CIM's BLOG: Up-date of Celtics becoming Spurs of East

[bcbc55]

Perhaps he should go into sportswriting after his days at Maine are over with...
Sometimes we all just miss our niche in life...perhaps he has found his...

basketball_guy: Good point that way no big loses or 14-90 D-1 records and overall 22-90 counting non D-1 teams like UMM, UMFK, UMPI, etc each year for 2 easy wins that they include in stats, team and coaches records but not in RPI's.

[bcbc55]

Another, excellent, timely, interesting, informative and revealing Blog post by Coach Walsh on his blog about the hiring. firing, retiring practices for D-1 men's and women's college basketball coaches.

Just go to coachbobwalsh.com as it will certainly be of interest to any D-1 womens or men's college basketball fans, coaches, players, etc.

[bcbc55]

Thanks to all the MBRers and guests who got my blog to over 50,000 view or hits today or yesterday.

Started this BLOG in May of 2016 so am averaging over 25,000 a year so far. Will know 2 year total in this coming May. Glad so many are interested enough to check out my MBR BLOG.

Thanks to all who made the 50,000 number possible.

[bcbc55]

After the UMaine men did something they have not done under the current coaching (supervisers of substitutions until last Wednesday night) as they weren't supervisers of substitutions last game as they only used 6 players double figure playing minutes for the first time that I can remember in the 3 plus years I have been following this current 15-90 vs. D-1 opponents and 23-90 overall UMaine men's basketball era.

Two big questions: Were those two new strategies by accident or by design (the using just 6 players had to be by design) and what made the coaching staff make these two important strategy changes that led to their upset win over UNH a very solid America East team.

Why weren't both done much earlier in this coaching staffs 3 plus years at UMaine?

After 3-27, 8-22 and 7-25 seasons wouldn't you think that these two changes would have been made much earlier.

Maybe it was new assistant coach veteran Bob Simon's suggestion?

Whatever it was that had UMaine men's coaching staff follow through only shows that it is never to late to learn something at any age about anything, even basketball. Shooting a lot of 3's and using 10 players double figure minutes might have worked in D-3 but not going to in good solid D-1 competition and the AE isn't exactly a top ranked conference.

"It's better late then never for this season" as the Bears could and should with the talent they have on hand be able to finish fourth in the final America East Conference regular season standings so as to get a home quarter-final round home game so as to give themselves a chance for their first tournament win in a long time and after 3 tries under this current regime.

If the Bears can finish 8-8 or better and finish 4th and win a tournament game they might just be able to save their coaching staff's jobs by having their contracts renewed for next season. Anything less then that maybe be bye-bye to the entire men's basketball team's coaching staff.

Two questions for tomorrow's 1:00pm game at UMBC another solid AE team who beat Maine at home several weeks ago.

Will they use no more than 7 players double figure (won't need a supervisor of subs for that few playing double figure minutes) minutes tomorrow in their game at UMBC?

Will they keep their 3 point attempts to no more than 33% of their total field goal attempts and be able to shoot at least 33% from behind the arc?

They did these two things (used 6 players and 7 tomorrow if Er is ready to go) double figure minutes) and only took 33.3% of their FGA's as 3's on 19 of 57 and shot 36.7% on 7 for 19 from 3 point land against UNH in beating the Wildcats at home Wednesday at the CIC in Bangor 69-68 in playing their best all around game of the year so far.

Like I said "better late then never for this season" so if they can do those two things again they maybe able to win this next important game especially were it is on the road against a solid team.

Go UMaine men's basketball team to a win over UMBC to go 3-5 in conference play heading towards that a 8-8 conference mark after making those 2 very important strategy changes against UNH. Only got to go 6 and 3 the rest of the way.

Blackbear28====(27.8 minutes with corrections)

P.S.
Maine is going to have to finish ahead of two of the following 5 teams to finish 4th to get a home quarter-final tourney game
1. Vermont....... 7-0
2. UMBC ...........5-2
3. Hartford .......4-3
3. UNH.............4-3
5. Albany..........4-4
===================
6. Stonybrook.... 3-4
7. UMass-Lowell. 2-5
7. UMaine ........2-5
9. Binghamton... 1-6
....................32-32

Blackbear28 (add 15 minutes with corrections)

[bcbc55]

On December 5th 2012 I wrote an article in my Bangor Daily News column "Off the Rim", entitled, "Why high school/college players can't dunk in warmups". That column is almost continually read every day since I wrote that column 6 years ago, be it in "summer, spring, winter or fall". Good example just, Sunday, January 27th there were 74 views or hits on it and today, Monday January 29th there were 7 hits.

Seeing how much of an interest there has been in that BLOG I cannot believe that I did not update that column as now COLLEGE PLAYERS CAN DUNK IN PRE-GAME WARMUPS WITHOUT A TECHNICAL FOUL BEING CALLED AND CHARGED TO THE COACH as that rule was changed a few years ago.

Where was I? I should have updated that when that rule changed then, but somehow because of my old age or it was something I just forgot to do it (possibly age again). SO PLEASE ACCEPT MY APOLOGIES TO ALL THE READERS OF MY BLOG FOR NOT DOING THIS WHEN IT HAPPENED. I have no excuse. just plain my fault for not recognizing how popular this one article was. Maybe it was popular because I didn't change it. BUT NOW I HAVE. Sorry about that, my bad and I will try to do a better job of keeping up with things that needed to be changed from my Column or BLOG. But maybe it is my old senior citizen age that caused me to be so late, but as the title of this thread says. it's "BETTER LATE THAN NEVER".

Bob Cimbollek

P.S. It is still a technical foul if dunking is done in a boys high school game in pre-game warmups and the technical is charged to the coach and he loses the right to stand in the coaching box, he has to sit.

[bcbc55]

The UMaine's men exciting overtime win over last place 1-9 Binghamton gives Maine 3-7 a two game lead from being tied for ninth. The 9th place team will not make the America East Tournament because this year because UMass-Lowell is eligible for the first time for the tourney since they joined the AE Conference 4 years ago. There is no 8-9 place play in game. The ninth place team after the 16 game regular conference season schedule is the only team not to make the tournament this year.

Maine has six games left. They have to go to UNH, Hartford, UMass-Lowell, and Albany and are home to Stonybrook and Vermont. The only team that they have beat in the 6 remaining games is UNH.

Here are the current teams standings as of now:
1. Vermont.........9-0
2. UMBC.............7-3
3. Hartford.........7-3
4. Albany...........6-4
5. UNH..............5-5
6. UMass-Lowell...3-6
7. Stonybrook......3-7
7. Maine............3-7
9. Binghamton.....1-9
.....totals.........44-44

[bcbc55]

The UMaine women's team is currently in first place in the 20th ranked D-1 conference in conference RPI and 23rd in SOS (strength of schedule) of the 32 D-1 conferences in the realtimerpi.com national rankings with a 10-2 won- lost mark with rival Albany in second place at 9-3.

The women are ranked 67th in team rankings of the 349 D-1 college women's basketball teams and have a SOS of 94th, placing them in the top one hundred in both realtimerpi.com rankings which puts them in the major division of the 3 levels of major, mid-major or low major.

Quite an accomplishment for a young team starting a freshmen point guard, 3 sophomore (2 outstanding 3 point shooters) and a junior scorer, defender and rebounder along with a senior and a junior as subs and a young interim head coach in her second year filling in for the original head coach.

Coach has done an excellent job of using just 7 players double figure minutes which allows the better players to be on the court enough time to get the game come to them and not take themselves to the game which helps play the game from the shoulders up not from the shoulders down.

Also, Maine has gone to some match up 2-3 zone defense to help make up for their overall lack of size which they did in their last win over UNH this week.

They have improved their 3 point shooting in the last few games and are shooting 33.3% up from 30% and have reduced their 3 attempts also. They are currently on an 8 game win streak in conference play.

With just 4 conference games remaining (Stonybrook away, UMass-Lowell away, Vermont away and an important home game against 2nd place Albany who holds a win over Maine in a previous meeting) until tournament time Maine hopes to hang onto first place so if they get to the finals of the tournament they will host the championship game as the regular season champion.

That will mean that they probably will have to win out so that they don't finish in a tie with Albany with a loss to the Danes if they win their 3 other games and if Albany wins out their 4 remaining games.

However, with their final game of the regular conference season play with Albany at Home it puts the Maine team in an excellent position to decide their final standings fate for the home game for the final championship game if they get that far.

[bcbc55]

It should be back to basics to the foul line for the UMaine men's basketball team as they went 12 for 21 for just 57% to Hartford's 72% on 18-25 in their 10th AE Conference loss to Hartford on the road tonight 67-63. That is enough said although they were just 5 for 21 from beyond the ARC-tic line for just 23.8% and that didn't help either as Hartford only shot 24% for their 3's on 7 for 29.

As bugs bunny used to say "ttttttttttthat's all folks".

[bcbc55]

Here are the UMaine's men's and women's 3 point percentages for all games the men have played 28 games and the women 27 games. Stats right up to date.

UMaine men 3 point shooting percentage is 29.4%
UMaine women 3 point shooting percentage is 33.4%

UMaine men's percentage of Field Goals attempted as 3's is 41.4%
UMe women's percentage of Field Goals Attempted as 3's is 40.4%

Both teams have reduced the number of 3's attempted some.

The women's team has improved their 3 point shooting percentage from 30% to 33.4% while the men have stayed at the 28-29.8% range and have not been able to get over the hurdle of 30% yet for the season.

[bcbc55]

With no games for 6 days for the UMaine men's team until this coming Wednesday at UMass-Lowell and the women have been off since last Wednesday they don't play for 8 days until this coming Thursday at Vermont.

So with their game inactivity they have taken 3d place as the high school tournaments and the Olympics seem to dominate the MBR fans interests.

There has been hardly anything written and posted here on MBR concerning either tam except I wrote about their 3 point shooting percentages on this BLOG a day or to ago.

So I thought I would just remind people that they still do exist as they get ready to finish out their regular conference games and get ready for the conference tournament in early March.

The men who are 3-10 in conference play have 3 games left as they try to move out of 8th place so that they don't have to face the unbeaten Vermont team in the conference standings in the tourney QF's and as the women who are 11-3 and in a tie for first place with Albany have just Vermont away and the Albany at home.

The men have to go to UMass-Lowell and Albany and are home to Vermont in the last game of regular season conference play.

After the Olympics end this coming weekend along with the high school tournaments then the UMaine basketball teams should draw back more of the interest here on MBR, especially the women as they fight for the home court tournament final game advantage with their home regular season game with Albany on Sunday, February 25th after the high school B C and D North tournaments end on Saturday on February 24th.

The 10 high school tournament state games are scheduled for Thursday, and Friday, March 1 and 2.

The AE women's tournament follows on March 3 and 4 at the same facility the Cross Insurance Arena in Portland with the men's tourney at the high seed teams home court on Sunday, March 4th and Tuesday the 6th for the QF's and SF's.