WTF?

[MinerMan2010]

Losing to a mediocre Rice team on the road is bad enough, but getting swept is awful. Why did Floyd start the walkons? They weren't even Seniors. Even though they didnt do bad, Im sure playing the rest of the starters would have made a difference.

[strelz]

two techs and ejection didn't help either

[BleedingOrange]

Please bear with me, my friends..... I must rant or I will explode.


Let me preface this by saying that the main reason we lost the game last night was because we couldn't hit water if we fell out of a boat. Absolutely nothing was falling, from threes to layups. We played with energy, we played with heart, and we played pretty solid defense, but you can't win games when you go 4-5 minute stretches without scoring. That was our undoing.

As for starting three bench players (including one walk-on that nobody had ever even HEARD of before), Johnson said after the game that Floyd wanted to send a message to the starters after they flat out quit against UCF. He felt that simply starting the bench and then subbing the starters in 10 seconds into the game was a hollow punishment, so he actually left the subs in until the first official timeout four minutes into the game. (I thought it sucked that Gabe McCulley didn't start his last home game, but never let it be said that Floyd makes idle threats!) Amazingly, though, they did okay; Rice seemed kind of shellshocked to see those guys on the floor, and the bench squad actually left the court with a one point lead. Good on them.

And now, on to the shenanigans....

First off, that Rice team has some talent, but their 7'2" center is a no-talent THUG. He threw so many elbows and grabbed so many arms, I thought I was watching a fucking MMA fight. And he finished the game with only 4 fouls. That's an indication of how the officiating went for most of the night.

The controversial ejection happened like this: we were down 7 with about 4:30 left, and Streeter was leading a break to our basket. When he jumped up and tried to pass the ball, a Rice defender (Frizzel, I think) ran by and bumped him pretty hard. (From my vantage point, I couldn't see if he grabbed him, but there was obvious contact.) The whistle blew, and Streeter landed with the ball in his hands, expecting a trip to the line. When the ref had the balls to call a fucking TRAVEL, the crowd went ballistic... and Floyd LOST HIS FUCKING MIND. He ripped off his jacket, hopped up and down like a crazed animal, and yelled God-knows-what at the dickhead ref who made the call, and the ref on the other side of the court tee'd him up. At that point, I knew Floyd wanted to get tossed, and about the time I said that to my buddies, he threw a program onto the court. Seeya.

Four Rice free throws and an offensive possession later, we're down 11. But Floyd's tantrum worked, because I haven't heard our crowd that loud and pissed off in years. They booed the entire time Rice had the ball, and chanted and screamed when the Miners took over, and somehow, some way, we clawed back within two points with about 55 seconds remaining. And then the refs stepped in once again.

All we needed at that point was one more stop, and then we got the last shot, so the players knew the last thing they wanted to do was foul. So what happens? The Rice point guard goes flying up the court, gets trapped, fights through two defenders, trips over his own feet, and flops into another Miner player, and draws a bullshit foul. Two free throws pretty much ended our hopes, because then it was a two-possession game and the foul-to-stop-the-clock tactic doesn't work when the opponent is deadly from the charity stripe. So when it was all said and done, you can't put the blame squarely on the refs, but they had a major role in what went down.

And here's the fucking cherry on the shit sundae.... Coach Johnson told Teich in the post-game show that Frizzel, the Rice player who drew the travelling call that subsequently resulted in Floyd getting tossed, actually came up to him during the handshakes and ADMITTED THAT HE FOULED STREETER. He actually felt guilty that the ref blew such a huge call and basically altered the course of the game. And here's the real slap in the face: the ref who made the call ALSO admitted that he blew it!!!

So there you go. I guess in a way, that's just indicative of how the season went; we had some extremely bad breaks to go with some amazing accomplishments. But it sucks that all our post-season pipe dreams ended with such a sickening thud.

So what can we do, but hope for a win at SMU and maybe an upset in the tourney opener, just so we can finish above .500. And then.... well, next year is gonna be a whole new ballgame, bitches.

Payback's coming. And I can't fucking wait to be there when it does.

[MinerMan2010]

Yeah, I was really upset that Gabe didn't get to start. No matter what he did over the weekend, he deserved to start his last home game. Sometimes you get the calls, other times you don't. I hate to blame refs for losses. Hope we can beat shitty SMU on Saturday.

[mistabinks]

Free throws, lay ups, and short jumpers. Couldn't hit 'em. They couldn't miss free throws.

Coach Floyd's double T's were calculated. That was obvious. Almost worked as we got within 2.

Before the season, most guessed we'd be a .500 team. After the first few games, some worried we wouldn't even win 10 games. We got hot, we improved, and we forgot how young, thin, and injured we are. Back to reality. Hopefully we beat SMU, a few games in the tourney, and get an invite to the CBI. Better yet, lets get red hot and win the tourny. Why not?

[MinerMan2010]

We fucking suck. Coach Doherty and SMU are a joke. Can't wait for next season to get here.

[BleedingOrange]

Yup. The SMU loss pretty much guarantees our season ends with the first tourney loss.

Next year.