Postgame: Empty Possessions Cost Bucs

Tonight was ugly. The countless empty possessions, especially in the last five minutes, really made the game tough to watch. But when you consider that we held Belmont to 72 points (well below their average) without one of our best perimeter defenders, and we're still comfortably in second place, there is at least some upside here unless you expected us to win today. Quite frankly, I didn't.

Analysis in the form of Green Stat/Red Stat:

4300 - Attendance. Now that's more like it! Great turnout today, I'd like to see more like it, even though I know Upstate and Kennesaw aren't really big draws, especially a midweek fixture with the Spartans.
4 - ETSU made three pointers, out of eight. I saw that number in the box score and wanted to rip my hair out. When you're down by ten points with two minutes to go, trying to drive against a team that gives you no breathing room in the lane and then fouling a good free-throw shooting team (although we ended up with the better FT numbers today) isn't going to help your chances to win or even force overtime. Throw up the three ball. Get Micah to 30. Give the ball to Mike. I recognize that there is some hesitance to shoot the three without Tubbs, but what have you got to lose?


70 - ETSU free throw percentage. By no means great, but a good bit better than the 64% the Bucs normally shoot from the free throw line.
2 - ETSU bench points: one apiece for J.C. Ward and Curtis Wilkinson. Those two combined with Lukas Poderis for a whopping one total field goal attempt. I don't wear a toupee, but if I did, I would have thrown it on the ground and jumped up and down on it in frustration on the sidelines. Forget beating Belmont, if you want to beat any team in Division I basketball, you have to get something from your bench. The lack of production really worked me up yesterday, like Harry Redknapp gets worked up when... well, anything happens, really.

At the end of the day, though, nothing is really all that different. We're still going to have to win the tournament to get to the Big Dance, we still have to find a way to replace Tubbs' production for the immediate future, and, when healthy, we have a very good chance of winning the conference tournament. I can't imagine what would happen if we didn't, with as many seniors as we have...