Winning on the road is hard, even against a bad team like Nebraska, although that frosh McGowens is something special. We looked bad much of the game, but never stopped playing hard and finally made a few shots and almost all of our FTs and got some big stops when we needed them. A win is a win is a win. Win and move on.
Winning when your stars shoot 1-10 from deep and 7-27 overall means they did some other things (Geo with 6 boards, 4 assists and 4 steals and Harper didn't do that much else, but he did hit that huge trey and made 4 FTs down the stretch) and other guys stepped up, like Mag, who had his best game at RU with 13/7 and tons of hustle plays and good D. And while none of PM (10/5/2 and 4 steals, but 0-4 from deep), CO (8/9/4 blocks), or Caleb played that well, they made contributions. We also got decent minutes from the rest of the bench, although Miller can't get a T there - just dumb. Didn't love that the defensive intensity seemed a bit sporadic, but they did turn it up at times and just enough, I guess. And that call on Geo at the end was one of the worst I've ever seen - it wasn't a foul and even if it was, it was on the floor.
One thing I do wonder is how many of the Pike haters had posts drafted excoriating him and the team and ready to publish assuming we lost, who had to leave them in draft mode, lol. Sure there are plenty of things to criticize and be concerned about, but I'll never get how negative a few can be about a guy who turned this team from a laughingstock to one that's been relevant for 4 years and was an NCAA team 2 years in a row for the first time since the mid-70s and won our first tourney game since 1983. Hope he can get some scorers to help replace Ron and Geo and not have too much of a dip next year, although a dip does seem likely. Going to be extremely hard to overcome our bad losses this year to make it back to the NCAAs, but we're not out of it and I'll be there cheering the team on.
Winning when your stars shoot 1-10 from deep and 7-27 overall means they did some other things (Geo with 6 boards, 4 assists and 4 steals and Harper didn't do that much else, but he did hit that huge trey and made 4 FTs down the stretch) and other guys stepped up, like Mag, who had his best game at RU with 13/7 and tons of hustle plays and good D. And while none of PM (10/5/2 and 4 steals, but 0-4 from deep), CO (8/9/4 blocks), or Caleb played that well, they made contributions. We also got decent minutes from the rest of the bench, although Miller can't get a T there - just dumb. Didn't love that the defensive intensity seemed a bit sporadic, but they did turn it up at times and just enough, I guess. And that call on Geo at the end was one of the worst I've ever seen - it wasn't a foul and even if it was, it was on the floor.
One thing I do wonder is how many of the Pike haters had posts drafted excoriating him and the team and ready to publish assuming we lost, who had to leave them in draft mode, lol. Sure there are plenty of things to criticize and be concerned about, but I'll never get how negative a few can be about a guy who turned this team from a laughingstock to one that's been relevant for 4 years and was an NCAA team 2 years in a row for the first time since the mid-70s and won our first tourney game since 1983. Hope he can get some scorers to help replace Ron and Geo and not have too much of a dip next year, although a dip does seem likely. Going to be extremely hard to overcome our bad losses this year to make it back to the NCAAs, but we're not out of it and I'll be there cheering the team on.
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