Well the Irish got a very good win today vs Marquette at home..our 34th in a row at home. This team is much better than anybody thought they would be, most in preseason said that we would be a 8-8 BE team at best, we're already 8-2, so while I don't expect to win the rest of the games, I think we'll be better than 8-8. At this point we need gipper to get an evaluation of the Irish and Mike Brey from someone named the commish. He's always pretty objective, no rose colored glasses and all that stuff. Terry
Gipper is still trying to recover from the last couple of minutes of today's game. Up by 10 with 2 minutes to go it looked like an easy win. Three straight turnovers and Gipper was throwing things. It was a good win. Too bad that the BE tourney and NCAAs will be played away from the JACC. I'm emailing Commish tonight. I'll ask his critique of Irish BB '08.
Looking forward to it! I watched Brey's post game press conference and he was pumped about the Irish finding a way to win a close game at the end.
I was like Gip, yelling at the players for getting their pockets picked, etc. They are a young team, only one senior (Kurz). Marquette is a very good team, and James is outstanding. In hindsight, I guess I shouldn't be surprised at M's run at the end, but it sure was a heartstopper.
This team really has a lot of Irish fans pretty excited Sid, they love the play of Luke Harangody and even much maligned former Mr. Basketball, Luke Zeller, seems to have found his inner basketball player and played a big role. Brey feels like Zeller finally has had that light bulb go off and feels like he's going to be very important to the team. Does Kyle McAlarney have another year of eligibilty? Terry
I agree about Zeller. I was mildly surprised at his aggressiveness yesterday, something he hasn't shown up until now. He has a chance to increase his role the rest of this season and definitely next year when Kurz is gone. McAlarney is a junior. I would think he has another year left even with the suspension. There are two things I really like about this team, and they are interrelated.....depth and hustle. Coach can pull his starters for periods of rest and insert subs who can maintain the tempo and quality of play. This team appears to be very tough-minded. My concern is the tendency to go into a funk like they did at the end yesterday, not making a field goal in something like the last 6 minutes. I attribute that to their youth and hope it gets better over time.
I'm worried about @UConn as he says and @Rutgers and @Louisville as well. We have Pitt and Syracuse at home and those are both tough games, esp Pitt. I could see us losing 3 out of those 5 maybe even 4 out of those 5. That would put us in a world of hurt to finish the season.
To some extent I agree with Commish's analysis. In fact, I expect us to lose at UConn to a team that is much different from when we played them at home. My hope is that we play tough and make it a close game......single digits. I expect Luke H. to have big problems as in the first game with UConn, but his supporting cast is capable of picking up the slack. I differ with Commish only in a minor way. I think this team has improved to the point that you can't assume a loss going into any game, and you legitimately can hope for a win, even on the road. So I'm refraining from predicting 5-3 or 4-4 and saying that I hope we can rise to the occasion on the road. How we perform away from home in this last lap of the season will determine how far the team has come.
I agree Sid the team has improved, and the schedule is set to give them a good push into the post season if they can finish strong. It's also set to send them to the NIT if they don't finish strong. One thing I've never liked about Brey's approach to the season is that he believes you only have 1 run in you and he tries to get the team focused on having that run in the NCAA tourney. Which to me is why we've done so poorly in the BE Tourney. UConn and Pitt have not had that attitude and they have done much better in the BE Tourney without it hurting them in the NCAA.
I agree with your analysis Terry. Speaking of Pitt, did you by any chance see the end of the Pitt-WVU game the other night when the Pitt guard hit the 3-pointer at the buzzer to win the game? Heckuva finish after WVU looked like they were going to pull off the upset.
If there is anything that can be called a good loss, the game with UConn tonight was a good loss. It's so tough to win a road game in the Big East, that you sometimes just hope you play well, and the Irish did play well. Luke Harangoody was terrific, scored 33 pts hit'em inside, hit'em outside. McAlarney was cold tonight and that might have been the difference and we didn't get the help from Peoples and Zeller that we've been getting at home. But credit to UConn, they shot well from the outside, Thabeet was very difficult to get around on the inside. He's not that much of a threat as a shooter right now but he does alter shots. I feel pretty good about the team right now, Louisville is another road game that will be very tough to win. They are, UConn, very talented and just now finding their stride. This is a good Irish team, not great like final 4, but if they can continue to play at this level they could make a sweet 16 run. I really like Luke Harangoody.
The Irish played well tonight but not well enough. UConn is a much better team than when we played them at home. That sophomore center of theirs is a monster. IMO the key to the game was UConn blanketing McAlarney who lit them up in the first game. He was not a factor. On the other hand, Harangody had a career best 33 points to go with his 15 rebounds, quite an improvement over his 5 for23 shooting in the first game against UConnn. Anyway, the good news is that this was not a double-digit loss, and it shows that we can play tough on the road against tough teams.
I hadn't realized, but Kurz really didn't have a good game offensively and combine that with them cutting of McAlarney that was key for them. But you are right they are a much improved team from the last time we played. They also are faster and more athletic than we are...too many white boys for the Irish!
Well today we were lucky, with 9 secs left Harangoody misses the front end of a 1 and 1 and 3 RU guys go after the rebound and knock it out of bounds, then they foul McAlarney and he sinks both free throws to put us up by 3 points and give us the win. If RU gets that rebound they are only down 1 point with the ball and time running out, they might have pulled off the upset. But they didn't, and in the B.E. any road win is a good road win! Now we have 2 home games this week against Pitt and Syracuse who is comming off of a big upset of Georgetown. Both of these games will be very tough and we need to win them to keep our hopes up for a bye in the BET. Go Irish. Terry
Wow what a big win for the Irish tonight at the Joyce. Bam Bam was great, and Tory Jackson is fast becoming one of my favorite players. How can you not like a PG who has 15 pts and 13 Rebounds!!! He's become the player and leader that I'd hoped Chris Thomas would become but didn't. In some ways the loss of Kyle McAlarney last year when he was expelled for marijuana possesion was a good thing for Tory. He got more playing time and experience than he would have if McAlarney had not had his problems. It's no doubt helped him to be ready to have the type of year he's having now. Go Irish!
Good show of poise tonight. Down 10 midway through the second half they stayed with their game, started hitting from behind the line and put the game away with about 2 min. to go. I like this team.
The Irish did look impressive last night. I think I remember them being down by 11 in the second half to come back and win it.