Being in Vegas and seeing RU Nation show out was very prideful. The disappointment is that we really should be 3-0 instead of 2-1 coming out of Vegas. Being up 9 on A&M with 10 minutes left with a wonderful second half surge and a much better rebounding effort , had me thinking things were in control .,We finally got our third scorer with Jeremiah with 20 and ACE with 24 and Dylan with 18. On almost most nights that is a win. But the refs who were batshit crazy calling breathing as a foul , caused almost our whole team into foul trouble , fouled out our 2 centers , and unnecessarily inserted themselves. Not giving Pike a pass , calling an unnecessary timeout up 7 or 9 , then allowing them to go on a run. Why was Jordan on Taylor and not Jeremiah, clearly our best defender with length ? The little mistakes down the stretch from Martini , the run out after Dylan ‘s turnover , the pass by Jordan to no one causing another run out.
We had done a great job adjusting to A&M ‘s defense which had a 1-2-2 to prevent Dylan driving downhill , but got the ball to the corner and a cut resulted in layup versus layup. Of course PJ not hitting an open three or JMike not hitting an open 3 when Jordan had Ace for the alkeyoop dunk that would have caused a timeout as we were ready to blow them out are just frustrating as hell. The overall 42-17 free throw disparity , foul trouble and foul outs it caused was too much to overcome once the little errors made in the late part of the game.
But overall , if you not encouraged by Ru after Vegas get a brain and give up watching good college basketball. You really do not know basketball. Dylan Harper put up 2 of best games a freshman has ever had in college basketball history nd had an off shooting night and only put up 18 in the third one.
ACE in the last 2 games against Alabama and A& M was unstoppable and displayed the NBA talent .
Jeremiah scored 10 in the Notre Dane and Alabama games , limited by foul trouble , but scored 20 today as our third scorer and was terrific cutting and on the offensive boards.
3 top scorers will normally be enough. Have to clean up the rebounding and the fouls , although the refs were horrendous in all 3 games , where we did not benefit in any of the 3 , but clearly were hurt in all 3.
This team will not only make the tourney but will likely challenge for the BiG 10 title.
Pissed as hell we didn’t go 3-0 but the glass is much more than half fulll. For the first time Pike challenged his team in a big time tourney, and will learn more from these 3 games , than all the cupcakes we played the prior 7 years. Stock up.
