Another away game on the road for the Pipers yesterday. We stayed in Madison, WI before heading to Whitewater for our game. We got there a little early and were able to check out some of the facilities that Whitewater had to offer. It was a great facility with a massive field house, gym, and swimming pool. The main attraction was the display of the national championship trophies. They had won two in men's basketball as well as a couple in football. I need one of those, BADLY.
We got off to a pretty good start and actually made some 3's for the first time in a while. We still were going a lot of standing around on offense which I can't stand. Whenever we got into the paint good things happened. I don't understand how our guys don't get that, ever. We might have one or two straight quality possessions and then we got back to standing around and hoping someone else will make a play. I can't stand that. We finished off 6-16 from 3 in the first half, meaning more than half of our shots were 3's. Not exactly how we planned it but we were getting decent looks. We executed two "end of game plays" at the end of the first half and got a 3 from Tyler Pannell to push our lead to 12 at the half. Our guys were excited, as was the staff.
Second half started with quite a bit of back and forth play (surprise, surprise). We got their most explosive player, Antone Byrd, in foul trouble including a "T" and that helped us get our lead back up to 12, and it seems like we were in control. Carl then got two quick fouls on and 1's. It seems like anyone we put in after Carl couldn't get it done defensively on their big guy. It literally seemed like every time we made a sub, he scored. Unacceptable to say the least.
As the second half rolled on, we just made mistake after mistake and let them back in the game. Guys were playing like Cameron from Ferris Bueller's Day Off. We had several chances to put them away and just couldn't. Now, they are an extremely talented team but there is no excuse for how we played. We survived until overtime and then all hell broke loose. We had too many opportunities that we didn't take advantage of. We didn't play physically or mentally tough. As a staff, we have to find toughness somewhere. We'll see what happens.
We ended up losing by 11. It might have been the highest scoring overtime in history as Whitewater scored 27 and we scored 16. To finish the game, they outrebounded us by over 20, forced us into 25 turnovers, and shot 30 more free throws than we did. Hmmmmmmmm, not going to win those ones. The scary thing about it was that we were right there and should've won. I might be completely bald by the end of the season.
We play at Gustavus on Monday to get league play going again. We have Bethel on Wednesday and then Macalester on Saturday to finish the week.
RAY BROWN UPDATE: Ray went down to Fort Sill, Oklahoma to tryout for their PBL team and was the last cut. Hopefully, he'll see what it takes for him to make it there or someplace else. We'll see what happens and I'll to keep you updated on his status.
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