Wednesday, January 18, 2023

Another long night for MBB.....

BG was smoked in their second straight MAC game.

This time it was Buffalo, getting 100-71 over BG.  The Falcons allowed 100 in consecutive games since the 1971-2 season.  That's even before MY time.  That was one of the worst seasons we ever had.  BG went 4-20.  It was Pat Haley's first season.  He had brought a couple guys up from his HS team in Dayton, but they were playing FR ball that year.  BG had no seniors.

Certainly, BG was not set up for success last night.  With Metheny, Elsasser, Towns and Lightfoot on the bench, the Falcons were stretched.  Even by those standards, it was an ugly look.  UB was also down a starter.

UB plays fast and usually scores on us, but remember from the preview this is not a great offensive team.

Here is what a noticeably frustrated and disappointed Coach Huger said after the game

  • We got too many guys who don't compete on the defensive end.
  • We didn't compete enough to post up.  You gotta compete in order to post up and we didn't compete when trying to post up we just allow people to front us and then we don't fight for the ball after that.  We allow people to just get right in front and then that's it, the effort is over.
  • I'm so disappointed in the fight that we showed in the last two games and in the fight on defense.
  • Live ball turnovers because they were so careless. Those turnovers were so, so careless, we were just throwing the ball and they get it and they go there's no defense for that. Now they run it out and get layups because we were just careless with the ball, that's the biggest thing.  In the offensive rebounding points that they got the same thing we were right there and they just out-toughed us. They just pushed us right out of the way and we were looking for fouls from the referees

That's as good a game summary as you need.

Maybe two more.

  • BG's biggest scoring run was 7 points. (mid 2nd half).
  • Midway through the first half it was 18-14 for UB. From there, in 30 minutes, it was 82-57.

Look, I like Mike Huger and I'm rooting for him.  He's one of us.  I worry greatly that this team has quit on him.  I hope not.

Also, I don't know what it is, but I remember that Coach used to say a lot in his first 3 years that he had to coach "effort" and here we are, in the same place or worse.

We didn't have high expectations for the year.  In a way, that is its own problem.  But as thin and average as you might be, you'd like your Coach not saying things like that.

2 comments :

Anonymous said...

I listened to Huger's postgame this morning before reading your post. I completely agree with your assessment.

Huger, for years, stresses defense and effort in his post game analysis but it has never changed. We have played terrible defense for years but yet Huger makes no adjustments or coaching changes.

Serious question: Do we even watch tape on recruits to see if they play defense in high school or from wherever they transfer? If we know defensive effort is our biggest issue you have to do something different. Yet nothing ever changes on this team. Year after year, low effort and bad defense.

Orange said...

BG MAC rank in defensive efficiency in the Huger years

2023---11
2022--12
2021--5
2020--10
2019--6
2018--7
2017--11
2016--11

2015 (Jans)---1
2014 (Orr)---4