Georgia Southern game: 11/11/11

[milanmiracle]

Saw on the Northwest Times website that Harris stayed home to attend his sister's wedding. 

Seriously!?! Wow...

[vu72]

I find the "infinitely more athletic" an interesting comment.  So what does that mean from a basketball standpoint? In a track meet would they all beat us in the hundred yard dash?  How about the high jump?  Would they kill us?  Athleticism (read quickness, foot speed jumping ability) can be good and bad.

I doubt any of their guys were as quick as Erik or could jump, inch for inch, better than Matt.  Still, it is a team game.  Trying to do too much via athleticism (one on one stuff) can look good on the highlite reel, but seldom win games by itself.

It's a team game and as a team we played much better than GSU.  The coaching is the area that perhaps needs the most improvement as getting all these superior athletes to play as a team will win games, not trying and failing at a slam dunk!   

[historyman]

Hopefully we learn and get better.  We better do it fast with games at Wake Forest, SMU, Auburn, and South Florida coming up. 

Who says that any of those schools are better than Valpo this year?

Small-conference thinking.

Who says he was putting down Valpo or the Horizon League? He mentioned that Georgia Southern is playing WF, SMU, Auburn and SoFL. I would say that each is formidable competition for Ga Sou. Was there any mention that Valpo was not formidable or teams from the Horizon League not being formidable. I think you're reading too much into the comment and shows the inferiority you feel towards those teams that Ga Sou is playing soon.

[valpopal]

Pomeroy predicts Valpo by 3. Vegas odds have that doubled with Valpo by 6. I will be optimistic and triple Pomeroy...

Final: 90-81: Good thing I was optimistic and predicted a 9-point victory, though I didn't expect such high scoring.

[letsgovu]

I guess I don't see the point of going on another teams forums and posting stuff, but maybe thats just me.

Had a lot of fun listening to the game despite the announcing of the georgia southern broadcasters.  Was my first experience in the chat, and that definately made the game more enjoyable.

Looking forward to being back in the ARC for next weeks games. 

[ChadWC]

You got the rebounds because you out hustled us and we didn't box out with a flip.  Not to mention our two true bigs got their first taste of division 1 basketball last night.  I think we will be a much better team in 10 games as those bigs get their feet under them.  We won't win a lot of games with 6'6 post players.

If you are infinitely more athletic than us, you would have gotten the rebounds we got...I understand your frustration in losing, but there comes a time where you just admit the other team was better and stop making excuses.  We lost to Arizona because they are a better team/program overall, and we beat GSU because we are a better team/program.  We lost a lot from last year in 60% of our scoring & 40%+ rebounding, so saying you have FR/SO can't be an excuse against us.

[dylanrocks]

All I care about is who had the most thunderdunks.

[StlVUFan]

If ChadWC had posted that comment over here on our board, I could understand the reaction better.  He posted it on their forum.  Personally (YMMV) I didn't make too much of it.  Any one of us might have uttered the same thing in his shoes.

And athleticism is only one aspect of basketball, so I see no reason to automatically assume that they *aren't* more athletic than we are.  As you know, no one wins games on athleticism alone.

[agibson]

I guess I don't see the point of going on another teams forums and posting stuff, but maybe thats just me.

It could go badly, but I think it's good fun.  ChadWC, on our board at least, was the best sort.  Classy, gave us good info about his team (actually correcting some of our mis-perceptions), good spirit, etc.  Keep it coming, I say.

[valporun]

ChadWC's insights gave us an idea of what we would be facing, but we didn't know going in that Bryce was playing with about a half a deck in his hand of players available. Some of our hustle may have fallen towards the end because we had a handful of guys who couldn't get too much time off the court because we had no one to back them up. I'm happy that we could mentally outplay them at the end of the game, when we're gassed, and can't make mistakes because we don't have anyone to sub in that could make a difference. The biggest disappointment, and I'm not sure if this is due to eligibility issues or just not good,  was Kevin's fouling out, and not having someone that could have helped keep him out of foul trouble.

[bbtds]

I agree that Bryce being able to keep this team from fading at the end of the Georgia Southern game and pulling out the win shows that he will be a great coach and shows he is just what Valpo needed to follow his father as the head coach.

[FWalum]

This game was a disaster waiting to happen.... but it didn't, thanks to some very good coaching, smart play and good stamina from our players. I was extremely happy to get out of there with the W!

As far as the athletic comparison goes, I know that overall they might have appeared more athletic but from a single player standpoint I think Buggs' is the most athletic player on the floor in most games. Even in the Arizona game as the announcers pumped up freshman Josiah Turner as "perhaps the fastest end to end player in the college game" Buggs looked every bit as fast maybe even faster.  Buggs' leaping ability is well documented and perhaps never more on display as when the 5' 11" guard had a put back rebound dunk against North Carolina his freshman year.  Does that make Erik the best basketball player on the floor??? Clearly while Erik is extremely important to this team, especially on the defensive end of the floor, he is not our best basketball player and neither was Georgia Southern the best basketball team on the floor Friday night.