USF Rearview Mirror

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RamJamFan

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We are a poor rebounding team.
We are an average to poor FT shooting team.
We have lots of heart,winning attitude...keeping us close in games where we play poor.


I felt great that our will allowed us to take game into OT after playing poor all game. Let's build on that and learn the fundamentals, which I had hoped with 4 seniors we would have figured out....
 
RamJamFan said:
Confirmed
We are a poor rebounding team.
We are an average to poor FT shooting team. We have lots of heart,winning attitude...keeping us close in games where we play poor.


I felt great that our will allowed us to take game into OT after playing poor all game. Let's build on that and learn the fundamentals, which I had hoped with 4 seniors we would have figured out....
Click to expand...


We really need our guys that are our better free throw shooters to be more aggresive and be the ones earning the trips to the line!
 
Sure everyone is upset, and we should be. That is what makes us passionate fans.

If you look at it this way you might be able to see the silver lining. If before the season someone were to tell you that we would be 4-2 at this point against teams of the caliber of Wake Forest, Tennessee, UCLA, and even a South Florida I think most of us would be happy.

Could we have won tonight? absolutely. Should we have won? probably not but we aren't gonna lay down to anyone and that's why I love this program.
The sun is going to rise tomorrow (unless it's cloudy), and we will get back on track. Would have been nice to add a win @ USF but we didn't on to the next one!

JUST WIN!
 
I'll tell you what, it's a LOT easier to swallow these tough, close losses when you get to change the channel and see Larry Sanders and Eric Maynor continue to ball in the NBA. I'd rather VCU win than either of those guys to have a phenomenal game (just cause their are 82 games a season compared to say, 30ish in a NCAA tourney) but when you get 3 chances in a night to come away with a win, it feels better.

Larry Sanders had a MONSTER first half against the Nuggest. 4/6 Shooting, 10 points, 4 blocks, 6 rebounds ...3 fouls. Pretty great for a rookie in his 3rd or 4th start especially when having to play center, which is admittedly out of position for him at his current weight.
 
sadly, joey is not very good when we go against bigger and more atheletic teams, I think it's only because of his size, he's got skills and heart. it will be hard for us to win games against teams from bsc conferences this year (if we can get into the tourney), but I still believe joey will be great in the caa games, and we will meet odu in caa final.
 
Larry's NBA persence is indeed encouraging. Imagine if he stayed and we had him this year as an additional inside threat? What a total difference it would have made on having that shot blocker back their for allowing real full court press. Also, major rebounding presence as well. Jamie would have been unstopple with Larry distracting opposing bigs. But I'm very happy for Larry, and do believe this year's team can improve on rebounding...they simply must.

Regarding Joey, is he playing healthy? During early stages of UT game he just seemed a bit rushed [like most of our guys] but since he went out with the ankle tweek during that game it has since appeared to me that he has not had his typical speed, cutting ability into lane [for easy dishs to bigs] or spring/quick release on outside jumper. Still, I wouldn't trade Joey for any other PG in CAA, or the state of VA [including UR or Tech]. Our challenge is keeping him healthy and at full speed.
 
We are a poor rebounding team.
We are an average to poor FT shooting team.
We have lots of heart,winning attitude...keeping us close in games where we play poor.
Click to expand...

Through first 6 games we are shooting 63.2% from foul line. If we factor in preseason it's probably lower.

I don't know what teams [if any?] we've outrebounded, but I suspect most have outrebounded us.
 
Let's not forget we had two turnovers back-to-back in the overtime on the offensive end of the court. I think Ed had both of them. we score on one of those possessions and we win.
 
ramathon74 said:
Let's not forget we had two turnovers back-to-back in the overtime on the offensive end of the court. I think Ed had both of them. we score on one of those possessions and we win.
Click to expand...

If Jamie hit both of the intentional free throws we win.. we could do this all day :roll:

Bottom line, not many teams are going to come back from 28-10 deficits, we did and had two GREAT opportunities to win the game. We didn't and we'll learn from it. Hopefully, next time we are in the this situation, we can hit that free throw or make that lay up. Better a loss now then in March.

Go Rams! Stab the Tribe in the heart with a trident!
 
ramathon74 said:
Let's not forget we had two turnovers back-to-back in the overtime on the offensive end of the court. I think Ed had both of them. we score on one of those possessions and we win.
Click to expand...

Exactly ramathon74. This was the reason we lost the game. The non-call on Bradford's drive to end the game was pretty lame too. I'm all for swallowing the whistle and letting the guys play ball but USF got the call at the end of regulation that put them back in the lead on almost an identical play.
 
While we haven't out rebounded anyon we've played, I still believe we can siginficantly improve in this area. Toby will continue improving [this is not JC, nor CO offense...must be patient], and we have much to-be-developed young front court talent with minutes/confidence/understanding improving as we go...I am not going to second guess coaches on that development. Right now we're not a good rebounding team, but I believe that will only improve as weeks go by.

FT% is just a player focus thing--no real excuses for that. I also believe that will improve as the season goes--we are too good a shooting team to be 63% from the line at this stage of season.

I remain very pumped about what may become of this team. So much upside! We were in the TN and USF games while being out rebounded and shooting badly from foul line [not to mention many unforced turnovers]...and those are our two losses. This a great time to be a Ramfan!
 
Yeah, the 3 point play by USF in regulation was a charge. We should have never been in OT.
 
First, let me get this out of the way. How may of the younger posters on these boards were complaining last year when it was announced that VCU would be playing at USF this year? If it was such a bad game to schedule RE: RPI, then why didn't we mop up the floor with them last night. USF also beat Txas Tech last week and took BYU down to the wire. Here's some advise from an older Ram fan. Know the teams we are scheduling before you throw the coaching staff under the bus regarding scheduling.

Regarding VCU's recent play and the players getting the minutes, Rob Brandenburg has got to get more minutes. He's a scorer, he's long and has great energy. Where do those points come from? Daniels has had the deer in the headlight look all season and Nixon has been inconsistent. Nixon is turning the ball over too much. The other player that has me scratching my head is Toby Veal. He is definitely not living up to the hype around him and also what he showed he could do early in th eseason. His offense is basically non-existent.

Right now, I think VCU's best 5 on the court are Skeen, Burgess, Rodriguez, Rozzell and Brandenburg. It's a small lineup, but Brandenburg is playing a lot bigger than he is and he has no reservations about pentrating to the basket. Until Veal and some of the freshman bigs become more of a factor on this team, VCU is going to lose the rebounding advantage in most games so they need to just play the 5 best regarding offense and in your face defense.
 
agreed ....Rob will find his way into the game ....i think his game is really special...maybe a starter by the tournament?
 
Agree about Rob looking good.

If we're best going with smaller lineups (which I tend to agree that we are), then why don't we do more in games like last night to get the tempo in our favor? Do we ever run on made shots by the opponent? Granted this may not do much for us if we aren't hitting shots.

Speaking of shots, I found it to be an interesting info that someone else posted in another thread, that in every game thus far we have shot less than our game percentage for much of the early part of the game. I understand the value in having some time to get warmed up, but for this to be case consistently is a problem.

Gotta give some credit to USF. They had a good game plan and came ready to play.
 
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