Bracket Buster Busts Falcons

Well, the Bracket buster was not kind to our Falcons today, as an 8-18 Canisius team came into Anderson Arena and came away with a win.

I don't know what it is about playing at home that is not working for our guys, but we're just not getting it done at home. Maybe it is the ghost of Gregg Brandon?

The Falcons came in short-handed on inside players. Chris Knight was not available, and of course, we're without Marc Larson for the remainder of the season. And while in his post-game Coach Orr says that is no excuse--we need to have the guys we have do what we need to win--I think that the lack of inside play was the difference in the game.

We were outrebounded by 11, gave up 34 points in the paint and 17 second chance points. There were also a lot of fouls, and we had an 11 point deficit on made free throws.

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Furthermore, when the season began, our depth was a strength. Today, we had to play a 7-man rotation and four of the starting five went most of the way. I think that came through in overtime when the Falcons scored only 4 points.

Finally, Otis Polk continued his slump. We have seen what Otis can do earlier this year, but we have also seen him slump, as he did tonight with 4 points, 5 boards and 5 fouls in 26 minutes played. Check out the games after 2/4.

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Still, despite a relatively weak performance by an under-manned team, the game did go into overtime. That is almost solely due to the heroic play of Nate Miller, who has gone from a suspension to start the season to being a player that carries the team on his back.

He had 22 points and 13 boards today, and he added 3 steals. (He put himself over 1,000 points tonight). He also grabbed a board and drained a last-second 3 pointer to throw the game into overtime, and scored all four points in the overtime, too. I believe he is an All-Mac performer, and he is truly playing like a senior who knows that he is playing his last basketball games.

We had another crowd over 2,000, which makes two in a row, and I just really wish we could reward our new fans with a victory. Both of the last two are games we really should be able to win.

In the post game, the Coach said that we got beat on the hustle plays--rebounding, loose balls, etc.

There are now four games left in the regular season. Kent State comes back into Anderson Arena on Thursday, and that's going to be a pretty big game for us. I'd like to see us bounce back like we did in Buffalo--a game we more or less won with the same limited lineup we showed today.