We were a bit fortunate to win tonight. Some favorable calls. Some amazing bail-out shots by Josh and 1 key 3 by James.
This was not a really good game by Jrue. Fouls took him out early. Came back in and he was ok, though he made a few poor passes.
Actually, imho we were better with Roll in the game. Mike was very active playing D with his feet. He was also hitting his 3’s. Steadying influence.
Darren was amazing. I think he got into Haye’s head by making an easy block of a pull up J in the lane early in the game – then he just harrassed the guy throughout.
For the second game in a row, the best talent out there was not a Bruin. This guy Bramos was killing us all night until he tired a bit by the end of the game. Kind of an uncomfortable trend when we don’t have the best guy out there against Prairire View (Hugee) and Miami (Bramos).
Northeastern gave Mich a fight before going down by about 15. I think we can take Michigan with some better play from guys like Jrue and James. Then … next up …

Just got home from Pauley and boy am I exhausted. Everything just felt really out of whack tonight. I don’t know if it was playing on back to back nights or just early season kinks, but nothing seemed to be working right. Our defense was giving up open layups, the timeouts seemed incredibly long (3 Dance Team routines in one timeout, I’m not complaining, but just made there not be much flow to the game), and even the Yell Crew seemed to be off on cheers.

The biggest problem with CBH’s teams is that when we don’t get turnovers we struggle. I don’t know what the numbers were, but I recall in the games we lost last year that we didn’t force many turnovers in them. This keeps us from getting easy baskets and makes us have to do everything in the half court. I credit Miami for taking good care of the ball and not being intimidated by the bright lights at Pauley.

I think the turning point in the game was about half way through the first half when we had I think a 6 point lead or so and momentum and JA came from DC. We had a couple of bad possessions in a row and instead of pulling away from Miami, we allowed them to stay in it and gave them confidence. Obviously DC cant play the whole game, but we will need better game management from JA in the future which I am sure he will develop as the year goes on.

I still think we take way too many 3s. 27% is not a good percentage for a team that is going to be dependent on it. I know ND and JS are shooters, but they have to learn when it is not going from outside. Thankfully, JS realized this and had some nice mid-range jumpers. DC did a great job today taking it to the basket and I hope that our bigs will do a better job of offensive rebounding his misses when their defender leaves them to try and block DC’s shots.

The referring was terrible. That is never an excuse for how we played, but the refs tonight were terribly inconsistent and really never allowed the game to develop any flow to it.

Lastly, it is really sad that we have the 4th ranked team in the nation and a team trying to make it to the Final 4 for its fourth straight year, and there is still about 1/3 of Pauley with empty seats. I guess I am kinda calling out people with season tickets to either use them or sell them or give them to someone who will actually so up and cheer on our Bruins.

Seems a little earlier to be saying this, but “Survive and Advance.”

Go Bruins!

was the shoddiest piece of work I have ever witnessed at a basketball game. Even so, our defense looked pretty solid along the perimeter but was weak on the interior for the most part. Our offense is virtually non-existent in the interior as well. We really didn’t have any put-backs or layups at all. I know some people are ok with that and think that we can do it all from the arc, but we can’t. We have to develop this interior game in order to go further than we have. No great team can be a one-trick offensive pony. That said, I think we CAN do it, it just needs to be a focus for our big guys.

On an atmospheric note: Towards the end when everyone in Pauley was about to have a heart attack, the Den got everyone in the pavilion to stand up and cheer. It was really powerful. Our Den, however, needs to be more active throughout the game. Our cheers die after 15 seconds and Mike Roll even had to start motioning for us to make some noise. Only then did we really get into the game. That said… GO BRUINS… let’s show ‘em what we’re made of in NY.

We’d better get really good at guarding that UCLA cut, cuz Michigan will utilize that about 2 dozen times a game. At UCLA, Howland is 1-2 against John Beilein coached teams (please someone tell me if I’m wrong on that), with the only victory coming against a team in its first year with a new coach and earlier in the season. I have a feeling come next Thursday we are in for another battle. I wouldn’t even be surprised if we lost.
It’ll be interesting to see who gets matched up against Manny Harris, a 6’5 guard who scored 26 points in Michigan’s last game. Of course, position labels have little meaning in Beilein’s weird offensive scheme.