Good game y'all. Coogs are always stepping up their performances against us for whatever reason. Pollard gave us all sorts of fits tonight and the Hoff was rocking tonight! I think this game is scheduled too close to the Memphis game and the guys just looked completely gassed in the second half. It sucks when you're down to 8 players and two walk on who joined the team two weeks ago. Good luck the rest of the way Coogs!
We played SMU both times without our best player. Saying something. Win gives us a shot now at the tournament, but we need a run of wins to season the resume'. We had a lot of shots rim in and out in the last 6 minutes and missed a ton of FT, otherwise it would have been an easy victory. They are capable as this is a true team with depth and talent. They run an offense and they play defense too. Although I was surprised they left the offense for pick and roll down the stretch with Pollard. That was high risk in my opinion but it was working tonight. Let's see if they are mature enough to carry this momentum for a few weeks.
This was one of the greatest games I've ever seen the Cougars play. Pollard just went like all Larry Bird on Memphis. Whoa! Hits for 34 points. Zone. For Real. Galen Robinson, Dotson, both on fire. Again, our top scorer out with an injury. I mean Memphis played really well too. Sick. Pollard hitting over double teams down the stretch. We must have shot like 70% in the second half. Go Cougars! 98-90 over Memphis!
20 wins! Solid game tonight. clicking in all phases. And now to the big games. On the outside looking in, so think we need to win 4 in a row for some tournament action, which when you think about it, does it really take 24 wins now to get in? Apparently so. But this team is certainly capable of pulling this off or winning the tournament.
I think we're going to make the tournament....Wins over LSU , SMU, Temple,Tulsa ,Memphis....Decent schedule..If we can take down UConn that would seal it for sure..But even if we lose that, a couple of wins ...taking us to 22 should do it. the Cougars have played a chunk of the season without RG Jr (arguably our best player).....toss in Pollard's improving game...Things are looking good.
Joe Lunardi is pretty good with his projections as far as who gets in. Right now we aren't even mentioned in the first 4 out or next 4 out. I think we need to make the AAC finals to have a chance.
I think we have a decent shot at an NIT invite, which I'd be pretty happy with. Our OOC schedule was probably too weak to get us consideration for the NCAA tournament barring a conference tournament win. It's only Sampson's second year with the team and we're improving way quicker than I thought we would. Trending in the right direction.
We are in the conversation, getting hard to ignore us since we are beating the bubble teams and will have a better record.
Its going to be tough with how bad the OOC schedule was, but we really need to beat UCinn on Thursday and get to the finals of the AAC tournament to have a real shot at an at large bid. I still don't trust the committee to give us a bid because of the schedule. It might take us winning the automatic bid or we might be left out this year.
If we can beat Cincinnati on Thursday we'd be looking at the 2 or 3 seed. Pretty awesome. The 2 seed would give us an easy first round matchup we should win. And then either Memphis or Tulsa in the second round. I think being 2nd in the conference with at least 23 wins is a big deal, especially having beaten the bubble teams Conn, Cinn, and SMU down the stretch. We may only need a quarterfinal win. But that semi final win would cement it in my opinion. If we are 3rd in conference, then it may take 24 wins. Making it to the AAC finals to be in strong consideration. As the 3 seed we'd likely get Memphis in the quarters and then a strong Tulsa in the semi's. If we are 4th or 5th, it would likely mean winning the tournament. With a first round matchup against UCONN, and second round matchup with TEMPLE, and a Finals against UCINN. All of these matchups are tough, but would be wins against bubble teams.
We still have some really bad loses and a bad RPI, we need to make the finals to even be considered in my opinion, which is very doable with how we've been playing lately.
Everything went wrong in that first 10 minutes. Ice Cold. Cincinnati on fire. But still up 13 at the half because of wicked interior defense. Against a big team too. More speed, jumping, and hustle. Harden made a grand entrance. And that's when we went on a huge run. Team playing great basketball. One more half.
