Maine Sucked Less

Another poor free-throw shooting performance, another tight loss. This is truly killing us this year. Against Maine we were 6-14, a.k.a. 43 percent!!! Completely unacceptable.

The two bright spots in Sunday's game were Tony Gaffney, who completely took over the game for a stretch of about 5 minutes late in the first half, and KG, who amassed yet another workman-like double-double (16/10). Unfortunately, Gardner fouled out with about 30 seconds left, and we found out how crucial that was when Cobber missed two [tough] lay-ups in a row in the waning seconds.

Other Maine notes:

Kind of glad to get away from the Greek until we have a better offense. The place is gorgeous, but we suck there.

We're still in 3rd place, but it's amazing how far we could be in either direction. Our team has played so poorly that we could easily be much lower, but our four conference losses have been by 1, 6, 2, and 2 points - all winnable in the final minute.

Hassan is still struggling, going without a 3-pointer for the second straight game. It's obvious teams have been guarding him much more closely, but he still plays a big part because even when he's not scoring he remains a focal point for defenses.

And finally, "The Shot." Hassan sinks a Hail Mary from beyond half-court with -0.2 seconds left - meaning 0.2 seconds after the game ended. Amazing to think about what would have happened if he had shot it half a second earlier. He'd be on every college hoops highlight reel this year, and probably in the 3-5 range of Sportscenter's Top 10 Plays (depending on how many times Kobe scored 81 that week).