 |
| Courtesy of Facebook |
For those who weren't there to witness the heartbreak, with about seven minutes left in the game LMU held a ten point advantage over the Bears, who hadn't led since the first basket of the contest. But the last seven minutes of last night's game are one's the Lions wish they had back, and in the end the Bears took a lead with 2:01 left and LMU never fought back.
I'll try to keep this ugly part short, as I have as little interest as anyone in reliving it. But in the last four minute's of last night's game the Lions self-imploded. Drew Viney, who played a great game, had one turnover and one missed free throw. Jarred DuBois had a turnover. And Vernon Teel, who in the first half of the game looked like the best player on the court, had three turnovers, a missed layup that would have given the Lions a one-point lead with 11 seconds to play, and displayed poor decision making in the final seconds as the team was looking for a last second bucket to send the game into overtime.
And while it would be extremely easy to point the finger at Teel for last night's loss, the truth is the Lions never should have been in that position, as they took leads as large as 14 points multiple times in the game. LMU had trouble closing out games last year, and unfortunately it seems like they have that problem again this season. The Lions need a change in attitude, and when they find themselves up by 14 points they need to want to extend that to 20.
Aside from the outcome, last night's game did show a lot of the promise fans were expecting this season. It is clear that this year's freshman are going to impact this program for the next four years, and they had a great showing in their first collegiate game.
Anthony Ireland knocked down the first shot of his Lions career (a deep three), and finished the game with five points and three rebounds. He showed impressive speed and ball-handling skills, and Lion fans should be comfortable knowing that he is the team's point guard of the future.
Center Godwin Okanji, who wasn't even expected to play yesterday after missing the week of practice, was a beast on the boards, and pulled in eight rebounds in only 27 minutes. He also contributed seven points. In addition, he may have moved himself ahead of Tim Diederichs on the depth chart.
Redshirt junior Viney was the player we all know and love, contributing 27 points, six rebounds and five assists.
And Teel, before having a rough rough ending to the game, looked great. Finishing the game with 15 points, nine rebounds, six assists and three steals, Teel looked even better in the first half then he did last year when he made the WCC All-Conference team. It's evident he got quicker, which led to three easy steals and fast break opportunities. Having interviewed him after games for the past two seasons, I can assure any fan out there that nobody feels worse after last night's loss then Teel himself.
But while I would love to stick with the positives and gloss over the negatives, what it comes down to is that last night's loss hurt the Lions in many ways. Firstly, Morgan State was one of the biggest non-conference opponents on LMU's schedule, and that loss does not help the Lions chances if they are in need of an at-large bid to the NCAA Tournament at the end of the season. Secondly, it doesn't help the team build it's fan base. There were close to 3,000 people in Gersten last night, and I fear a bad loss like that may deter students from showing up to see the team face La Sierra tomorrow.
To make matters worse, tomorrow's game isn't even against a D-I opponent, so while the team will still have a chance to bring its record to an even 1-1, a win wouldn't do anything to help the sting of last night.
And with all of that said, I will now (about 12 hours too late) try my hardest to follow Max Good's midnight rule. I will shut the door on Morgan State, and turn my attention to the fact that we still have an entire season of basketball in front of us.
No comments:
Post a Comment