CMJ

NT 7 -------- UTA 2 16:00 to go Couldn't have asked for much better of a start than this.

I'd drop a bowl game a year for the next five or so years and see if we miss any of them. I'm not someone who thinks we only need the top ten teams in Bowl games or anything, but when over half the teams that play college football end up in one, including teams with losing records sometimes (including us just a handful of years ago, yes I know), it's really too much.

Every season there are a two or three games that really have the ability to pivot your season one way or the other. IMHO, this is one of those. Get a W and we may be able to get this campaign straightened out in the way we want. Should we lose, I'll be concerned about our ability to get our heads on right for the league slate.

At this point...a C+ maybe. I always had an inkling we'd take a step back this year with a new coach and moving to a new league (and losing our best player). It's a long season though. I know sometimes in football you don't have a good gauge on how good the team might end up after four games or so (roughly the equivalent to ten games in basketball), but I feel like in hoops it happens quite often. We might turn it around once AAC action begins. Or we could struggle.

Kinda glad I had plans today after seeing the final score.

I would agree that we have scoring droughts, but teams do. They just do. Fordham also went several minutes without scoring once or twice today. Hell, look at some of our scoring droughts last season or the year before (say in that famous Wisconsin game last year where we held them scoreless like the last 9 minutes of the game...we NEEDED to because we scored all of ten points in that long stretch ourselves). I watched the UCLA/Villanova game last night and both of those squads had 3-4 minute stretches of looking inept on offense. We need to get mentally tough at the end of games. That was something we have had in spades in recent years.

We had more sustained droughts last season than this year. We didn't have any eight minute droughts today where we didn't score at all. Yes, we had stretches where we didn't score much, but we never went 7-8 minutes with zero points. Everyone deals with the droughts, you just have to keep them to 3-4 minutes, not longer. My main concern is our inability to make winning plays down he stretch. The difference between teams that win close games consistently and lose close games is mostly in the head and in the heart.

Road show continues in the Magnolia state next Sunday. Two total gut punches in a row. Unfortunately my wife and I have plans next Sunday, so I won't be able to watch or listen more than likely. Maybe that will be the juju the team needs to get a win.

Always a gut punch to lose at the buzzer. Even worse on a dunk after it looked like you'd won.

Fordham 60 ------- NT 59 Final

NT 53 ------- Fordham 53 3:44 to go Both teams struggling offensively during that segment. Aaron Scott having a stat stuffer game.

NT 47 ------- Fordham 45 7:57 to go Barely keeping our nose in front right now. This is gonna come right down to the wire.

Fordham 40 ------- NT 39 11:47 to go Edwards drawing fouls is the main reason we're holding steady

NT 37 ------- Fordham 33 15:25 to go Not sure if we've weathered the charge yet, but at least things stabilized a bit.

NT 35 ------- Fordham 31 17:19 to go Scary start to this half - almost giving up the whole lead in less than three minutes.

I'm listening to the KNTU feed on Varsity.

NT 35 ------- Fordham 23 Halftime Nice close to the first twenty minutes. Scott heating up. I'll take a double figure lead heading to the break every time.

NT 24 ------- Fordham 19 3:56 to go Edwards really hot from behind the arc.

NT 19 ------- Fordham 17 6:44 to go Both squads had trouble putting ball in the basket for a few minutes, but the last few possessions we've seen some scoring.

NT 13 ------- Fordham 10 11:37 to go Not seeing the stats, it feels like we're doing really well on the glass to this point. Edwards also hit a big trey in that segment.

NT 8 ------- Fordham 5 14:30 to go Our inside game effective early.

I'm not sure...I've seen plenty of great players who weren't closers.

Basically we're similar to how we've been the last several seasons (outstanding energy, great defense, and a true never back down mentality), we just don't have a closer. Hopefully one of the guys develops into one. We're really close, but until we can finish games we'll probably be mid-pack, at best, in the AAC.

I just felt like he was out of control. In real time I was literally yelling at him to slow it down. But yeah, if it worked it would have been the "No, no, no don't do that...oh my God thank you for doing that" play.

Flush Boise State and look to this one. Still a big opportunity for a nice OOC win.