My confidence meter was at about 10% once they got inside 10 points.
Second-half thread for NU vs. Providence
- Thread starter lou v
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My confidence meter was at about 10% once they got inside 10 points.
I'm really impressed how the team kept its poise and confidence down the stretch. A young team nearly giving up a 20 point lead can often result in disaster, but these guys held tough, made shots when they needed them, and played solid defense down the stretch. I'm sure that's a very satisfying win for the team.
I actually believe fans can help out hurt the team by their reactions during adversity. Hoping the Cats give less reason for anxiety over the next few years.
I truly think he will play a huge role shooting, handling the ball, seeing the floor, providing energy, and getting to the rim occasionally. Still developing, but he should play early and help.
Glad we have Pat Spencer to fill some of those gaps this season.
Not a bad response for a group of 19 and 20 years olds who had to swim through crap the last five days.
Especially impressive was the resilience when Providence cut it to 5.
And let's agree a good job of coaching to get the team there.
Yeah all my friends were texting with fatalistic impulses.
Overall, Andy Katz and Kevin Kugler were really good I thought. Sometimes the BTN guys are bad or annoying, they were the exact opposite. They provided value add commentary and were highly entertaining to listen to.
There were two key points they missed calling out or were slow to though:
1. The reason for all the Providence O boards and the reason for them struggling to make or get good shots were intertwined - our zones were pressuring the outside but you compromise quite a bit in terms of block out responsibilities when you play D like that. So we were (coach was) making a tradeoff of continuing to risk O rebounds because our D was frustrating their ability to move the ball around the perimeter or effectively drive on us. Now why they missed a bunch of short ones, different point - they were all over that it was because our young bigs were pretty impressive at how they contested shots (Nance Young, and Jones Beran to a lesser extent).
2. They were slow to catch onto that our offense went into a stupor once Providence went into zone. It was an abrupt change in flow and it took us forever to adjust to attack it. For multiple possessions we painfully had zero ball movement or people movement and would just dribble or hold the ball and stare and then eventually make a turnover. They eventually called the zone shift out but should have noticed quicker. Also, I missed the Merrimack game, but given that we were terrible against zone there apparently... perhaps Providence coach should have scouted that and gone to it earlier...
Those points aside though, nice job by that pair they were fun. A pleasant surprise.
I agree that they did a good job. Katz lives in the same town as me and his daughter goes to school with my boys, so I tend to give him the benefit of the doubt out of town loyalty I guess.
The one thing they did say a few times that I laughed out loud at though was their continued comment that the Providence coach was worried because this was their first road game and worried how'd they deal with the environment. Not exactly the most hostile crowd last night.
No home court advantage? Not a hostile environment? Did you see the report on the other thread??
I must say, the highlight of my evening might have been going to the press room, and ordering Teddy G to summon Lou for me so I could reconnect with my old rugby buddy. It's amazing what you can get away with when you act like you own the place.
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