Thomas wrote:

What do you guys think of the SCREAMING UMass fan sitting near the announcers, you can hear his every word!!LOL  It's a terrible sign for UMass that their arena is so empty that you can hear the loudmouth fan so clearly!!

A loudmouth Masshole? I am shocked, SHOCKED: Their´s is programme that has fallen as mightily as URI´s. Glad GW never financed or built a new arena during Jarvis´ heyday...

Who doesn’t like Paar? He’s a true freshman big man. He is going to be awesome. The kid is still growing for Christ’s sake. He can’t bang like a healthy Toro, but he’s also 18 and has time to hit the weights. He also doesn’t need to be on the block on offense, either.

Announcers are being very complimentary to JC right now.

Wow
Happy for them - seeing improvements every game.

GW is on the upswing! 

Been a long time since we could say that, but it’s starting to come together.  Been a long time since we had a road blowout over a top 200 team. 

I loved two things in JC’s postgame interview. 

1). Complementing the angles of the ball screens set by Paar and Stallings, and crediting that for potter getting to the rim so regularly.  That’s the kind of detail Mojo never talked about and honestly I don’t ever remember hearing a coach talk about (or focus on) not just setting screens hard, but the angles on which those screens are set.

2) he said that if Umass made three straight shots, he was going to call time out and had decided that before the game, because he didn’t want Umass to get hit. 


You could feel us getting better the first theee A10 games, even though we couldn’t finish, and I’m glad the process is getting rewarded with wins and the confidence is growing.  Let’s keep it going!

And I really like Paar. He will get stronger. But he's seems to be a learner and what I said before is that he can make easy layups. Shows a lot for a Freshmen. As for the JC interview I really liked his comment about staying calm. The game will go up and down but the team that usually wins is the one that plays consistent and steady. I think Richmond and Davidson play this way.  Hey, We won 2 in a row! 

A small point, but I was particularly impressed with the maturity of Battle.  He is our second leading scorer and appeared to be the focus of UMass, who played a smothering defense on him.   Rather than forcing the issue, he took only 3 shots for the game (I believe all in the first half) and still had 7 points and 7 rebounds and no turnovers, while the team still managed to put up 75 points on the road, which was one of our  highest point total of the year.  Showed alot of maturity and selflessness. 

Last edited by Long Suffering Fan (1/18/2020 7:11 pm)

Blowing out an A10 team on the road. Any A10 team. Nice!
Glad we were able to steady the course after giving us a bit of concern. Some luck, but some mettle
and in the end, brains, too.
Maceo scoring 3s and a lot of 2s and having a good game in the stats is great for him--and us. As JC pointed out, he has been doing things that don;t show up in the boxscores, as does Ace and Chase.
And actually Jamison, who didn't get a lot of 3 opportunity, but really helped out on defense and rebounding.
Armel had his usual out body second half. Senior leadership, though needs to do a bit less for us to thrive in the future. We need to depend less on him.
And with both Maceo and Jamison making 2s, it shows that we don't need to over rely on 3s to win, even though that's our philosophy. Sometimes, you need to adjust the philosophy to the game--and it worked out today.
Non Ace walkons should have been in earlier. And one didn't make it in. Remember Kethan's injury in meaningless  last 10 seconds of a game? And give Adam a heat check earlier.
However, JC did well in preparing the team and using his timeouts and playing Mezie and Sean at least a bit. Also, JC impressively noted how Maceo was helping out on the little things when he was a bit scoring challenged in recent games.
   In the last couple of games, we seem to be more of a team, It's important to win, even if we are not going to postseason play (not giving up, but let's just say unlikely at the moment) because it helps morale and recruiting. If you can tell someone that their signing can put us over the top, that helps.
Glad to have two wins a row. Good job, players and coaches.

Please thank me for going grocery shopping when UMASS was within 8.  I'm getting superstitious in my old age.   Now I can go watch the recording with a cold one or two.

A conference road win is a great confidence booster and reflects hard work by the coaching staff. Once again, I will state that Potter is the teams MVP. I am looking for him to be 1st or 2nd team all A-10. Why didn’t he show this last year. His playing time was limited and he was not given the reign he has now. Remember, coaches at Michigan did not play Tom Brady for four years. Did Maceo Jack get off the bench his freshman year and Jordan Roland is showing that there are very few coaches in MENSA. This team may be a significant factor in the tournament. Dayton and VCU might over whelm us but stranger things have happened. I foresee a winning streak developing.

Jumped 30 spots in KenPom to 205.