[A.G.]

Might as well get this thread started now, even though the game is not over yet.

[mrich]

I think that this game should scare us alot. I am very concerned with our road play. RD needs to find a way to get our team ready for the road. We should have never lost this game.

[A.G.]

Again. If we learn from the experience, then it will be a positive. Just like in the big south--even the weak teams are tough at home.

[WWJFD]

If I remember we were down 10-0 and did not score in the first 5 + minutes. I realize we were tied at the half, but we did to get off to better starts than that. It means we had to work that much harder to come back. Sounds like Brew is gettting alot of shots and Blair is an after thought. Hopefully Brew tries not to do too much.

8/15 from floor 16 points for Brew.

Need to regroup and try again in Buffalo.

Good night folks

[mrich]

3 FTA's. That is a joke! RD says that they have to learn to play in these environments. Are we all freshman?? The Red Flash must have a dominating home court advantage.

[TIMSCAR20]

Brew was 8 for15? That is a really good game! That is over 50%. Not sure what happened tonight because I wasn't there but it sounded like a tough night.

[kel varson]

Agreed, If brew shot over 50 percent he must have been the onlyl player ready to play. Blair doesn't need to force shots if he's going to shoot in the 30 percent range.

[grm]

Larry had 19 attempts. Doesn't sound like the shots were falling. One of those nights, I guess.
He'll be back.

[whmatthews]

So how well does Dunton's "Syracuse Model" really work? We play easy teams and blow them out and it leads to us getting wins over ECU, Longwood and St. Francis (at home). But then, we lose the first road game and look at the rest of our schedule.


@ Buffalo
Lipscomb
@ Brigham Young
@ Seton Hall
@ Oral Roberts
@ Florida
@ UNC Asheville

With the exception of Lipscomb, we might not see a win until the next home game against Radford. I would generally say UNCA would be a win, but you never know on the road in the Big South.

[thesportscritic]

we bite on the road

[Chris Lang]

Ugly game folks. It's a long season. This happens in college basketball. You cannot panic like you can in football season. You can shake off a bad game.

Alex was a no-show. No post presence whatsoever. Let's see if they can make some adjustments Monday.

[SuperJon]

How many shots did Larry jack up? I'm sorry, but he doesn't have to do that crap anymore. He can't do that crap anymore and expect us to win. Even against Longwood he was forcing shots up that no one in their right mind would take.


I'm sorry, and I'm going to catch a ton of crap for this, but any other player would be benched if they jacked up some of the shots he does. Maybe he needs to be for a few minutes just to check everything and teach him that this ain't last year.

[SuperJon]

To answer myself, he was 5-19. Sometimes it's not your night, don't force crap up.

[Sly Fox]

Alex was a no-show. No post presence whatsoever. Let's see if they can make some adjustments Monday.

You jinxed with all of the love in ink.

[TylerBakersGonnaBGreat]

I wasnt there so i dont know EXACTLY how things were, but it just sounded like everyone was moving the ball well then when it got to LB he would just throw something up. It doesnt help any that they out-rebounded us badly.

I wonder if its like something that LB feels like he needs to prove, like he wants to show that its his team so he takes as many shots as he can? Either way, We need to play as a team, thats how we have been winning, and thats what it takes to win.

[Sly Fox]

LU falls with the new kid in the lineup

By Chris Lang
Lynchburg News & Advance
December 17, 2006

LORETTO, Pa. - Liberty coach Randy Dunton warned that there was going to be a transition period for his team when he inserted Dwight Brewington into his lineup. There had to be. The Flames were playing too well, and tinkering with the chemistry, if even slightly, might have an immediate adverse impact.

But he was looking at the long-range view. Play Brewington now, get he and his teammates acclimated to each other in a game setting, and come Big South time, there was going to be a huge upside for the Flames.

As expected, Brewington didn't immediately lift Liberty to greater things Saturday night at St. Francis. The Providence transfer probably could have scored 30 points and it wouldn't have mattered in a 70-56 loss. Forward Alex McLean was a no-show, going 2 for 12 from the field. Larry Blair struggled to a 5 of 19 showing. The Red Flash shot 52.4 percent in the second half to turn a 24-all game at halftime into a rout in the final five minutes.

"My picture was somewhat in this kind of focus," Dunton said. "I just didn't think it was going to be that ugly."

It's hard to say Brewington was a non-factor, because he was. He scored 16 points and had three assists, both team highs, along with five rebounds and three steals. His play wasn't the overriding factor in the loss, though.

With McLean struggling against St. Francis' J.R. Enright, who is two inches taller and 15 pounds heavier, Liberty (6-2) had no presence in the post. The balance that had been present during a six-game winning streak was gone Saturday. The Flames also played superb second halves during the streak. Not so Saturday. Add those factors together, and a loss was inevitable.

"What I'm going to do, and what I hope the team is going to do, is to forget about this game and worry about Buffalo (on Monday)," Brewington said. "We've just got to learn from this and get better."

It took Liberty 6:31 to score its first bucket, a Brewington layup. Again, it had little to do with Brewington messing up the team's chemistry. It's been a recurring problem.

Against East Carolina, LU fell behind 17-3. In the first game against St. Francis, the Red Flash led 6-0. Saturday, the Red Flash (4-5) led 10-0.

"I don't think it was a problem," Blair said of Brewington's first appearance. "We just didn't have the presence that we've had in the past games, from the inside as well as the perimeter. We were missing easy layups. We just couldn't get anything going in."

Liberty tied the game by halftime, but the Flames had no flow or rhythm after the break.

St. Francis took control midway through the second half when Marquis Ford (16 points, five assists) canned two clutch 3-pointers with defenders in his face, helping extend a 36-33 lead to 42-35. The Flames never got closer than five after that.

McLean's effort - among his misses were several blown layups and two airballs from close range - had Dunton puzzled. He entered the game averaging 16.7 points and 8.9 rebounds, but SFU limited him to four points and three boards.

"Alex didn't play very well tonight," Dunton said. "He didn't have a very good week of practice. I know he had a lot of academics coming at him, but he did a poor job of preparing himself to play. He wasn't aggressive enough in the post to get fouls or finish his shots as he needed to be."

Because of that, Liberty got most of its shots from the outside, and St. Francis defended the Flames well, holding the Flames to 34.8 percent shooting. Only at Oklahoma (30.2 percent) was Liberty worse from the field this year.

Despite the defeat, Brewington showed some flashes of tantalizing talent. Twice, he broke down defenders off the dribble and darted past for easy layups. He took a pass from Anthony Smith in the first half for a pretty alley-oop dunk.

But those aesthetics don't seem to mean a whole lot to Brewington. He also had a team-high six turnovers and committed four fouls.

"I'm really upset," he said. "I really believed we'd come at them. We knew they had home-court advantage. We knew they were going to come at us hard. We came out ready to go. We just couldn't finish it."

TIP-INS: Liberty quarterback Brock Smith, a Hershey, Pa., native, attended the game. *** Stat of the night: Liberty went 4 of 4 from the free-throw line. St. Francis went 26 of 31. "We didn't finish. At home, they call those fouls. Sometimes on the road, they're not. That's part of life on the road. You have to be tougher than those obstacles." *** Liberty hasn't won a road game against a Division I team since winning at UNC Asheville on Feb. 24, 2005, a span of 16 games.

http://newsadvance.com/servlet/Satellit ... th=!sports

[TDDance234]

I don't think Brew was the reason we stunk.

[paradox]

...

[whmatthews]

Since his freshman year it's been Larry's team. Larry has always been the all-star. But he needs to ask himself if he wants to be the MVP or if he wants to be the Big South Champion.

[kel varson]

I agree, Blair has to limit his shots to "Smart shots." McClean was the reason this game wasn't close. We have one big man who can play, if he's a no show, we have no chance. No one has mentioned Baker, but with McClean a no show, this kid has to step up his game. After all, he is 6 foot 9.

[Chris Lang]

I wasnt there so i dont know EXACTLY how things were, but it just sounded like everyone was moving the ball well then when it got to LB he would just throw something up. It doesnt help any that they out-rebounded us badly.

I wonder if its like something that LB feels like he needs to prove, like he wants to show that its his team so he takes as many shots as he can? Either way, We need to play as a team, thats how we have been winning, and thats what it takes to win.

That wasn't the case, really. Larry forced up a couple of bad shots, but not 19 of them. He wasn't the only one taking those bad shots, either. Damien forced a horrible shot out of a double team one time. Brewington got called for a charge for trying to force something when it wasn't there. They were all trying to find some sort of rhythm, it didn't happen.

Have some patience. There's a natural feeling out process when you add someone as dynamic as Brewington to the mix. Unlike with the women's team, what happens in the non-conference games is almost completely non-consequential, as long as the team is ready to play come conference time.

[paradox]

...

[Ed Dantes]

How is it that we shoot 4 free throws the entire game and the other team shoots 31? Gimme a break.

Get aggressive!

[WWJFD]

What we have to be realistic about is the fact that 2 teams from the Big South will not go to the NCAA's. So Win Loss record is not the end all. After sleeping on it, I think this schedule makes sense. We may have some bumps in the road now, but what is going to be more important is wins and losses in conference play for conference seeding purposes. I know it would be great to align ourselves for a possible NIT chance if we fail in an attempt for the NCAA's, but we have to realize the expectations and go one game at a time and continue to find chemistry in the lineups that RD puts out there. I think the program is heading in the right direction and I will not measure the season on this non conference portion of the schedule.


Keep working hard Flames and We are behind you!!!

[PAmedic]

I missed the entire game- just kept checking Sports Center and watching the news on the ticker get worse by the minute in the second half

looking forward to a better showing at Buffalo before we hit the panic button.

and seriously- 31 to 4 FT differential? What's THAT about? I can't recall EVER seeing that big a disparity.