Continue to be amazed by how this staff and team, despite the game to game volatility, just keeps pushing the overall improvement, trajectory, and momentum of the program upwards. Thought 7 BE wins would be great pre-season, by December thought they'd struggle but might get to 6, that they have 7 secured with 2 to play is just amazing.
Great atmosphere at the Garden, and agree with others we are probably a year of quality winning away from pushing that attendance figure up 2-4K. Can't discount that it was good energy as it was for 8th and 9th place in conference. If we get back to the top half of the conference think it will get that much better.
Would think Ponds came pretty close to putting a stamp on BE ROY Saturday. Incredible game from him, scoring with ease against bigger guards. Really not a lot of comparison between his and Patton's conference numbers, Lovett the other primary candidate IMO. Would be great for one of them to get this award.
Nice to grind this one out, especially against Georgetown at the Garden. But the Hoyas are just an awful basketball team. Outside of getting Pryor some quality looks (albeit often a result of bad D from us) and a concerted effort to go inside to Govan in the 2nd, they didn't really do anything impressive strategically despite the strong shooting.
We are clearly at the point where just racking up wins however we can is what matters. But next year this is the type of game we hopefully make the jump to mostly eliminating next year. Chances to step on them in both halves and didn't do it either time. When you win turnovers 22-9 and attempt 10 more shots should capitalize on that more fully. But a great win nonetheless!
I don't agree with amount of time Lovett spent on the bench Saturday unless something transpired that hasn't been reported, especially because he was having a lot of success driving against bigger GTown guards and kicking out (had almost half our team assists in 25 mins). But I can understand the rationale that Ponds and Mussini were having days and staff didn't want to go with 3 small guards against the Hoyas size. What I can't understand (and also disagree with) is the amount of time Ahmed also spent on the bench, especially at the same time as Lovett, while Ellison was on the floor (a lot of times guarding Pryor who destroyed us). Nothing against Malik, hope he has a nice role here the next 2 years, just about optimizing lineups. 34 minutes and almost 10 more than both Lovett and Ahmed doesn't seem to add up so am curious what the underlying equation is/was. Not concerned about one game obviously, and apologies to bring this up after a win, but we've seen with prior staffs how things that don't seem to add up can become an issue. Guess we'll see next year.