I think one reason why OP's post came across as negative is that his facts were somewhat off.
- He states that we were up by about 13 points with about 2:30 to go. Actually RU took a 13 point lead, its largest of the game, at the 7:18 mark. By the 2:30 mark, the lead was down to four - a lead which RU successfully protected. Big difference. Losing (or ALMOST losing) a 13 point lead with 2:30 to play can fairly be considered a collapse. Losing a 13 point lead with 7:18 to go happens all the time in basketball at all levels.
- He also states that had RU made 70% of its FTs we would have won going away. Shooting 70% from the line would have meant an extra three points. Other things equal (which they never are) the two point win would have become five. More comfortable to be sure, but hardly what one would define as winning going away.
The sad truth is that our 57% FT shooting today was not that far from our norm of 63%. Going into today, RU was ranked 335 out of 351 in FT shooting. Among the Power Six schools (I am including the Big East) that's next to last. The good news? The team we're ahead of is Seton Hall!
https://www.teamrankings.com/ncaa-basketball/stat/free-throw-pct?date=2017-02-04
First off in regards to your second comment regarding FT shooting, you're absolutely wrong on that. Yes 70% does equal three more points. But where your analysis is flawed is look how many times we missed the front end of a 1 and 1? Not only does that increase point totals, which we didn't have, but if our kids hit both shots, we could easily set up our half court defense, which we're very good at. So it's more than just 3 points.
AS to your first comment about our lead; I was mistaken, but with less than 4 minutes to go we were still up by 10. I corrected that in my initial post.
As to the negative part--I think people thought I was negative because I used the word "but" in my headline. I had just finished watching the game where I thought my head would explode in how we let them not only back into the game, but where they had a chance to beat us with a 3 at the end. And because one can't rewrite the headline the way we could in earlier iterations, I chose to put a disclaimer at the top. If anyone is excited about this coach and staff and the way they have our kids playing hard it's me.
As to the ad hominem attack, which you thought it wasn't, well that's argumentative on your part and you're parsing words not to mention it was a $hitty comment by someone who doesn't have a clue as to who I am and who doesn't go on the BB threads very often. It's find to disagree. It's not fine to come at me out of nowhere and be a a$$ about it, which he was.
