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Rhode Dogs
Rhode Dogs
Published by Swampy Meadows
02-27-2016
Rhode Dogs

DAYTON (OH) -- As the 13,000 or so Flyer Faithful made their way into UD Arena for today’s lunchtime matinee vs. the Rhody Rams, not one of them knew exactly what they were about to witness. Which Dayton team was gonna show up? “Going Ugly Early” might have been a semi-rational strategy back in the day at Tim’s, but it is never a recommended course of action for basketball games. “Jekyll and Hyde” was most prevalent in the SBU road game, where the Red and Blue were absolutely flawless for the first twenty minutes and holding on for dear life in the last. Also not optimal.

I vote for 40 minutes of perfection and I’m sure that I am not alone.

What the fans were pretty sure they would not see is Kendall Pollard in uniform for the Flyers. However, he participated in pre-game warmups sporting a knee brace and according to Larry Hansgen, Archie said he is going to play, which is a bonus. For Rhody, EC Matthews and Hassan Martin will not dress. As if Danny Hurley’s squad has not been ravaged enuf by the injury bug, Bill Koch who covers the Rams tweeted the following last night:

URI guard Christion Thompson (concussion protocol) did not travel today to Dayton. Will not play Saturday at Flyers (noon, ESPN2)

Meanwhile, Darrell Davis is back in the Motor City from whence I just came, due to a death in the family.

Dang.

Really makes you wonder:

How the heck did Archie’s “Magnificent Seven” avoid the injury bug last year?

Introduced myself to new AD Neal Sullivan before the game. He said so far that the job is going great. The men are playing well and even tho Jim Jabir’s women’s squad has been depleted by injuries, they continue to compete. Neal didn’t expect Kendall to play much, but hopefully his presence will have a calming, motivational effect on his teammates.

The Flyers are sporting the gray unis they debuted in their victory vs. George Mason. Flyers don’t waste any time getting the rock to Steve but he travels and Four goes for three at the other end. KP enters after the Steve foul to a rousing welcome. 6-0 URI with 3 minutes gone. Now 9-0 after Four hits again. DP gets UD on the SB, but it is 13-2 bad guys, as KP and CC have had multiple shots rim out. UD is shooting 1-8 thus far and appears to have been beaten repeatedly by the ugly stick. Rhody is shooting 83%. DP for 3! It’s 13-5 at the under 12 media TO.

Kyle scores the first non-Dyshawn bucket and the tally is 15-9 after a Crosby layup. KP gets his name in the paper with a driving hoop. Archie going full-hockey coach with a line shift. Ryan uses the backboard to his advantage and the lead is 4. Flyers are now up to 33% FG shooting while URI has reverted to the norm at 47%. Mikesell scores again on a nice feed from DP.

Kendall hits and Kyle cuts it back to 7 with a layup and with 4:14 left in the initial stanza URI leads 26-19. We have a Sam Miller sighting. Hey, Charles Cooke is playing in this game! UD is matching baskets, which ain’t gonna work when your opponent has a 10 point lead. X is getting some burn now, too. Scoochie for three and the lead is 8. URI drains a three at the buzzer and the Flyers trail by 13 at the break, 38-25.

Uggghhh.

A few telltale halftime stats: Rhody has 10 assists on their 15 made FGs. Both teams had 6 TOs. URI hit 5-8 (62.5%) from the land of plenty; UD only 25%.

And here we go. Steve scores on a dime from Scooch, then commits a pointless foul and has to sit in favor of Kendall. CC can’t hit a three or a layup but does make both FTs. And here comes the crowd…there goes the crowd as URI scores another bucket in the paint. 47-31 at the under 16 mark.

Scoochie wakes the crowd up with a trey. CC matches him and it’s a ten point game. Four is on the floor but it’s a non-shooting foul on Ryan. The big boy Berry is taking over in Steve’s absence and the lead is back up to 14 for Rhody. KP with another forced shot and Berry scores again. Kendall makes 1-2 FT and Archie finally puts Steve back in to cover Berry. UD trails by 15 @ 8:00 and then by 19 with 5:29 to go. Gotta feeling this will not end well, there just aren’t enuf possessions left.

Iverson pulls up some pine with five PF and the lead is 13 with 4:00 remaining. CC splits a pair and then KD cuts it to 10 with 3:50 after a steal and layup. The crowd gets a cheap thrill as Kyle steals the rock again but CC airballs a triple. Four nails a trey and we are back to a 10 point shortfall. KP hits a pair—down to 8 with 2:37 on the clock.

Interesting that Arch is going with the four holdovers and CC at crunch time. KP misses a pair. No subs to be seen until X comes in with a minute to play.

77-65 is the final.

Archie sez:

On Rhode Island:

“They absolutely punched from the beginning. Unlike certain teams that we’ve had here -- even this team up until a couple of weeks ago – we aren’t punching back…which is disappointing.”

On his team:

“I want to apologize to our fans number one. It’s just an unacceptable performance when we have so much in front of us and also such a great crowd.”

What’s next:

“It starts with me. There is a reason why we are not playing well right now I have to figure that out. I promise you this: we’re gonna get up off the mat. It’s a two game season this week. In about 7 days we’ll figure out where we are headed.”

The slow start:

“We’re having a tough time bringing what we need to bring at this time of year. Like I told the guys this time of year is hard on everybody. Nobody gives you anything. These are the hardest games of the season. Even for the best teams that are playing the best, it’s hard. And for whatever reason, we are not setting the tone. I can’t always say that that is the case. We played these guys 13 days ago and battled hard. Our last two home games in particular we have been a shell of ourselves in terms of the identity that we need to take the floor. I don’t know if we are worrying about missing shots or whatever, but right now we are paralyzed mentally to start a game."

Does he see guys out there worrying about missing shots?

“Yeah, our aggressiveness…our tenacity on offense isn’t the same. We’ve never been just a great shooting team but the ball is usually delivered when it’s supposed to be. For whatever reason right now we do not have a great chemistry on offense. Our flow to start a game is really poor. Just look at our last three starts: at St. Louis we were down 10-2 or whatever. It’s our starting five, the group that takes the floor, is having a hard time out of the gate. There’s no real easy answers – I think everybody wants to point to one or two things. Usually this time of year, fresh minds and positive vibes usually go a long way. Right now we’re having a hard time, in my opinion, in honoring the process every day. We’re acting as if it’s hard for them (his team) and not for anybody else. But teams take different turns – sometimes it hits these kids early; sometimes you fight ‘em in the middle; you never know, you gotta keep pluggin’, keep workin’ at it, get up -- next thing you know, a couple of balls go in and guys start lookin’ good again.

On Rhody’s 3 perimeter players:

“They’re good. We had a hard time in the first game guarding ‘em. We’re having a hard time in general this season containing these guards and defending the three point line. First play of the game: Four McGlynn comes right off of a stagger screen on top, run into the screen, give him a three. The game right then feels funny. They had us spread out. Our coverages, our system wasn’t intact. Our defense wasn’t anywhere near good enough to play this time of year.”

On the late press:

“We have it in. It’s not something we have relied on. We rely on our half-court defense being solid and for the most part – 90% of the year – it’s been there; last couple of home games, it hasn’t. We needed a burst at the end of the game clearly it’s something we can look at. We needed a bolt, get a real jolt and get going. But it (the press) is in the package.”

On the team confidence level:

“We have matters. I don’t think we lose back-to-back home games if we are extremely confident. It just doesn’t happen. I’m not sure where the confidences went away. That’s the puzzling thing about coaching a team. A team can take different avenues to get to different routes. Sometimes you struggle in January and they get rolling in February. Right now this is the first team in a couple of years that February doesn’t feel the same as it has been. I think our guys right now, if you watch it out there, you wouldn’t even know what our record was; you wouldn’t even know what place we’re in. That’s the thing we’ve gotta get back to. I gotta figure it out. It’s a short season now – we’ve got a week. We’ve gotta find a way to get ‘em up, get ‘em ready to go.

On the last two games:

“Richmond will be a very difficult game. Then we have VCU at home on our senior night. We know that’s going to be very difficult. Everybody is playing for something now. We have a lot to play for."

On Kendall:

“It’s unfair. He played too many minutes in the game. He hasn’t practiced or played in a game in over three weeks. He battled; he was physical; he was aggressive. In the game defensively he wasn’t as solid as he needed to be. It’s unfair to ask him to do anything now. He played way too many minutes. He wouldn’t have played that many minutes if we could keep some guys out of foul trouble.”

On KP going forward:

“We’ll see how he is tomorrow. Part of it is his recovery, what’s he feel like, etc. He’s available for the rest of the season unless something in the next couple of days sets him back. I expect him to be pretty sore.”

On Steve and Sam:

“It’s frustrating with Steve. He picks up his third foul, which that was a tough one. You can’t foul there. Young guys – they’ve never been thru it before, it’s hard. It’s a long year and sometimes you have great confidence, things are going well and then next week things go bad. They’ll be fine. Both those guys have got to continue to work at it, continue to be positive with what they’re doing, but not our best day there.”

On team chemistry:

“Every day is hard. When you have a group of people sometimes they need to hear certain things, sometimes they don’t. You have to find ways to motivate. Right now this should be an easy time to motivate because there is so much on the line, you shouldn’t have to talk much. The most puzzling thing about this team at this stage right now typically our effort level, where we get our confidence is in our togetherness, our toughness, our scrappiness in how we play. For whatever reason, that’s not intact right now. As a coach, obviously that is disappointing because you could play your heart out out there, lay it all out on the line and not make a shot and you’d feel a lot better. But to be down 19 points with six minutes to go in our arena? That hasn’t happened to our team, maybe ever or a long time. We have veteran guys, some guys out there who have been thru a lot of games. It’s an odd dynamic. I’ll also tell you this: you just gotta keep showing up. If you keep showing up you’ve got a chance to get good things going again. If you pout and you don’t suck it up, it can continue to just steamroll you. That’s the way it happens this time of year. We gotta find a way to get up and go. We’ve got a game on Tuesday. This Saturday/Tuesday swing they put us on is tough – three games in seven days, back out on the road again. We’ll find out what we are made of. Gotta keep truckin’, keep finding a way. I don’t want to take away some of the good things and all the good stuff that this team has accomplished, but right now our minds are fading at the wrong time.”

Final thoughts?

“We gotta be ready. We’ve gotta get up off the mat. We’ve really let our fans down; we’ve really left ourselves down. When you lose at home, it strips you of your confidence. It should be really, really hard to get us in here and that has been the case for about two and a half years, until about this last week.”

That’s it “From the Swamp.”
You can email me at: swampy@udpride.com
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