Really tough night in Richmond. VCU is playing like the best team in the CAA right now. This one got ugly quick.
A few items to note:
-Our men's team left last Wednesday, to travel to Harrisonburg, VA after not being able to leave on Tuesday afternoon. Visiting teams do not get priority when it comes to gym time. Unless Coach Barnes and someone in the athletic department could find a HS gym to utilize (BTW, they are playing game right now too), the team likely did not do more than a walk through for the last 7 days.
-As I continue to say and people are getting more frustrated, we had 7 new players to our team and 6 of them are new to Division 1 basketball. Add Jamar Taylor to that and you now have 7 out of 12 players who have never played Division 1 basketball.
-As has been mentioned, this 6 game stretch post Towson was/is brutal. VCU has an RPI of 73. George Mason has an RPI of 64. James Madison is now at 66. These are the best teams in the best mid-major league in America.
-We are still without our starting PG. Injuries happen but we are more than competitive in each of these games and may have gotten 1 win on this 3 game trip with White in the lineup. We'll never know.
-Eric Buckner seems to have hit a wall. CAA Conference play is extremely physically challenging and he seems to have faded. I kept my mouth shut for a while about this fear because he was performing at such a high level. In the JUCO ranks, you'll likely have 3-4 days between games. That isn't the case in our league. He has put tremendous work in the weight room since arriving (he showed up at about 195lbs and now is 210 or so). When you are worn down, you don't play at a consistent level. I really hope getting back home and getting some semblance of normalcy will spark the team this weekend.
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