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Kent St. @ Buffalo (1/24 @ 6:30 pm)


Jeseph

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After the game ended, I just shrugged.  It was weird.

I mean, it was clear the guys were trying out there.  It could have gone either way.  Those two bank-shot 3 pointers.  UB missing their free-throws.  UB fouling the guy (maybe...we never sayw the replay) on that important possession. Graves not getting his penetration to fall.

We kind of are who we are.  Coach is who he is. 

I think I have accepted it...but that's not a good thing.   I gave myself a few days to think about why I just shrugged after we lost and I wasn't really upset.  Last year (or year's past), I would have been very bothered.  I would have jumped on UBfan and vented.  It would have bothered me the rest of the night and the following day. 

But I didn't jump on UBfan and it didn't bother me the rest of that night or this weekend.   The fact that this is only page 3 of this thread after a tough home loss tells me that maybe I am not alone in this feeling. You just shrug at this point.

My guess as to why (and maybe, others) feel this way is that we were among the best teams in the country last year.  We had this swagger as a team, we had a focus and a worked hard.  And the coach had something special about him.  That whole "Gonzaga of the East" talk may have been "just talk", but I liked it.

We are a long way from that now, from my perspective.  We are back to being a pretty good MAC team now.   That's okay, but...man that "Gonzaga of the East" was attractive.  The "reloading, not rebuilding" part was attractive.  

I bleed blue so I will always root for the Bulls.

Go Bulls.

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A lot of things to clean up. Self inflicted wounds will cost you. In this game it was free throws and turnovers. Both are things we control. Both are inexcusable when they occur to the tune of 18 turnovers and less than 50% ft shooting. We played solid defense but in this one the offense let us down. 

Found it interesting that with under 5 minutes left in the game most of our starters were on the bench. I don’t know how I feel about the fact that Grant, for example, was on the floor in a crunch defensive possession. Given that we lost it doesn’t sit well with me.

This is a tough stretch for us. Time to knuckle up bc it’s only going to get tougher. 

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I find myself constantly keeping these two things in mind:

1. This is not the same team as the past two years.  Not in a bad way, but a real way.  I hope we see some teams that exceed that - but we'll probably always remember those as some of the best UB teams ever.
2. 4 MAC titles and 4 NCAA trips in 5 years has bought a lot of patience and benefit-of-the-doubt for me.  That goes for the coaches, recruits, decisions, etc.  The program has shown it knows what it's doing.

Walking out of there on Friday, my friend said "they look like they're a year away."  Next year you're looking at a core of Graves, juniors Williams, Mballa, and Segu, soph Hardnett, and a 4-star guard Robinson.  With the experience they're building this year, the future is bright.

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7 hours ago, enrique14150 said:

I find myself constantly keeping these two things in mind:

1. This is not the same team as the past two years.  Not in a bad way, but a real way.  I hope we see some teams that exceed that - but we'll probably always remember those as some of the best UB teams ever.
2. 4 MAC titles and 4 NCAA trips in 5 years has bought a lot of patience and benefit-of-the-doubt for me.  That goes for the coaches, recruits, decisions, etc.  The program has shown it knows what it's doing.

Walking out of there on Friday, my friend said "they look like they're a year away."  Next year you're looking at a core of Graves, juniors Williams, Mballa, and Segu, soph Hardnett, and a 4-star guard Robinson.  With the experience they're building this year, the future is bright.

100% agree. And with all that said I still think we can win the MAC tournament this season. If this type of season becomes our “down” year then I’ll sign up for that as a program.

Edited by DooleyBull06
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2 hours ago, DooleyBull06 said:

100% agree. And with all that said I still think we can win the MAC tournament this season. If this type of season becomes our “down” year then I’ll sign up for that as a program.

I'm also on this train of thought. I'm not going to freak out until the end of next year if the team doesn't improve. We lost so much talent (and a great coach) from last year that it doesn't make sense to expect a high level team. UVA went 35-3 (16-2) and won the NCAA tournament last year, they are currently 13-6 (5-4) and have the same coach they had last year. All teams go through up and downs, we are not immune to that.

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SGBull - and yet there's probably a section of Virginia fans who are concerned about the direction of the program and want to burn everything down if they're down double-digits in the first half.

If anyone thought they were going to be a top-25 team again this year, get real.  No matter who the coach was.  As SGBull said, it's not a sign that the program is in distress.  They changed over what, 3/4 of the team?  Hit on some transfers so far (Mballa, Hardnett, and Johnson is coming around), missed on some others, but that's not much different than previous years (I mean, a top, top level transfer like Harris or Clark won't pop up here every year, and Clark only came because of the coaching connection).  They're competitive, they're working hard out there, they have some good wins so far, they're not great but it's been fun to watch.  Are people willing to give Whitesell any share of the credit for the past 5 years?  I don't know who exactly coaches what in practice but I'm really pleased by the development of the young guys right now.  For these reasons and what I wrote a couple posts ago, that's why I didn't flip out at the end Friday and cry on my way home.

We're living in some of the best of years for UB sports - please fully enjoy them.  I sit behind a guy at the games who is quick to boo and gripe his displeasure when any little thing goes wrong but never NEVER cheers or even claps his hands, just sits there with his arms crossed.  A guy I sat next to in the first game said, not even a game into the season "this guy should be fired" (thankfully he hasn't been back).  4 titles in 5 years.

Edited by enrique14150
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I still think that the Bulls can win any game left on their schedule. That said, they could lose any game too. The players haven’t quit, and I don’t expect that they will no matter how the rest of the season goes. I have faith in Whitesell, but see the Bulls finishing close to the middle of the pack in conference play. What would be great would be to knock off either Kent or Akron in the tournament. Keep battling. Go Bulls!

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59 minutes ago, Jeseph said:

So player turnover leads to (self-proclaimed) "lackadaisical and selfish play"?

How is this still a pattern with this team? How many games does it take to find motivation?

I agree with the lackadaisical play sometimes, but I actually think the team has not been playing that selfishly lately. 

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9 minutes ago, Jeseph said:

“Selfish ball, from the jump,” UB guard Davonta Jordan said. “Our defense, it translated to our offense, and we weren’t playing too good of defense, so we weren’t playing good enough offense.” (link)

 

Point taken. But still, the team is averaging 16.2 assists on 44 FG% this year compared to 16.9 assists on around 46% last year. The main issues I see are defense, FT shooting, and the lack a of closer (I miss CJ).

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1 minute ago, SGBull said:

The main issues I see are defense, FT shooting, and the lack a of closer (I miss CJ).

I definitely agree. I think although (in many games) assists have been there, heads-down drives have led to some terrible passes/turnovers. There's also just less flow in the offense despite playing a less run-and-gun style. Maybe I'm conflating poorly structured offense and sloppy play with selfish tendencies 🤷🏻‍♂️

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1 hour ago, SGBull said:

Point taken. But still, the team is averaging 16.2 assists on 44 FG% this year compared to 16.9 assists on around 46% last year. The main issues I see are defense, FT shooting, and the lack a of closer (I miss CJ).

Good points. Would add relatively poor and wildly inconsistent 3 point shooting.

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5 hours ago, SGBull said:

Point taken. But still, the team is averaging 16.2 assists on 44 FG% this year compared to 16.9 assists on around 46% last year. ...

Well, how does the current team compare to The Year Before They Were Seniors ('17-'18)?  (perhaps a better comparison, based on overall team experience?)

That year, the team averaged 16.6 assists on 47 FG%.

Which is the chicken, and which is the egg?  Does better assist passing provide better finishing?  OR, does better finishing prompt less selfish passing?

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10 hours ago, enrique14150 said:

SGBull - and yet there's probably a section of Virginia fans who are concerned about the direction of the program and want to burn everything down if they're down double-digits in the first half.

If anyone thought they were going to be a top-25 team again this year, get real.  No matter who the coach was.  As SGBull said, it's not a sign that the program is in distress.  They changed over what, 3/4 of the team?  Hit on some transfers so far (Mballa, Hardnett, and Johnson is coming around), missed on some others, but that's not much different than previous years (I mean, a top, top level transfer like Harris or Clark won't pop up here every year, and Clark only came because of the coaching connection).  They're competitive, they're working hard out there, they have some good wins so far, they're not great but it's been fun to watch.  Are people willing to give Whitesell any share of the credit for the past 5 years?  I don't know who exactly coaches what in practice but I'm really pleased by the development of the young guys right now.  For these reasons and what I wrote a couple posts ago, that's why I didn't flip out at the end Friday and cry on my way home.

We're living in some of the best of years for UB sports - please fully enjoy them.  I sit behind a guy at the games who is quick to boo and gripe his displeasure when any little thing goes wrong but never NEVER cheers or even claps his hands, just sits there with his arms crossed.  A guy I sat next to in the first game said, not even a game into the season "this guy should be fired" (thankfully he hasn't been back).  4 titles in 5 years.

Do agree wholeheartedly. The last 4/5 years have been fantastic with all our success in Cleveland and the NCAA’s. Due to that scenario expectations were very high or there was hope there would not be a big drop off. The hope was Johnson and Grant would step in and give us immediate contributions, Hardnett and Nickelberry would replace Harris in some fashion, we would see immediate improvement from Segu and Williams and Jordan and/or Graves would become our true leaders and be our go to players, somehow Bertram and Fagan would contribute even though they had very little playing time since they were here, and we were not even sure if Mballa would be eligible even though he had limited playing time at TT. Again losing the main cogs of our team we have to exercise some patience and try to enjoy this team for what it is. There continues to be some improvement along with inconsistencies and our family will continue to support this team and be there every step of the way. Go Bulls!!!

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