Post by BleedingOrange on Feb 18, 2011 0:08:24 GMT -5
I know Southern Miss is a damn good team and that beating them on their court would have been quite an accomplishment. But having said that, that is exactly what we SHOULD have done.
For those of you who didn't watch the game, that 13 point margin of defeat was both misleading... and accurate. As Inigo Montoya once said, "Let me esplain. No, ees too much. Let me sum up..."
Tim Floyd managed this game to PERFECTION in the first half. I'm sure Eustachy came out expecting our standard lineup and offense, and our aggressive man-to-man defense. So instead, Floyd put Big Claude Britten in the starting 5, and we started out in a zone defense. Result? Chaos on their end, beauty on ours. Britten was virtually unstoppable, scoring 14 of his career-high 21 points in the first half. They had no answer for him. On the other end, our zone threw them off their game, and we got several stops (but failed a few times to secure the rebound, so second chance points kinda hurt us.) We should have been up 6 at halftime, but we missed a layup and then allowed a three pointer to end the half. Still, we had the lead and were playing very solid, smart basketball.
Second half started as well as it could. We continued to out-coach and outplay them, and built a 13 point lead with just under 15 minutes left in the game.... and then the friggin' wheels fell off. No, that doesn't accurately describe it... the whole damn bus blew up.
In a collapse worthy of a team of high school freshmen, we stopped playing defense, started taking (and missing) stupid shots, turning the ball over, and not getting any loose balls or rebounds. And to sum it up... Southern Miss finished the game with a 36-10 run and made us look plain stupid. That was the best damn rope-a-dope since Ali made it famous. We had them down, and failed to put a foot on their neck.
I don't mind losing, because you can't win 'em all. I don't mind getting outplayed by a better team. But the way we lost this one was just pathetic. To have played such a solid, intelligent game for almost 30 minutes, only to perform a rectal craniotomy and piss it away is just unacceptable. I hope Floyd ripped their heads off, because that game would have been HUGE. All alone in first place and a full head of steam to try and win out turned into a fall into second and a dark cloud of doubt for the next game, and I still can't figure out how it happened.
I just hope we remove said heads from asses before Saturday, when the effing Cougars will be salivating for a chance at revenge.....
For those of you who didn't watch the game, that 13 point margin of defeat was both misleading... and accurate. As Inigo Montoya once said, "Let me esplain. No, ees too much. Let me sum up..."
Tim Floyd managed this game to PERFECTION in the first half. I'm sure Eustachy came out expecting our standard lineup and offense, and our aggressive man-to-man defense. So instead, Floyd put Big Claude Britten in the starting 5, and we started out in a zone defense. Result? Chaos on their end, beauty on ours. Britten was virtually unstoppable, scoring 14 of his career-high 21 points in the first half. They had no answer for him. On the other end, our zone threw them off their game, and we got several stops (but failed a few times to secure the rebound, so second chance points kinda hurt us.) We should have been up 6 at halftime, but we missed a layup and then allowed a three pointer to end the half. Still, we had the lead and were playing very solid, smart basketball.
Second half started as well as it could. We continued to out-coach and outplay them, and built a 13 point lead with just under 15 minutes left in the game.... and then the friggin' wheels fell off. No, that doesn't accurately describe it... the whole damn bus blew up.
In a collapse worthy of a team of high school freshmen, we stopped playing defense, started taking (and missing) stupid shots, turning the ball over, and not getting any loose balls or rebounds. And to sum it up... Southern Miss finished the game with a 36-10 run and made us look plain stupid. That was the best damn rope-a-dope since Ali made it famous. We had them down, and failed to put a foot on their neck.
I don't mind losing, because you can't win 'em all. I don't mind getting outplayed by a better team. But the way we lost this one was just pathetic. To have played such a solid, intelligent game for almost 30 minutes, only to perform a rectal craniotomy and piss it away is just unacceptable. I hope Floyd ripped their heads off, because that game would have been HUGE. All alone in first place and a full head of steam to try and win out turned into a fall into second and a dark cloud of doubt for the next game, and I still can't figure out how it happened.
I just hope we remove said heads from asses before Saturday, when the effing Cougars will be salivating for a chance at revenge.....
