Empire 8

UCgrad45 · February 28, 2009, 03:42:33 PM

And RIT gets a win giftwrapped for the second time this season.

clearconceit · February 28, 2009, 03:50:34 PM

Heartbreaker for sure.
Good season but give RIT credit - don't think they have near the talent of us yet they finished second and beat us for the 3rd time.

I wonder if this opens the door for U of R with a win today. Ranked 5th going into this weekend Utica and Hamilton both faltered. If Ithaca and St. Lawrence win - have to think they may actually get in.

gobombers15 · February 28, 2009, 04:37:54 PM

Ithaca up 25-21 with 5:24 left in first half. Naz doing an excellent job at taking the air out of the ball. The MacAdams' are carrying the Flyers. Jeff Bostic is playing.

gobombers15 · February 28, 2009, 04:48:28 PM

A major upset in the making. Naz closes the half on a 17-2 run to take a 38-27 lead into break. Mullins is talking about how he needs to speed up the game, which is correct, but my question is why haven't you done this already if you knew, as you said you did, that Naz would try to play this type of game. And it would help if we knew how to defend a pick-and-roll. If I'm Naz, I run that play every possession in the 2nd half until Ithaca figures out how to stop it.

Ithaca has to win this game if it wants to host the Sweet 16. Right?

clearconceit · February 28, 2009, 04:52:34 PM

Good to see Naz wake up. Hartwick gave the whole league the blueprint on how to beat them. Hold the ball every possession and frustrate them. Hartwick almost got them at Hartwick. The difference here is that Nazareth has alot more talent than Hartwick.

This could mean huge implications for U of R, St L, Hamilton, and Utica's at-large hopes.

gobombers15 · February 28, 2009, 05:13:39 PM

Naz up 50-35 with 12 mins to go. Could this group of Ithaca players just be a bunch of chokes? This game is eerily reminiscent to last year's semi against Fisher.

gobombers15 · February 28, 2009, 05:18:43 PM

Bombers with a mini-spurt to make it 51-42. How embarrassing was it that the Ithaca assistant coaches were IMPLORING the fans to get into the game? Wake up, IC fans. There are other big sporting events besides Cortaca.

Caz Bombers · February 28, 2009, 05:26:43 PM

8:41 to go, 55-47 Naz. Definitely nowhere near the kind of point totals Ithaca is used to putting up.

gobombers15 · February 28, 2009, 05:32:12 PM

Naz up 60-58 with 5:41 left. Ithaca has missed about five 3's that would have tied it or given them the lead. Ithaca started creeping back in the game when Bostic started guarding Corey MacAdam.

gobombers15 · February 28, 2009, 05:40:51 PM

Naz goes on 8-0 run to make it 70-60. Ithaca responds with five unanswered. 70-65 w/2:47 left. Let's see what Ithaca is made of.

gobombers15 · February 28, 2009, 05:56:14 PM

Such a disappointing result after Ithaca's regular season. I'm speechless. You can spit all the cliches about how tough it is to beat a team three times in one year, but Nazareth was better than Ithaca today. According to Mullins, Ithaca knew what Naz was going to do and still couldn't stop it. Bombers to within two at the six-minute mark but couldn't get it done. Besides Burton, Rogers and Leahy, Ithaca players looked afraid to shoot. If they have the same disposition in the NCAA's, they'll be one-and-done. Ithaca has a few days to figure out how to beat this style because they are definitely going to see it again.

5-for-31 from 3-pt range. Disgusting.

Final: Naz 82, Ithaca 76.

Caz Bombers · February 28, 2009, 05:59:27 PM

and the streak continues - Ithaca has still never won an E8 tournament game. Unbelievable. RIT-Nazareth tomorrow to take a bid off the bubble.

I feel like we should apologize to all those fans of bubble teams that the Bombers just screwed over. Our bad.

bombersquadron · February 28, 2009, 06:04:26 PM

Ithaca goes down in round one. I thought they made a great comeback despite terrible shooting night. I think they settled for early threes too often. They were at their best in the second half getting to the basket and getting lay-ups or getting to the line. Then they had a chance to set-up their 1-2-2 press which was working. The press really disrupted Naz's four corners game plan and forced a bunch of turnovers. When they missed the three pointers it allowed Naz to slow it down and run down the shot clock.

Ithaca also fouled too much about 80 feet from the basket. They called B Rog for a few hand checking calls in the back court. All those fouls allow Corey McAdam to get to the line too much. I thought it might work to help off set Naz holding the ball but he was about 7-8 or 9-10 down the stretch for Naz from the line which was huge for them. Once again Burton really carries them back into the game. Hit two big threes to keep it close, found Bostic for the alley-oop and kept getting in the lane and getting fouled. No one else really stepped up down the stretch. I will have to check the box score but he scored almost all the points from the five minute mark to the end of the game.

Tough loss, don't know how it will affect how many games they host. Even with this loss, they have two losses this season by an average of 4.5 points. In both games they played and shot very poorly as a team. I still think they are a level above anyone else in the east, atlantic. Maybe someone from new england region gets the sweet 16 but i doubt it.

FROMAFAR · February 28, 2009, 06:47:41 PM

I can't disagree with UCGRAD that my Tigers have no beef with the ref's, but this game wasn't played in Rochester, on our court. Great year for UC, good luck to the seniors and maybe RIT's luck is still alive. Not only do we beat a good UC team, we don't have to play IC in their gym, BUT as I said many times this year NAZ scares me...........A team like that is hard to take for granted........Daly has been knocked all year and for longer than that, by me included..........Coaching played a big part in the NAZ win tonight.... KUDOS to NAZ and their coaches............. So we will get 2 to the dance...IC, I wouldn't worry about hosting the sweet 16, you may do better on the road....hosting tonight didn't seem to help, BUT WHAT DO I KNOW

Bombers798891 · February 28, 2009, 07:36:51 PM

Quote from: bombersquadron on February 28, 2009, 06:04:26 PM
Ithaca goes down in round one. I thought they made a great comeback despite terrible shooting night. I think they settled for early threes too often. They were at their best in the second half getting to the basket and getting lay-ups or getting to the line. Then they had a chance to set-up their 1-2-2 press which was working. The press really disrupted Naz's four corners game plan and forced a bunch of turnovers. When they missed the three pointers it allowed Naz to slow it down and run down the shot clock.

Ithaca also fouled too much about 80 feet from the basket. They called B Rog for a few hand checking calls in the back court. All those fouls allow Corey McAdam to get to the line too much. I thought it might work to help off set Naz holding the ball but he was about 7-8 or 9-10 down the stretch for Naz from the line which was huge for them. Once again Burton really carries them back into the game. Hit two big threes to keep it close, found Bostic for the alley-oop and kept getting in the lane and getting fouled. No one else really stepped up down the stretch. I will have to check the box score but he scored almost all the points from the five minute mark to the end of the game.

Tough loss, don't know how it will affect how many games they host. Even with this loss, they have two losses this season by an average of 4.5 points. In both games they played and shot very poorly as a team. I still think they are a level above anyone else in the east, atlantic. Maybe someone from new england region gets the sweet 16 but i doubt it.

Typical. Nazareth came out, adjusted their game plan for a must win game and prevailed. Ithaca just kept waiting for things to break their way and their supposed superior talent to take over, and there you go. It's like football season all over again

Bombers go 9-11 from two in the first half and 2-17 from three. Instead of adjusting, and maybe not gunning threes the whole game, Ithaca jacks up 14 more in the 2nd half. For the game, here were IC's shooting %'s:

From 2: 66.6%
From 3: 16.1%
From the line: 90.5%

Stands to reason they'd fire up essentially an equal number of both shots. They were only unstoppable from inside and ice cold from the outside. My favorite sequence of the first half was when Leahy, Burton and Rodgers all missed three pointers on the same possession before Leahy hit a layup. You'd think that would have been a hint at what kind of shots would work.

Look at Burton. 10-12 from two. 2-11 from three.
Leahy: 4-6 from two. 2-10 from three

Now, I know that shooting three's was Ithaca's game all season, but you know what? Naz's game certainly wasn't one of "Let 25 seconds run off the shot clock before doing anything" all season. And yet, that's what they did in the first half and it worked to perfection. IC went away from what worked--going inside, hitting layups and drawing fouls and kept going to what didn't--shooting threes. And while they are perimeter team by nature, Burton, Cruz, Rodgers and even Marcus are plenty capable of scoring inside.

Ithaca will still go the NCAA's of course, but I'd have to think anyone with a tape of this game will know how to beat them.

Empire 8

Bombers798891