Cincinnati Postgame Discussion

Wow this team almost gave me a heart attack.  We need this one and found a way to pull it out. Huge win! Let's hear it guys...

Wow we got so lucky.  Huge game for our resume.  This Cincy team is NIT bound, their schedule coming up is brutal.

We've lost several we shouldn't have lost, and now we've won a couple we shouldn't have. Things are starting to even out for us.

This is one of those that we had to get. Especially w a terrific Pitt team coming up.

Going into the prevent offense way too early almost cost of but we pulled it out. Gotta keep taking care of business.

We didn't rebound all game and that is a problem, but I thought when we made the move to put Burrell in he really stabilized that situation.  Also, Boothe picking up that rebound and the subsequent lane violation could be the biggest play of any of these guys' careers.

Great win. I think the Bearcats backs broke when Thomas fouled out and Yhancy Gates(Or as called on the Bearcats forum "Nancy") pouted and acted like a 10 year old when being asked to go in for the game. He along with Bishop are suppose to be the leaders so having 1 distraction like that really left the team and fans in shock.

Shame he couldn't act like this in the 1st meeting.

Great win. I think the Bearcats backs broke when Thomas fouled out and Yhancy Gates(Or as called on the Bearcats forum "Nancy") pouted and acted like a 10 year old when being asked to go in for the game. He along with Bishop are suppose to be the leaders so having 1 distraction like that really left the team and fans in shock.

Shame he couldn't act like this in the 1st meeting.

Yea the Gates saga was a little bizarre.  he really could have helped them down the stretch.

I thought we lost once we got down 56-53. Good fight back and we're basically in now barring a disaster!

1 assist from Hardy? Funny, I dont remember him passing the ball once?

Solid performances off the bench for Boothe and Evans. Lavin needs to make better use of the timeouts, he waits too long imo

1 assist from Hardy? Funny, I dont remember him passing the ball once?

Solid performances off the bench for Boothe and Evans. Lavin needs to make better use of the timeouts, he waits too long imo

I thought Evans played a little too much today.  He wasn't getting it done on offense, struggled rebounding and made a few head scratching plays on offense.  He has been great in short spurts recently but his flaws are magnified when he gets extended minutes like he did today.

we didn't stop attacking against ND, Duke and UConn...as a result we won easily. Today we got way too complacent with about 10 mins left and a double digit lead. Cincy plays tough man-to-man defense, they stopped giving up the back doors and forced some turnovers. It was almost impossible to get any good offense when we waited until there was 10 secs on the shot clock to get our offense moving. While the lead was not 20, I see this much like the Fordham game, except we were able to somehow hold on for the win. Hopefully the staff and players learned a little something. Take the W and run...onto Marquette.

Turn about is fair play.

Copy of last time only this time they missed FT's and we made them.  lane violation was Huge.  Evans and Burrell 4-4 for FT's--WOW!

Do we think Brownlee missed the second on purpose?

Is Mick going to sit Gates for the rest of the year?  What a soap opera that is going to be for them; they might be better off suspending him for the rest of the year to see if he will grow up.

Do we think Brownlee missed the second on purpose?

If he was trying to miss on purpose it would have been a dumb play, but it didn't appear like he was trying to do that.  Usually if the miss was on purpose they bang it as hard as they can so its not an airball, like Brownlee's almost was.

thank god we pulled this one out, we gotta stop playing teams that just sink open 3s against our zone, out of curiousity does anyone know if that ball was kicked, .... all in all whatever, were in a good position to go minimum 9-9, probably 10-8, and maybe 11-7...

Thank god we were able to pick that win up.  Thank you Rashad Bishop for that lane violation  Also Kilpatrick...why did he foul Boothe?

I thought Evans did a nice job again.  They killed us on the boards or this would've been a runaway.  It wasn't pretty but a win is a win.

I don't think Brownlee missed on purpose.  You need to try to make it to go up by 3.

we didn't stop attacking against ND, Duke and UConn...as a result we won easily. Today we got way too complacent with about 10 mins left and a double digit lead. Cincy plays tough man-to-man defense, they stopped giving up the back doors and forced some turnovers. It was almost impossible to get any good offense when we waited until there was 10 secs on the shot clock to get our offense moving. While the lead was not 20, I see this much like the Fordham game, except we were able to somehow hold on for the win. Hopefully the staff and players learned a little something. Take the W and run...onto Marquette.

Complcent that the word and what I attributed those second half colapses during the Roberts" years  too.
 

I'm going to venture to guess that I was the only SJU fan at the game today.  This really was a huge game to win.  This V clinched our bid.  I think my heckling during the dead silence when they shot their free throws was effective because cicny fans pelted me with objects after the game.  Sometimes you just got to take sacrifices for the team.  Now we play for tournament seeds.  I believe!

I'm going to venture to guess that I was the only SJU fan at the game today.  This really was a huge game to win.  This V clinched our bid.  I think my heckling during the dead silence when they shot their free throws was effective because cicny fans pelted me with objects after the game.  Sometimes you just got to take sacrifices for the team.  Now we play for tournament seeds.  I believe!

Not so fast my friend. It's to early for that with this team. Take it one game at a time before we start seeding ourselves. Just my opinion.

- Third conference road win with three remaining.  Not bad.  If we could win just one more to go 4 - 5 away in conference it would be darn respectable.

- To win a game on a lane violation is oh so rare and oh so sweet.  To have their best player play 1 second half minute without being in foul trouble for disciplinary reasons is huge.  These are the types of breaks from the big guy I expected when I started following a catholic school.

- With 1:29 left in a real squeeker JB1 is fouled and we successfully pull off the old bait and switch as Hilton goes to the line to shoot the 1 and 1 instead of Justin and the refs don't catch it.  I could of course see trying this with Hardy boyz and anybody but Paris has a lower FT % than Burrell so it was surprising we attempted this gamesmanship with these two.  As with all of Hollywood's coaching moves lately it worked as Hilton made the front end of the 1 and 1.  I've seen this happen often at Cyo games with one ref but in a D1 game with 4 refs it's shocking.

- Great shooting night, 7 - 9, for JB2 but it might just be time for him to shelf that behind the back in the lane in traffic move.

- My favorite plays were; 
1) the three almost consecutive 2nd half perfect baseline bounce passes to cutters going right at the hole.  I think we only scored on one, Hardy, but just about the three prettiest passes I've ever seen from MalikII.  Good stuff.

2) The Mans man rebound by JB2 with 8 seconds left to seal the deal.  He went up with every ounce of leap he had against the Cincy towers and it was only enough to keep it alive tapping the ball forward then he went after it like a rabid dog outhustling/outfighting a couple of bearcats to secure it in traffic.  Didn't get called for the elbow swinging and was fouled to end it all.

- Malik II making some nice passes (see above) and impressive 2 to 1 Ass/TO ratio on the season makes his sr. year his best year ever at the point.  If only he didn't come into the game every night so reved up and looking to foul.  A little more defensive composure is warrented from him.  He just might have surpassed Dele as the Johnny most likely to commit a stupid foul ( personals not flagrants/techs - Dele still dominates that category with JB1 in second place.)  Another poster made a good point.  He's 5' 8" yet Never gets posted up?  It's quite remarkable really.

- I now understand Hollywood's plan to stubbornly stay with the trapping matchup zone mad scramble defense through tough times early in the season (Fordham etc.) when going man might have prevented some three's and gotten us a coupla more out of conference wins.  It was worth it for the tenacity, confidence, buy-in and commitment from the team we're playing it with now.  Effective as heck and absolutely flying to the ball today and against Ucan't.  Fun to watch and h*ll for the other team to play against.  We're looking like Richardson's Razorbacks out there lately.

- We desperately needed this one as we're definitely going to be 7 - 6 after the next one and possibly 7 -7 after the next two. 

Go St. Johns!