I'll Be a Son of a Shark

[CoachC]

Dec 11: We move up one spot to #12 this week, and our RPI is at 4. As expected the Falcons finally show up in the polls as well this week (#25 in the AP, #23 in the USA Today)

Martin Ray wins conference player of the week for the first time this season, and Houston is freshman of the week for the 3rd time.

[CoachC]

Our annual bragging rights game. Coming off of a 19-13 season and an appearance in the NCAA tourney, the Aggies were off to a good start again this year before getting embarrassed in a blow-out at TCU in their last outing. They'll be looking to get back on track, and will not be intimidated by The Pit. We can't let our big win over Georgia Tech make us complacent. We need to rebound and play defense as we usually do, and hope the offensive magic from our last game continues as well.

Although we shoot the ball very well again, I wasn't particularly thrilled with our defense for most of the half. Also, now that we have our perimeter game going, we aren't looking inside enough. For Ray to not even get one shot in the blocks in the entire half is shameful. We lead at the half 40-25.

Although the Aggies were content to collapse inside and let us try to beat them from the perimeter( which we did quite well), I still am puzzled about how we only able to get 2 shots in the blocks for Ray the whole game, and none for Inyo. With our perimeter game suddenly clicking though, it shouldn't be long before Ray starts getting some open looks, I would hope. At any rate, our defense was much better in the 2nd half, and the Aggies had no hope of heading us as we pulled away and emptied the bench in the waning minutes.

Houston has confidence in his shot now which is a very good thing, and led us with 21 pts, matching his career high, and had 6 rebounds as well.

Stetson had his best game of the year with 16 pts, 6 asts, 2 rebs, and 3 steals off the bench.

Despite getting only 6 shots for the game, Ray finished our double digit scoring with 11 pts, 3 asts. 5 rebs, 2 stls and a block

Thompson had 8 points, 2 asts, and Conley 3 pts, 5 asts, sharing the point.

Angelli had 7 pts, 4 rebs, 3 stls

Johnson was steady as always with 7 points, 7 rebs.

Deeper in the bench, Gerren showed some tenacity with 4 pts, and 4 rebs, 3 offensive in 6 minutes, Pat Bullock did some good things in his 6 minutes, and Frederick showed again why he's a walk-on that can help us in the right situation with 3 rebs in 2 minutes. Petion had just 5 minutes in this one because of the play of Stetson, but did a lot of things right as well.

Solid win, even if it left me scratching my head about a couple of things

Final: UNM 83 New Mexico St. 59

[CoachC]

Dec 15: Jackson and Stetson are at each other again. It's starting to affect overall team chemistry. I've stripped them of their co-captainship and given it to Vernon Johnson who has been a leader on AND off the court. I sat them down again and let them know that one more incident will result in a suspsension for both of them. This is no way for seniors (and in Stetson's case, a 5th year senior) to conduct themselves, and I'm sick of it. I've encouraged them to sit down and talk about their conflict away from the rest of the team, and if they can't do that, at least stay out of each other's way.

[CoachC]

Our 4th and final test against the Big East this season until tournament time, at least, and another tough assignment. Coming off of an 18-12 season and a first round departure from the dance, the Orange are looking for bigger and better things this year under head coach Steve Trico who has done a wonderful job resuscitating a floundering program when he took over 2 years ago. They have wins over #3 Kansas, California, and Iowa St. all at home. Their lone loss came on a neutral court to Missouri St. in the Alaskan shootout.

They'll pack a 2-3 zone against us, and we'll need to show the kind of offense we've had the last couple of games to get a win. The Orange also hit the boards hard, and the team that wins the battle of the boards and plays the best defense will probably walk out of here with a victory tonight.

Despite shooting 54.5% from the field and holding the Orange to 40.6, a lack of rebounding combined with a lack of integrity of the 2 Big East officials assigned to this game (the Orange not called for a single foul in the first half) we find ourselves trailing at the half 40-38. Already having picked up a T, there's not much I can do about the officiating except let the crowd threaten them with their lives, but the rebounding situation(11-18, 1-7) has me hopping mad, and I rant at halftime about getting to the loose balls.

After trailing by 16 with 7 minutes to go, we TRIED to make a comeback behind the crowd and cut the lead to 7 before running out of gas. Shoddy officiating or not ( i was ejected with 8 seconds left in the game) we played like we were scared. Their big guy Stephenson had his way with us inside to the tune of 18 points, 19 rebs and 3 blocks. Ray, Johnson, Jackson, and Angelli all refused to block out and kept missing assignments. There was no excuse for this perfomance and their is going to be a lot of pain involved in tomorrow's practice.

Houston continued his streak of double digit scoring at the start of his career with 13 pts, 4 rebs, 2 stls, and a block, but let his opposite number score 18.

Vernon Johnson had 10 pts, 6 rebs, 2 stl, and 2 blocks and was the only one of our big men who didn't look like a playground kid.

Angelli scored 8 but did little else.

Jackson had 9 pts, 4 rebs, and a steal but didn't play well

Ray had 6 pts, 7 rebs, 1 stl, 1 block and played perhaps the worst all-around game of his young career. Stephenson is good, but not so good that Ray should have been embarrassed like that.

our points played ok, while on the floor but were severely limited in minutes by all the phantom calls

Petion did a good job off the bench with 8 pts, but we needed someone rebounding and that isn't Osei's strength.

A disgusting game, especially since we lost by lack of effort pure and simple, and there is never any excuse for that.

Abysmal Final: UNM 64 Syracuse 73

[CoachC]

Dec 18: We are at #13 this week, and 6th in RPI. If more people on the east coast had stayed awake long enough to see us embarrass ourselves last night, we probably would have fallen a lot further. Air Force lost a tough one to #16 Mich. St. last night and falls back out of the polls, but they showed a lot more toughness than we did. Matt Houston won MWC Freshman of the week for the 4th time in 5 weeks.

[CoachC]

A return game from last year when the Beavers went 12-17. The Beavers have struggled this year, but after 4 straight losses including back to back losses in OT, they won easily the last time out versus Wichita St.

Lack of effort will not be tolerated tonight. If I see any from our regular rotation a few other deserving people are going to get significant minutes instead. We need to see Martin Ray and Jon Angelli especially to get back on track tonight.

More lack of effort by a number of key players in the first half, and as promised i began looking deeper on the bench for people ready to play. We lead by 5 at the half, but that in no way means we played well.

I treated this game almost like an exhibition. The score didn't matter (especially since we ran away and hid in the 2nd half) but individual performances did.

The Good:
Michael Thompson was outstanding with 7 pts, 9 asts, 3 rebs and just 1 turnover in a career high 31 minutes. Conley played well too when in, but this was Thompson's game.

Stetson led us in scoring with 15 points off the bench

Martin Ray showed no lack of effort, but was held to just 18 minutes because of foul trouble. While in he looked confident again, however, and had 14 pts, 4 rebs. 2 stls, and 3 blocks. Not sure why his rebounding numbers are suffering other than he keeps getting pushed so far away from the basket on offense, and there have been so many long rebounds on defense lately. I'm not really worried about Martin, but he's going to have to be more careful about the fouls.

Gene Frederick played a career high 15 minutes off the bench and scored a career high 8 points to go with 3 rebs and a block. If we aren't able to land a big man to fill that last scholarship this year, I may well give it to Gene, who is steadily earning it.

Larry Guy also did a lot of good things in his 5 minutes on the stage as well.

The So-So:

Houston did get to double figures again with 11 pts, 6 rebs, and a steal. But he also turned the ball over 4 times. His energy levels were up and down. Not a bad game, but he can play better.

Johnson had 4 pts, 5 rebs, 2 asts and a steal. Not a bad game but maybe his least impressive of the season.

Petion had 6 pts, 3 asts, 2 rebs and a steal in 21 minutes. He always gives an effort but we need more rebounding from the 3. He also needs to be willing to shoot the ball more as he's the best pure shooter on the team. I don't want to be too hard on him, as a freshman, however. He's gonna be a very good player for us before his career is over.

THE UGLY:

Angelli and Jackson each played 6 lackadaisical minutes at the outset of the game and were phoning it in. True to what I promised I sent them to the end of the bench and neither saw a single minute the rest of the game.

Gerren turned the ball over twice in 1 minute. It's not a lack of effort on his part, but he needs to harness his enormous talent and make better decisions.

Final: UNM 69 Oregon St. 50

[CoachC]

Dec 22: Gerren still struggling academically. He'll retain his eligibility for the spring, but I wish now more than ever we had redshirted the young man. He's a good kid with a ton of upwards potential, but really needed a year to acclimate himself to college life.

Air Force netted another big win last night defeating #11 Pitt 64-57. The Falcons definitely beefed up their non-conference schedule this year and have played very well against it. It's looking like a 2 horse race in the conference this season.

[PointGuard]

Nice win over Georgia Tech!

LOL re being ejected with 8 seconds left in the game re Syracuse...you rebel,you!

Jackson and Stetson...kick some ass, Coach!

Air Force seems intent on giving you a run for your money in the conference.

[CoachC]

Yeah! Scary thing is, the Falcons were ranked all season long last year without playing anyone and made a sweet 16 run. This year they are beating some pretty big snots and no one is paying any attention to them. :S

About Jackson and Stetson.. if i were playing this dynasty under my own philosophies they'd have been suspended long before now. But since Gary Winston is only an average disciplinarian, I've had to play him as such. I realized way back in CB1 that whatever you set your coach's personality traits too, you'd better stick to them. I think that's the reason I never have transfers. You sell yourself as a high disciplinarian to recruits that have that as a top priority, then by golly you'd better act like a high disciplinarian. You rate yourself low on academics and start harping on players with 2.5 gpas to study more ...you are gonna have a backlash. Gary has never confirmed it, but i think coach/player relationship has a LOT to do with what you promised them when you recruited them. Sure has seemed to work that way for me.

For Gary, even as an average disciplinarian, when both players ratings with the team started dropping it was time to step in. Haven't had a problem since, but if it happens again, he'll suspend them both immediately..

[PointGuard]

Good points! I'm not sure if the game tracks that way exactly, but I like the idea that it might (and should). And maintaining the persona you set is good for the dynasty thread.