Post by ruxchighlander11 on Mar 18, 2018 15:45:16 GMT -5
Now that the year is over, I wanted to take a little time to reflect on the historic 23 win season and dissect our schedule a little bit to show just how impressive this was. This year, we played 18 games against teams with a winning record. of those 18 games, all of those teams, except for Winthop (Really surprised they didn't take or possibly didn't receive a CBI or CIT invite) competed in a post season tournament.
Of those 18 games, we had a record of 10-8. Let's take that a step further:
NCAA Tournament Teams:
LIU Brooklyn - 16 seed (Win) - Nobody likes getting the play in game, but man, this was fun to watch. For one night, all eyes were on Radford and this is a great win for our recruiting.
Villanova - 1 seed (Loss) - After watching what they did to Alabama after us, I'm even more impressed with how we played in this one
Ohio State - 5 seed (Loss) - 10 point loss on the road at Ohio State, we are getting to a point where we are competitive in these games and that's a big step forward.
Virginia Tech - 8 seed (Loss) - Would have liked to have seen us play better in this one, but the Hokies were averaging over 90 points a game at the time and that's hard to stop.
Nevada - 7 seed (Loss) - In retrospect, this is a game where Polite got held to 3 points and fouled out. If he stays out of foul trouble, this might be a different story.
NIT Teams:
UC Davis - 7 seed (Win) - I look back on this as possibly our best win of the season. This is a good Aggies team that won the regular season Big West title who we beat by 10. If they hadn't lost in the semi final of their conference tournament by 3 to CSU Fullerton, we might have had 2 wins over NCAA Tournament Teams.
UNC Asheville - 8 seed (1-1) - This was a great team! They took a tough loss to another great Liberty team. But man did they represent the Big South in the NIT (2 OT loss to USC) In game 1 when we played them, I was impressed with how we closed on a 40-14 run in the final 12 minutes. Our loss at Asheville was a little frustrating. I was impressed with our comeback, but Teague hit a great 3 with 4 seconds to go and sometimes you take a loss like this against a great team. I was grateful that Liberty knocked them out for us because playing them in their house, with their crowd in the final would have been tough. But....a win at Asheville might have moved us off the play in line. None the less, props to them for winning the regular season championship.
CBI Teams:
San Fransisco (Loss) - This is a good team who plays in a very tough conference with Gonzaga and St.Mary's. Heck, they've already won a game in the post season. This is a game where defensively, we played well. Offensively, other than Carlik Jones, nobody showed up to play. I think if we got another shot at this one, the outcome might be different.
Campbell (1-1) - Campbell is a fantastic team. Chris Clemons is a great player who won Big South Player of the Year a season ago and dropped 22 points and a game winner on us at their house. This was a hard loss to swallow where we might have had the 1 seed had this not have happened. That said, in our rematch, we left no doubt that we were the better team with a 20 point thrashing at Dedmon. Carlik Jones was the x-factor, but this is a good time to mention 2 unsung heroes this season. Devonte Holland is only a sophomore and came up big in this one (I'd imagine the starting spot is his next year with the departure of Phillips, but Bolstad will also be healthy and might split time here or could at least be an interesting position battle). The other person I need to highlight here is the guard play of Travis Fields. Fields was our ODU transfer. I'm so glad he transferred because he carved out a big role for himself here and I'm looking forward to watching him mature as a player next year. He's going to be big!
CIT Teams
North Carolina A&T (Win) - The MEAC was a very good conference this year. The had about 6 teams within shouting distance of winning that conference this year and North Carolina A&T was no exception. They finished a game back of first and fell to eventual conference champion, Hampton in a hard fought semi-final. Our game with them came down to the final seconds and took the combined efforts of Jones, Polite and Tanner to put this one away. Good place to call out Tanner as he made 43% of his 3-pointers this season. He's a spot 3-point shooter, but he's turning into a really good one! Looking forward to watching him see more playing time.
Liberty (3-0) - Boy does that 3-0 feel good against our in-state rival. Every game against this team is a dog fight and I tip my hat to them. They are good! Their defense is one of the few that created problems for us this year. Hats off to Carlik for his big time 3 in the Championship game. This is a good team who beat another good North Carolina A&T team in the first round of the CIT. I'll be cheering them on as they continue in the CIT as I'd like to see them bring home the championship.
Honorable Mention - Winning Record - Missed Postseason
Winthrop (2-1 - 3 seed Big South) - I won't lie. I cringed when I saw we had to play these guys in the Big South semi-final. In our first dance with this team, Polite put up a double double and dominated this game. So, naturally, I thought we were the better team early in the season. In the second half of the season, we hit a 3 game skid where Winthrop dismantled us at their house, 75-57. Polite had a nice game, but they hit 9 3-pointers and as UMBC just showed, if you hit a ton of 3's it's hard to win a game. In the Big South Tournament, I credit Winthrop for giving us all we could handle. But our defense showed up big time and we held them to 52 points and only 18 in the second half. Jones, Polite and Fields came up big in a game that would be the 5th win in an 8 game winning streak to solidify ourselves as the best team in the conference, and a trip to Pittsburgh to taking on the #2 team in the country.
Needless to say, a school record of 23 wins, a Big South Championship and a win in the opening round of the tournament looks even more impressive when you highlight all of the above!
Great season, Highlanders!
Of those 18 games, we had a record of 10-8. Let's take that a step further:
NCAA Tournament Teams:
LIU Brooklyn - 16 seed (Win) - Nobody likes getting the play in game, but man, this was fun to watch. For one night, all eyes were on Radford and this is a great win for our recruiting.
Villanova - 1 seed (Loss) - After watching what they did to Alabama after us, I'm even more impressed with how we played in this one
Ohio State - 5 seed (Loss) - 10 point loss on the road at Ohio State, we are getting to a point where we are competitive in these games and that's a big step forward.
Virginia Tech - 8 seed (Loss) - Would have liked to have seen us play better in this one, but the Hokies were averaging over 90 points a game at the time and that's hard to stop.
Nevada - 7 seed (Loss) - In retrospect, this is a game where Polite got held to 3 points and fouled out. If he stays out of foul trouble, this might be a different story.
NIT Teams:
UC Davis - 7 seed (Win) - I look back on this as possibly our best win of the season. This is a good Aggies team that won the regular season Big West title who we beat by 10. If they hadn't lost in the semi final of their conference tournament by 3 to CSU Fullerton, we might have had 2 wins over NCAA Tournament Teams.
UNC Asheville - 8 seed (1-1) - This was a great team! They took a tough loss to another great Liberty team. But man did they represent the Big South in the NIT (2 OT loss to USC) In game 1 when we played them, I was impressed with how we closed on a 40-14 run in the final 12 minutes. Our loss at Asheville was a little frustrating. I was impressed with our comeback, but Teague hit a great 3 with 4 seconds to go and sometimes you take a loss like this against a great team. I was grateful that Liberty knocked them out for us because playing them in their house, with their crowd in the final would have been tough. But....a win at Asheville might have moved us off the play in line. None the less, props to them for winning the regular season championship.
CBI Teams:
San Fransisco (Loss) - This is a good team who plays in a very tough conference with Gonzaga and St.Mary's. Heck, they've already won a game in the post season. This is a game where defensively, we played well. Offensively, other than Carlik Jones, nobody showed up to play. I think if we got another shot at this one, the outcome might be different.
Campbell (1-1) - Campbell is a fantastic team. Chris Clemons is a great player who won Big South Player of the Year a season ago and dropped 22 points and a game winner on us at their house. This was a hard loss to swallow where we might have had the 1 seed had this not have happened. That said, in our rematch, we left no doubt that we were the better team with a 20 point thrashing at Dedmon. Carlik Jones was the x-factor, but this is a good time to mention 2 unsung heroes this season. Devonte Holland is only a sophomore and came up big in this one (I'd imagine the starting spot is his next year with the departure of Phillips, but Bolstad will also be healthy and might split time here or could at least be an interesting position battle). The other person I need to highlight here is the guard play of Travis Fields. Fields was our ODU transfer. I'm so glad he transferred because he carved out a big role for himself here and I'm looking forward to watching him mature as a player next year. He's going to be big!
CIT Teams
North Carolina A&T (Win) - The MEAC was a very good conference this year. The had about 6 teams within shouting distance of winning that conference this year and North Carolina A&T was no exception. They finished a game back of first and fell to eventual conference champion, Hampton in a hard fought semi-final. Our game with them came down to the final seconds and took the combined efforts of Jones, Polite and Tanner to put this one away. Good place to call out Tanner as he made 43% of his 3-pointers this season. He's a spot 3-point shooter, but he's turning into a really good one! Looking forward to watching him see more playing time.
Liberty (3-0) - Boy does that 3-0 feel good against our in-state rival. Every game against this team is a dog fight and I tip my hat to them. They are good! Their defense is one of the few that created problems for us this year. Hats off to Carlik for his big time 3 in the Championship game. This is a good team who beat another good North Carolina A&T team in the first round of the CIT. I'll be cheering them on as they continue in the CIT as I'd like to see them bring home the championship.
Honorable Mention - Winning Record - Missed Postseason
Winthrop (2-1 - 3 seed Big South) - I won't lie. I cringed when I saw we had to play these guys in the Big South semi-final. In our first dance with this team, Polite put up a double double and dominated this game. So, naturally, I thought we were the better team early in the season. In the second half of the season, we hit a 3 game skid where Winthrop dismantled us at their house, 75-57. Polite had a nice game, but they hit 9 3-pointers and as UMBC just showed, if you hit a ton of 3's it's hard to win a game. In the Big South Tournament, I credit Winthrop for giving us all we could handle. But our defense showed up big time and we held them to 52 points and only 18 in the second half. Jones, Polite and Fields came up big in a game that would be the 5th win in an 8 game winning streak to solidify ourselves as the best team in the conference, and a trip to Pittsburgh to taking on the #2 team in the country.
Needless to say, a school record of 23 wins, a Big South Championship and a win in the opening round of the tournament looks even more impressive when you highlight all of the above!
Great season, Highlanders!