How Big Would a Road Win Be?
Saturday, February 21 2009 by Tim
As I sit down and prepare to watch the Hoos take on North Carolina State down in Raleigh in just a few minutes, I’m struck by how important this game could be for the men’s basketball team this season.
First, some caveats. I understand that there’s no chance this team makes the NCAAs (outside of an insanely unlikely run through the ACC tournament). I also understand that even the NIT is unlikely. But all of those things are things I wasn’t expecting several weeks ago anyway, so I’m still not expecting them now. What I AM concerned about is the growth of this young team.
The Clemson game was a bit of a wake-up call to Cavalier fans: This team has talent and potential, just stick with them.
A lot of people pointed to the Virginia Tech game as an important game. The team needed to show that the Clemson game wasn’t a fluke. We can debate the rest of the year (and in some circles, that’s exactly what will happen) whether Jeff Allen would have made a big enough difference for the Hokies to win. But I’m not even as concerned with the win (or winning margin) as I am with how the team looked. The confidence they showed. The energy that everyone on that floor showed.
And THAT is why I think this State game is so important. It’s a road game. We’ve put together some decent performances lately (part of the UNC game and most of the FSU game) but haven’t pulled out any wins since the Georgia Tech game which seems like it was years ago. So now we have momentum, we’ve got building confidence and we’ve got a young team that appears to be growing into a solid team.
If we win this game, we have three of the four remaining ACC games at home and a lot of momentum. A road win today would be VERY big for this team.
3 comment(s) and 0 trackback(s)
Tim - you're in Raleigh?
Nah - ambiguous wording on my part there. I just meant the Hoos were playing @State.
I guess we'll never know how big that win could have been.
The come-backs in both halves by this team were just incredible, but as incredible as they were, the scoring droughts to start each half were equally brutal.
I didn't see the exact things that made me so happy after the last two games. We had the same problems as before those games. Where did all of that go? I guess that's just one of those things that happens with a young team - severe inconsistency.
Congrats to Diane for a nice second half.