogs and tanked from there on out. I'm not saying that we will do the same, but we should understand we are simply beating teams we should beat, and in one case we didn't. We're going to have to do more than that if we want to go dancing.
At the end of the day, a W is a W. I'll take it. Props to Northeastern on some gutsy play and great shooting (esp. from 3) and I'm happy that we've gotten that monkey off our backs and finally beaten them.
