Sunday, December 31, 2006

Falcons Fall Short Against UWGB

In what sounded like an ugly and nasty encounter in Green Bay, the Falcons lost 65-62. I've been urging the Falcon Nation to keep a careful eye on our early season success due to a schedule of very winnable games. UWGB is a MAC caliber team, so this was a nice test.

And you might be expecting me to say that we lost, so we're in trouble.

Actually, I think the game does bear out my point, but there's another point beneath that.

The mere fact we were even in this game is significant. We were down 1 with :28 left before UWGB drained a big three to put it to rest. We get a stop there, and we are that close to pulling it out:

This despite:

  • A 30-13 foul discrepancy that led to UWGB hitting 27 fts to our nine.
  • More on fouls...
  • Lefeld fouled out in ten minutes.
  • Five players finished with four or five fouls in the game.
  • A four minute period in the second half where we did not score...and an even longer period without a FG.
  • Giving up 15 (are you shitting me?) offensive boards.
  • Making 16 turnovers, most in the first half.
  • We made only 56% of our FTs.
How did we do it? Well, we held GB to 33% from the field, and shot 51% ourselves, including over 60% in the first half. In fact, but for the foul difference, we could have blown the game open in the first half.

So, you can see, it was ugly. But, we were there near the end, and we're 9-4 heading into the league. You can check here to see what a computer thinks of our pre-season.

Even so, its been a good December. Better than last season. Brian Moten continues to come on--he was our leading scorer against UWGB--and he is a real addition if he shows the ability that had him on scholarship at Virginia. Marschall is rumored to be back for the Buffalo game, and if he is healthy, I think we are competitive with this rotation:

Starting
Samarco
Hamblet
Dusan
Miller
Marschall

Primary bench players: Moten, Lefeld, Sims.

Final note: Darryl Clements has nearly fallen off the radar. Hopefully, he will rally and earn more playing time.

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