University of Maine
New Hampshire
Inside the Black Bears - 'The Second Half'
2/8/2016 12:00:00 AM | Men's Basketball
We finished the first half of the America East schedule with a 4-4 record feeling good about the progress we've made but knowing we still had a long way to go. This is where the challenge is not to evaluate based on results. Winning and losing is such a fine line. We were down 7 at Hartford twice in Overtime. We were down 10 to Albany with a minute to go in the first half and they had the basketball, but we were able to cut the lead to 5 going into the half and feel good about ourselves. We played a great 2nd half defensively and won a game that Albany never seems to lose. But the line between winning and losing is such a fine one.
It's okay to feel good about the progress we've made, but we also don't want to celebrate mediocrity. Being .500 in the league really means we are mediocre, and our mission is to get to a championship level. You don't get to a championship level by winning and losing half your games.
We started the second half with a trip to Vermont, always a tough place to play. Vermont has finished either first or second in our league for 7 straight years, the definition of a championship level. They have a chance to win every year. Patrick gym is always a fun place to play and a difficult challenge.
I was happy with the mentality we took into the game. Although we didn't play great, we played with a belief that we belonged, like we had an expectation of winning. We fought through a tough stretch in the first half to take the lead and our guys were feeling confident. Even though we were down 3 at halftime our guys immediately said they expected to win in the locker room. Hopefully that's a good sign of the growth of our program. We battled hard and took a four point lead about 8 minutes into the second half, but unfortunately we couldn't sustain it.
I thought the game overall was a good lesson on what it takes to get to the level Vermont is at, where you can beat good teams in their gym. They kept their composure, they played physically tough and they got the ball to the rim. Their two bigs really hurt us at the basket. We weren't able to sustain our level of play or keep our composure when things got hard, two things we have to continue to work on.
We ended the week in Portland, playing at the Expo in front of some of our fans from the Southern part of the state. I was really disappointed with the way we played against UMBC. We had a good crowd with good energy in the building, yet we didn't establish ourselves defensively at all. It is really hard to win games consistently when your opponent is consistently getting good looks and easy baskets, and we didn't defend with any sort of edge. The hardest part of establishing a championship culture is getting the belief and the buy-in on the defensive end, and we still have a lot of work to do.
The road to a championship level is not a straight one up the hill. It's not a linear process. We feel good about the progress we've made, but this week is a good reminder we are not where we need to be. If we don't show up with the right defensive approach, anyone in our league can beat us. Hopefully our level of maturity and our mentality will continue to grow.
