I've read this a couple of times in the past week (from other posters, not to single you out WHRH). I don't completely buy the reasoning that we're a young team and should learn from/improve our late struggles. I don't buy it because we had this very same issue last season, culminating in the MAC Tournament loss.

I hope you're right though. Groce has some work to do getting this team to keep their foot on the gas when the opponents are on the ropes.

And let me say, at this point I'm nitpicking. A very good win tonight, and nothing to be down about.

They've been collapses, no other way around it. It needs to get fixed.

If it is a collapse then why are we ending up with more points at the end of the game?


I have never seen a building or structure collapse and still look just as good as it did before the collapse.  (and yes a 2 point win is no less of a win than a 10 point win so we may just have to differ on that part.)


It's as if we are supposed to never lose more than 2 points off a lead in the last 2-3 minutes from your perspective.


Can you explain this more please?


For example....when the lead went from 14 down to 9 at halftime was that a collapse too?

While I'd love to see them slam the door shut every time. It's not gonna happen. The way the game is set up, between the 3 point shot and the leading team having to make free throw after free throw and the HIGH variability in the refereeing, the trailing team always has opportunity to close the gap. Good teams WILL close the gap, especially on their home court and that is what we have been seeing... good teams, doing what it can to keep themselves in games.

What we have also bee seeing is an Ohio team fighting through this and doing what it has to do, to finish the game on top. With the exception of Louisville, we have managed to finish games off one way or the other. Even in Louisville case, once we blew that lead, we could have rolled over and died, but we STILL managed to have TWO chances to tie the game in the last 10 seconds against a top 10 team.

All this leads to confidence that they can get the job done, one way or the other. This will benefit them as the season goes on. What needs to happen tho is they need to progress so that they aren't always in these nailbiter type games. They need to put the game out of reach BEFORE the last 2-3 minutes.

Jeff, I hope you are correct.
We definately need to work at our last 2-3 minute performance in these games.
It's great that we win the close ones but did we win beacause we out scored the opponent down the stretch or was the opponent unable to overcome a small deficent?
The opponents lately seem to pick up their D which causes us to turn the ball over or miss our shots. We need to turn up our intensity as well.




GO BOBCATS

I would rather not be giving up leads either, but these have been good teams and we still are getting the W in the end. I believe over the last couple years we have had similar issues and ended up on the Losing side. At least now we are adding to the win column, even if it is by 2.

Redundancy can be effective sometimes


The point that a W is not an L is a good one.     Also, wouldn't most of us have been pretty happy with 6-1 at this point if told that would be the case before the season started?  And that the 1 would be a very close one.