Incredible atmosphere at Coarseness last night. While I was disappointed we didn't come near to a sellout, the fans that WERE there were loud down the stretch. I hope we can get that more consistently.
Even waking up this morning I still had a hard time processing the fact that we stole that game last night. This team has shown an ability to dominate the last 5 minutes of the game. Last night, outscoring Rutgers 10-3 during that span. We definitely got the good end of the whistle during the 2nd half, but our guys have shown incredible resiliency thus far. Even if its only Rutgers, we lost to a D2 team by 34 points 15 days ago. Really nice strides being made.
Yankuba Sima once again showing he's the real deal, this time doing it against a bigger back line. He keeps it so simple but does some of those simple things really well, especially defensively.
You can tell Felix really embraced being in a roll where he's empowered. He's bought into sharing the ball and was just the right magical elixir to our rebounding issues. He plays so much bigger from the guard spot because of his wingspan and leaping ability.
Mvouika once again up and down, but love his leadership and fire.
We're getting better at breaking the press as a TEAM. We need 4 guys really involved in the press break and it's slowly rounding into formation. Feel bad that Mussini is playing a bit out of position, especially as he faces length and athletes he never faced in Europe, but it is what it is.
We need Durand Johnson to be more consistent offensively. Way too up-and-down for a senior.
Movement off the ball was stagnant for a lot of the night, but success was found throwing it into the post and really driving the rim in the second half. A true grind it out game.
Christian Jones was pretty bad for most of the game, but did some nice things down the stretch.
It was great to win it in front of Lavin, who was texting on his phone for much of the game and not paying attention to it, which is all too apropos for his approach here for the last few years. Nice to hear he was mingling with fans though, as that was always his strong suit and won people over with him instead of the results and effort of his actual work, or lack thereof.
Really hoping we can get Ellison and/or Darien Williams back. I know the lines used were "sore foot" for Ellison, but would he really be in crutches and in an air cast for that? A bit skeptical that was it, but hope I'm wrong and he's available for Maui or somewhat soon.
Overall, nice win and an even further indication of the culture that this staff has put in place with a roster that was assembled in only 3 months. Onward and upward...
