University of Maine
Stony Brook
Inside the Black Bears - 'Getting Better'
1/25/2016 12:00:00 AM | Men's Basketball
A one-game week during the conference season is a great time to get better. It's pretty rare when you get almost a full week of practice time during the league schedule, but because our league has 9 teams there is always one team with a bye. So we get two different weeks during the America East schedule where have almost a full week off.
The one game we did play was a disappointing one. After beating the defending champions in Albany last Friday, we hosted UNH on Monday night, the day before we started school for the second semester. The best thing about that night was the crowd and the energy they brought to the building. We had over 400 students down at the Cross Center, including our new student section Black Bear United (@BlackBearUnited) and a number of the other athletic teams. The buzz in the building was great, and the support and noise really makes a difference for us. It's part of why we feel like we can build something special here at UMaine. We want to make Bangor a terrible place for our opponents to play.
Unfortunately we didn't play very well to match the energy of our crowd. Our first key for the game was to "Win the Physical Battle," knowing how tough and physical New Hampshire likes to play. Well, we lost it in a big way. We got physically manhandled on both ends of the floor, and New Hampshire was able to control the game through the first half. Our pressure was not able to really bother them, and we were awful in transitioning to our half-court defense. We couldn't get a enough stops, and couldn't get into a flow on offense.
We played a little better in the 2nd half and I liked the fight that we showed, but you really don't get credit because you keep fighting. They don't let you leave. You have no choice, and it's a little easier to play carefree and loose when you are facing a big deficit. We still didn't get enough stops to give us a good chance to win the game, but our offense did loosen up - we scored 61 points in the 2nd half. We know we are capable on that end, but we still have to get a lot better on the defensive end to win consistently.
So that's what we've continued to work on this week. I reminded our guys daily that Albany shot 32% against us in the 2nd half, and that's how you beat good teams. We've put in a ton of time on our half court defense, guarding penetration and finishing plays. We also paid close attention to the transition we make from our full-court defense to our half-court defense. The week off from games allows you to make some adjustments and even put in some new stuff that you wouldn't have time to work on if you are going from game to game.
It was interesting to get so many texts and notes this week from people telling me there was a storm heading to New York and New England. I'm not sure people realize how much attention we pay to travel and the weather when we are getting ready to go on the road. Even before we played UNH on Monday we had talked in the office about getting on the road a day early to Stony Brook because there was a pending storm. By the middle of the week, we knew we were going to leave on Friday, and we had decided to take Friday off from practice because we have long day of classes that day and we were going to travel after.
We woke up Friday expecting to head to Stony Brook at about 4:00 after class. Our administration was in touch with there administration about what they were planning to do, and in the morning they said everything for Sunday was still a go. It's basically our job to get there for the game, and the America East generally says if both teams are there, and the officials can make it, the game will be played. Stony Brook was in an interesting situation because they were also playing Albany Friday night at home. I texted Steve Pikiell just to let him know we were leaving at 4:00, and if he could let us know what was going on before then it would be a big help. The only thing I wanted to avoid was getting started on our trip on Friday night and finding out when we got there the game was pushed to Monday. Given the fact that we were playing Hartford on the road on Wednesday, we knew if the game got pushed to Monday we could just go from Long Island to Hartford after the game.
It really wasn't much of an inconvenience at all. Steve Pikiell called me about 2:30 on Friday and said they were planning on shutting their campus down until noon on Sunday. So playing at 2:00 on Sunday wasn't really an option. He asked if Monday at 7 would work, I said fine, and that was it. Good luck against Albany.
So we were able to get a couple of more days of practice in on Saturday and Sunday before we left, and it felt good to be home for a weekend. We headed down on Sunday and we'll go right to Hartford after Stony Brook to make it a 2 game trip. Three games in 6 days isn't that big of a deal, our guys would much rather play games this time of year. We'll be ready to go, and hopefully we'll continue to get better.
