that was about the closest thing to NCAA tournament atmosphere our team could get. What a game! Easily one of, if not the, best basketball game I have ever been to. Here's my take:
Our Team:
We played a pretty solid SEC road game. Free throws were terrible, and yes cost us the game. Other things cost us the game too though, including the lack of Hansbrough until overtime (he was as cold as Foster was hot), shot selection by Rhodes and Gordon was bad in the first half (Gordon wants to shoot the 3 ball way too much), and the lack of points we created off of Vandy turnovers. Vandy played horribly in the first half. They could not buy a shot for the longest time and turned it over alot as well. We did not capitalize on these opportunities like we had to to win. I'm not down on any one player at all, I think our guys all really played hard and for the most part played well.
Our Coach:
Two complaints. One the play we drew up with 1.6 seconds left in regulation was too obvious. I think everyone of the 14,000 fans knew Gordon was taking the shot. I would have thought an inbounds to Rhodes under the basket and just let him go up and get the shot off and see if he could hit it or get the foul would have been less expected. Two I don't understand why we sub 4 guys in at once and keep them out there so long. We played about 5 minutes of the first half with our second team in the game. Rotate our subs in and keep at least 3 starters out there seems to make more sense to me. I do not claim to know anything about basketball coaching though, and for the most part I thought Stans had a heck of a game plan in place.
Foster:
Unbelievable performance. People say double him. We did. People on here say we should have denied the passing lanes to him. We did. We cut Foster off as good as anyone could. He would literally go around and one of his guys would hand the ball off like a quarterback and then he'd heave a shot from 30 feet out with two guys in his face and sink it. All nine shots were pure beauties. No rim touches, just nothing but net.
That said if we had played them on a neutral court we'd have won in regulation by 10. They are a good basketball team, that is a great team at home.
Our Team:
We played a pretty solid SEC road game. Free throws were terrible, and yes cost us the game. Other things cost us the game too though, including the lack of Hansbrough until overtime (he was as cold as Foster was hot), shot selection by Rhodes and Gordon was bad in the first half (Gordon wants to shoot the 3 ball way too much), and the lack of points we created off of Vandy turnovers. Vandy played horribly in the first half. They could not buy a shot for the longest time and turned it over alot as well. We did not capitalize on these opportunities like we had to to win. I'm not down on any one player at all, I think our guys all really played hard and for the most part played well.
Our Coach:
Two complaints. One the play we drew up with 1.6 seconds left in regulation was too obvious. I think everyone of the 14,000 fans knew Gordon was taking the shot. I would have thought an inbounds to Rhodes under the basket and just let him go up and get the shot off and see if he could hit it or get the foul would have been less expected. Two I don't understand why we sub 4 guys in at once and keep them out there so long. We played about 5 minutes of the first half with our second team in the game. Rotate our subs in and keep at least 3 starters out there seems to make more sense to me. I do not claim to know anything about basketball coaching though, and for the most part I thought Stans had a heck of a game plan in place.
Foster:
Unbelievable performance. People say double him. We did. People on here say we should have denied the passing lanes to him. We did. We cut Foster off as good as anyone could. He would literally go around and one of his guys would hand the ball off like a quarterback and then he'd heave a shot from 30 feet out with two guys in his face and sink it. All nine shots were pure beauties. No rim touches, just nothing but net.
That said if we had played them on a neutral court we'd have won in regulation by 10. They are a good basketball team, that is a great team at home.
