Villanova Game Thread

[Kevin Reilly]

Swain comes back in and Villanova goes right at him . Conwell and Swain are really struggling. Throwing the ball away again. Hate to see Dixon get going.

[muskieman]

Dixon is waking up. Sean goes with a smaller lineup, and Dixon takes advantage of seeing the ball go through the hoop. From 2 points to 15 points(5-7) in no time, he is more aggressive and getting foul shots. Faking threes and getting "and ones."

The ref is letting him pound the ball and then body on defense. X has 8 to 3 fouls this half so far.

[muskieman]

one ref seems to have a better eye on X fouls but misses Nova's physical play. Nova leads by 11. Dixon has scored 18 this half

Nova scored 40 points in half with 3:46 to go. X has not kept up the scoring

[Kevin Reilly]

We are tired again. Our offense is being pushed farther and farther away from the basket.

[muskieman]

Nova has three guys ith 20 or more points. Conwell is even missing foul shots.

[muskieman]

12-24 vs 8-19 from the three. Sean's small ball didn't work and only let Nova get hot. Sean gave up on this game

The 60% chance to lose came true

[Kevin Reilly]

We are now 2-7 on the road. Probably a real longshot for the tournament . Conwell and Swain had very tough games. Swain didn't compete on the defensive end at all. His man drove by him the whole game. If Maddox didn't have a great game we might have lost by 25. Freemantle played well but didn't have much help. Fourteen turnovers is too much to overcome. Hard not to start thinking about next season.

[connecticut72]

We gave up 47 pts in the second half and that is too many. We also had trouble scoring in the second half. No easy buckets but we are not going to win when you get that kind of performance from Conwell, swain and Hunter. Freemantle was ok but took a bad three at a critical juncture and turned it over a couple of times around that same time. That was enough for Sean. Frankly, I was surprised to see the stats as close as they were in all categories. Even turnovers there was only a 6 difference. Not good but I thought it might be worse watching the game. I agree with MM man small ball did not work. In fact I do not think it was one of Sean’s better coached games.

[bluegrass]

Maddox came to play. Lucky we are not down by 10. Ten turnovers in the first half is terrible. Conwell had some nice assists but needs to get moving.

Conwell be might the most maddeningly inconsistent player I’ve seen at X. It’s either 5 points or 20. He’s a head case. This team is just not good enough. The last 10 minutes was pathetic.

[muskieman]

Can anyone explain Cam Fletcher's 2 minutes at the end of the game, granted he hasn't played him much but how will he fit in with 2 minutes. Is it all next year for him?
Why did Sean go small ball? Hugley is given so small a leash that if he doesn't score and make plays immediately, he is pulled and doesn't return.
Can't our coaches manage playing time better? Are the coaches distracted by things other than basketball? Is the head coach?

It is shameful that Threemantle doesn't have a big man in whom Sean has confidence. Why can't he see that three bigs are not enough, especially when they have a history of injury? He is playing with eight guys, and they are wearing out.