"First and foremost, the credit goes to Marist. They did a lot of things to disrupt us and keep the game for the most part at the pace and style that they wanted to play," said Interim Head Coach Chris Casey. "But there's always things within your control that you could have done better. We'll get back in our practice gym and get back to work and put ourselves in the position to be the team that makes a few more plays next time around."
2,301 box score attendance in their 3,200 seat McCann Arena.
The #2 Stags are back in action on Thursday, March 7 for the first-ever nationally televised game at Mahoney Arena when #9 Canisius comes to campus for Senior Night. Opening tip-off on ESPNU is slated for 7 p.m.
Post by thetripleteam on Mar 2, 2024 8:41:03 GMT -5
We’re 6-2 in our last 8 games. It’s hard to win on the road and good teams across the country have bad games. It happens…on to the next one. Well deserved weekend off for the boys. Time to recoup and make a run down the stretch. I truly thought even playing a poor game we looked better than Marist and if we are to play them again I don’t see us losing that game. Onto Canusius!
8-28 from 3pt land will not get it done. Crappy shooting game, get it out of your system and move on.
Interestingly Fields and Goodine shot okay from 3 (6-15, 40%). Everyone else was really bad (2-13, 15%).
The team was just as bad from 2 pt land (9-31, 28%). And the free throw shooting was not good either (13-21, 62%).
It is almost impressive that a team could shoot so poorly and only lose by 3.
Good point, and to be honest I was thinking the same thing when I was leaving the McCann Center. BTW that place when close to capacity as it was last night, especially with students involved, is about as tough an away environment as any in the MAAC. The atmosphere in the second half when Marist had the momentum and on a roll was loud and electric and kind of reminded me of how it used to be there about 15 years ago when they had some good teams led by their great guard Jared Jordan. No excuses for the Stags though: their shooting was indeed awful. And to add to that, quite frankly they were out-toughed in such areas as rebounding and acquiring 50/50 loose balls when it really mattered, something atypical to their norm this season. So the negative view is this is a bad loss which never should have happened considering their double-digit lead late in the first half. But the positive is that if this is indeed as bad as they can play against a top league opponent in a very tough away venue and still lose by only 3 points as the final shot missed, any improvement at all against future opponents including the Foxes should produce a better result. I prefer to think of it that way as we get near the finish of the regular season leading into the MAAC tournament, therefore echoing your "impressive" in losing thought. Indeed if the Stags play even a little better against any opponent, their chances of coming out on top should be pretty good.
We looked like last years team except with nothing in the middle. We were out toughed and played tight for a lot of the game. Marist played with a chip on their shoulders-their toughness rather than their skill beat us.
This was the performance I feared from our bigs - Yetna/was is slow - he looked “shot”. He has to be better than his counterpart in the 10-15 minutes he plays. He also has limited reasons to be on the 3pt line and not in the paint. With only one game this week, he should have been able to go all out for more minutes. Seck gives away too many pounds and too much stength. Smith looked like a true freshman not a guy that is growing into a sophomore. The Marist bigs are solid MAAC starters - not all league types. Our 4 guards plus Beechmore are enough to win the league if we get average/decent play. The MAAC is a guard league but the 5 position has to contribute
We won a similar game at St Peter’s. And will need to win this kind of game once or twice to take the tourney. Rebounding matters as much as making threes. Giving up O-boards is giving away points.
I have been in sync with caseys thinking much of the season but tonight there are two things i would have done differently I dont call the second time out with 9 seconds left. Wr had positional advantage before the timeout I have yetna in the game in the final two minutes to board. The two offensive rebounds we gave up were worse than our missed free throws
Or even Seck or Smith. I too was surprised none of the bigs were in there as the Foxes came up with those offensive boards in the key final minute of the contest. As far as the final play, it was with 13 seconds left (check the tape). Actually I don't have a problem with the fact that Casey called it at that time. But what I do have a problem with is that apparently a 3-pointer there was the only option. Driving to the basket and either getting a quick 2 or creating a pitch-back opportunity for a 3 should have been a possibility as an option IMO. That said, you can ALWAYS second guess a coaching decision in a tight game, especially when things don't work out positively. Would the Stags have come out on top if Chris had done it differently in these cited instances? We'll never know unfortunately. But overall Chris has done a great job just getting the team into the position it is currently in. Therefore I refuse to place much blame on him for any particular in game decision that for whatever reason didn't work out positively for the team.
We got out toughed. Marist played aggressively and with an attitude on both ends. Bigs need to toughen up to help make some room for our guards to operate.
“First and foremost, the credit goes to Marist. They did a lot of things to disrupt us and keep the game for the most part at the pace and style that they wanted to play," said Interim Head Coach Chris Casey.” As coach indicates the foxes controlled the pace and style of the game. FF wants to play fast on offense creating many offensive opportunities, shoot threes ( our four guards are our strength) and force the other team to play fast and make mistakes . The stags did not establish that tempo. Not sure why Casey continued to try to trap the foxes in half court zone trap. It did not work. The stags have a week off to prepare for Canisius and MSM. Let’s close out those games with wins and position ourselves as a #1 or #2 seed. Stags up!
Stags did not play well and the offense seemed out of ideas. Missed a lot of shots around the rim and open 3P. FT shooting was uncharacteristically bad. Still, I know Marist's D had a lot to do with those things and the lack of any inside presence was frustrating and could be a fatal flaw in the MAAC tournament.
I agree with those who have said that playing as poorly as we did and losing only by three with a chance to tie at the buzzer says good things about our chances going forward. I also think that the atmosphere in the gym may have contributed to our poor performance. When I walked into the gym and saw the low ceiling and high bleachers I knew it would be loud if it filled up and it surely was. As Nashville said, the crowd was electric. Maybe being on ESPNU was part of that, but it seemed that half the arena was filled with students and they were engaged in every play. The noise behind the basket in the second half was intense and had to be a factor in our bad foul shooting. It also may have been one of the reasons Marist appeared to play harder than we did (although I think our guys gave everything they had) and was able to get the 50-50 balls and tough rebounds. The players are still kids and emotions figure into their performance. Last night, the emotions were clearly in Marist's favor and may have given them the 3-point edge in the final score.
Our 29 points in the first half was fueled mainly by rebounding Marist misses and turning them over and getting out in transition. The last 20 minutes Marist took better care of the ball and shot better.
We never looked comfortable in the half court offense. Marist played aggressive defense on the perimeter, knowing if they got beat off of the dribble, their bigs were waiting to contest in the lane. Too often we had guys trying to create and get to the rim on their own, without much success. That included Jalen, who uncharacteristically tried to attack through the trees at the rim instead of going to his reliable short pull up jumper.