Game 25, 2023-24: at LaSalle (2/17)

[NilesGold]

OMG, at least we fought hard at the end. Lot of bad calls.

Keep fighting, keep building, learn from the losses...STAY POSITIVE.

Come on, a road loss by one point to a team with a great coach and three outstanding players doesn't undermine the Richmond win, it just doesn't build on it.

Let's take the next two...

Completely disagree. This 100% undermines the Richmond win, and Frank owns this loss.

[eldonabe]

One step forward two steps back….

[Juice Stand]

This seems a little flimsy. If they were so gassed, why did they play worse in the first half than in the final 10 minutes when they cut it from an 18pt deficit to 1? If they were truly that gassed, they would have just been blown out and not came back

The fact is they played their last 5 games in 21 days, not 13.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m a big FM fan. But, it’s his job to have the team ready to compete. They clearly were not ready today. This one is on him.

1/27-@ St.Louis
2/3-Mason-1 week later
2/[email protected] days
2/11-URIne-4 days
2/14-@Richmond-3 days
2/17-@LaSalle-3 days

I think his comment included the VCU game and he changed the process to accommodate that. Sounds like he thought he could change up the preparation for LaSalle and still pull out the win today.

I didn't hear it from the horse's mouth, so I'm not going to be too hard on him, but it's a BS excuse for not being prepared to play. It's a totally normally February schedule. Everybody is banged up, tired, playing a lot of games, etc. We just had a week off at the end of January to the beginning of February and have only played 4 games since then. That's weak stuff from Frank. Now you have really tough opponents coming up with games against VCU and St Bonaventure this week, no small task.

[Juice Stand]

Marqui Worthy plays 10 minutes. 0-4 from the field with 0-2 from 3 where he is shooting 11% for the year and 2 turnovers. In addition maybe the worst defender on the team. Frank should go 8 deep period.

ugh, yeah, it's a shame. I think we're probably all rooting for Marqui and like his toughness, but that was absolutely brutal and may have cost us the game (not blaming him by the way, it's Frank's responsibility to manage substitutions). With three minutes remaining in the first half, it was a 1 point game following Robert Davis' 4-pt play, and from that point on Marqui went turnover, foul resulting in two La Salle free throws, missed 2pt shot, missed 3, missed 3, and just like that we're down 10 at the half. It was one of the worst stretches of basketball I've seen in a long time, and he was getting toasted on defense too. I just can't figure out why in the world Frank kept him out there. I felt bad for the dude.

From the Gazette recap:

“That killed us,” said Martin of Thompson’s first-half foul trouble, though the head coach admitted in the postgame that if he had to do it over again he would’ve inserted Thompson back into the game sooner.

[MakeMullinsGreatAgain]

this is a normal schedule for college kids - every team in the country plays twice a week - if this is indeed true and the kids were gassed then this does not bode well for us in Brooklyn - if they can't play 5 games in 13 days how will they be able to play 4 in 5 days??

[InnervisionsUMASS]

That sucked, no doubt. It was worse from a fan standpoint that we stormed back and nearly won it... what a kick in the nuts. But we still fight, which is good to see. Unfortunately, a major missed opportunity.


I don't know much about all this being tired talk, the certainly weren't too tired to come by from down 18 or whatever it was. But if that's the case, maybe the team's travel plans for the week should have been thought through a bit better knowing you have back to back games in Richmond and Philly.

[Floyd]

IV -- UMass Travel Agent

[InnervisionsUMASS]

IV -- UMass Travel Agent

Yep... and not to be the bearer of bad news, but we have another back-to-back trip coming up at GW and Davidson. That's a Tuesday-Saturday, so there's an extra day vs last week's trips.... but they might want to figure this out if fatigue is really a problem.

[UMatt]

That sucked, no doubt. It was worse from a fan standpoint that we stormed back and nearly won it... what a kick in the nuts. But we still fight, which is good to see. Unfortunately, a major missed opportunity.


I don't know much about all this being tired talk, the certainly weren't too tired to come by from down 18 or whatever it was. But if that's the case, maybe the team's travel plans for the week should have been thought through a bit better knowing you have back to back games in Richmond and Philly.

Was thinking the exact same thing! So they flew home from Richmond late Wednesday night, then spent one day in Amherst, then bussed (I assume, since I saw the Peter Pan bus outside the arena on Saturday) down to Philly on Friday? I'm not saying that's why we lost, but it made me wonder if George Costanza took the reigns as traveling secretary. I can only hope the travel plans are a little better for this last road trip next week.

[inthescoop]

^Who's the UMass bus driver? Kramer or Georgie?

[Juice Stand]

That loss to LaSalle still stings a little, but it doesn't look like such a bad loss now that they've won 3 in a row. They beat us, then beat St Bonaventure by 13, and today they smacked URI around by 23 points. That's a damn good stretch and they suddenly look like a dangerous team.

[Quann]

You never know what UMass team you are going to get game in or game out. Makes it exciting