Not a bad looking crowd on the webcast, certainly not for christmas weekend!

We made a lot of mistakes tonight but Temple is a very good team. We kept with the whole game but we just couldn't get that run to give us the lead...Does it seem like groce takes out a player everytime he is doing good? It does to me...very weird.

I saw this sequence:  Baltic made a shot, then immediately got badly lost on defense.  Groce spun, was upset, and yelled for Keely to check in.  Baltic comes down and makes that spin move fallaway and the free throw for the 3 point play. Groce still sent in Keely.  

I wish this team was deeper in the front court so Groce could use a nice benching like this more often.  But, its not and he can't.

There better have been 7k in the Convo if you are going to basically give them away at $5 a pop. Unfortunately we lost about as many fans as we could have earned with last nights performance.

THE GOOD, BAD and UGLY vs. TEMPLE

THE GOOD
1.  Liked the player rotation, starting lineup and minutes distributed to each player much better than past games. 
2.  Kudos to area fans that proved that when you bring in a quality opponent, even the week of Christmas, you get people to show up.  Now compare that with the crowd at our next game vs. Norfolk State (who?).
3.  DW, Baltic, DJ all solid.
4.  This team showed some potential and came ready to play.  They looked like a team ready to do business.  Just got to learn how to do the little things and how to win these types of games.  But I liked our body language.

THE BAD
1.  Protecting our home court, something we always used to do.
2.  Offensive movement.  Temple's offense had their guys in full motion at all times, while our weak side guys just stood around.  We simply don't get many easy buckets and our offense is very stagnant when you look off the ball.
3.  What happened to our running, athletic team?  We're a halfcourt team that usuallly scores in the 50-60's instead.
4.  We're not getting Tommy involved in the offense.  He simply is not getting the looks he needs to be successful and is not as effective when creating his own shots, which he attempted a few times. 
5.  One of our freshman must turn into a consistent scoring option.  Ricardo is doing nothing; TJ looks like he could bust out but hasn't;  Nick has shown the most flash.  But none of these three contributed vs. Temple.  We need to develop one of these three and even better yet, two of these three not ony for this year--but next.  We're nearing the halfway point of the season and we need this to transpire soon.
6.  We miss entirely too many gimme shots.  Quality looks and we can't convert shots at point blank range.

THE UGLY
1.  Reggie has really struggled at times and he did again vs. Temple. 

Despite losing a game that in years past we probably would've won at the Convo, I liked what I saw.  I saw this team as one that may be ready to turn the corner real soon.  I didn't expect us to be 6-6 at this point in the season, but I wouldn't at all be surprised if we don't go on a nice little run real soon.

The loss to IUPUI was bad. We also should of beat St. Bonna and Marshall. But hopefully they learned alot and will tear up the conference. Akron got blown out by temple and we did not. So I think at this point we are probably a better team than them.

Jeff, I disagree.  How often have we seen a player of Bassett's caliber don the green and white? The guy was unbelievable and was the biggest reason we made the memorable run last year.  We had our struggles last year, but we were still better at this time compared to now.  The guy ran off four incredible performances in a row when it mattered most.  That's just something that can't be replaced when you aren't Duke, Kansas, Kentucky, etc. and it is showing this year.

Thanks for the contribution, CPA.  You're doing a great job by the way - keep up the good work.

This.  New year, new team.  We DON'T have these players.