I had to come in town for a friend's dad's funeral, so my buddy convinced me to extend the trip so I could stay in town for the game. After seeing that game, I wish I would've stuck to my original plan of pop in, pop out for the funeral.
Where the heck do I start?
First of all, for the love of everything Holy, let's not blame this one on the refs. Yes, they were absolutely abysmal, especially the silver haired guy, then the young guy must've felt left out because he started getting involved. The young guy's call on Crouch that Southside alluded to, has to be the worst call I've ever seen, no B.S. Crouch dove for the loose ball, got to the ball, got dove ON, then the whistle blew. How the guy on the bottom who dove to the ball without any pushing or grabbing, then got to the ball first, then got dove ON, gets whistled for the foul absolutely blew me away. There were so many whistles, it totally destroyed any flow the game should've had. I'll give them one thing, the inadvertant whistle on the over-and-back that really wasn't an over-and-back was resolved properly, although there was a screwup in the initial blowing of the whistle perhaps because the silver haired guy should've never blown the whistle on the o-and-b in the first place. Getting back to the original point, they stunk for both teams, UIC got hit harder with the carries than we did, we never should have put ourselves in a position in which they could affect the game.
Speaking of blew me away, everybody on the BU squad better take their shoes and throw them away because there must be cement or lead or something else in them that caused us to be a step slow on every defensive possession. I never thought I'd see Ruffin get blown away like he was last night, Ruffin got beat off the dribble and played on the side or behind Mayo the whole night. I don't care about anything else he did, to allow him to put up 30-odd points ruins his whole night. Offensively, he better learn to have an escape route planned when he starts driving, because he gets himself stuck down low and has to miracle his way out of the mess. Lots of nifty passes for sure, but he puts himself in way too many bad situations.
Staying with the defense, can somebody explain to me why our Centers are playing 35 feet away from the basket? UIC did not have the personnel that required our bigs to get out that far. Our middle was so open you could've driven the Peoria Charter bus through it, and UIC did! With everybody getting beat off the dribble, this was a terrible combination.
Offensively, we need to learn how to find other ways to score when the shots aren't falling. Not hitting the open shots really, really hurt us. Granted a lot of the shots were good shots, open shots, but it was just a bad night from behind the arc, especially Ruffin. Sam Singh came out of nowhere scoring wise, but had a couple of bad screens (which might've been phantom calls) and some bad decisions under the basket: not going up with 2 hands for a rebound, not going up hard after he did grab a rebound, and putting the ball on the floor after a rebound. I must say though, his awesome fake-out drive from the right elbow was one of the most bizarre plays I've seen. I've never seen slow-motion in a live event, but that was it!
The players shouldn't shoulder all of the blame. Some of the coaching decisions certainly lead to questions. I think it's safe to say we should've went to the 1-3-1 a lot earlier than we did, especially when it was apparent early that everybody was getting beat off the dribble. I also wonder why Salley saw so many minutes in the 2nd half at the expense of Collins and Theron Wilson. Salley got some boards but was a hole on the floor otherwise. After Collins' play in the first half, I think he earned himself a lot, lot more minutes than he got in the 2nd half. I said at the time Singh should've came out at the 8:00 timeout in the 2nd half for Collins, then you could see how gassed he was when he finally came out 3 1/2 mins later. Perhaps Coach Les got caught up in loyalty to the guys he's known or comfortability with them instead of getting them outta there. A very average game by Maniscalco, he got a lot of minutes that perhaps Cole-Scott should have gotten? I think his status as a legacy might just possibly be factoring in perhaps? Whether it's right or wrong, it's the way the world works, believe me I know. That being said, Cole-Scott didn't do much to earn any more from his brief appearances. Ruffin playing all 40 minutes took some of his minutes as well. I think the substitution patterns and PT will change drastically in our next game. Certainly a lot to work on in the office and tape room as well as the practice court.
Soooo, for next game there's a lot to work on.....not good after the first game of the season. Let's hope that UIC turns out to be another pre-season 8th place team that vaults itself into the dance, it'll be the only way to salvage anything out of this loss.
