Observations from the Charlotte 49ers' 79-76 loss to Florida State on Saturday:
• Charlotte coach Alan Major got emotional - he teared up, actually - when talking about the play of freshman guard Ivan Benkovic. Benkovic, one of the 49ers' best 3-point shooters, entered the game for the first time with 12 seconds and Charlotte trailing 78-73. His instructions: to shoot. Instead, Benkovic passed up an open 3 and passed to E. Victor Nickerson, who nailed a 3 from the corner, cutting the lead to two points. Benkovic got the ball back later, missing a long 3 as the buzzer sounded that would have tied it.
"I want to give credit to Ivan Benkovic," said Major, pausing to compose himself. "He doesn't go in the whole game and he's in there to shoot. Instead he passes to an open teammate. He tries to do the right thing. As a coach, that's all you want, to see your kids do the right thing."
• The 49ers wore black uniforms, something they rarely do, as part of a "Black Out" for fans at Time Warner Cable Arena. The upper deck of the arena was curtained off, making for a more intimate atmosphere for the crowd of 7,249.
• Charlotte's next game is Jan. 2 against UNC Asheville at Halton Arena. Although they're only 5-7, the Bulldogs won at St. John's 72-65 Friday and narrowly lost to N.C. State 82-80 in November. The 49ers are off until Friday, when they'll return to campus for practice.
• Biggest hit of the game was the pick set by Florida State's Terrance Shannon on Charlotte guard Denzel Ingram in the open court. Ingram went down hard, but bounced back up.
• Happy holidays to all.
Saturday, December 22, 2012
Florida State Seminoles at Charlotte 49ers observations
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46 comments:
Major was crying because he can no longer hide his weaknesses behind a made to order OOC schedule.
Charlotte is nowhere close to being a good team and Alan Major is a horrible coach. Brasssssssswell
This must be the worst 11 win team in the country.
P.Henry must be the most overrated defender in college basketball. He gets humiliated by any guard that has above average skills. First Durand Scott gives him a double double now today Snaer lights him up for 30pts !!!!
He cried again? What is up with that? How about if you are going to cry, cry over those terrible halftime adjustments? Major lost this game at halftime.
Our coaching staff uses the excuse we are young and only start frosh and sophs. Why don't we start Braz and Mayfield like we should? Then we are not nearly as young and are starting the 2 players that should be starting. Of coursee, the coaches would have to find another excuse.
^^^^
Yes, I agree that starting different people would increase the average age and experience of our team greatly! Of course, you may want to check the minutes per game played by Braswell and Mayfield. I believe they are significant. Fans worry about who starts, but players worry about who plays.
No way anonymous has ever been to one of our games...this is a good team...the refs stole this one from us with the free throw diff in second half...what a shame that what should have been a great college game was ruined by a terrible officiating crew.
7200 at Bobcat Arena? "Intimate environment"? I don't get it. Halton seats 9000. Why not have the game there and fill Halton up for once. As a season ticket owner - I would much prefer that.
Major will be a great coach once he learns how to coach! Give him time people! He can clearly recruit. He just needs to work on his in game decisions and adjustments and learn how to work the refs. We ARE a young team just like the last few years! Be patient!
Wait till next year.
Dear Terrence Williams....YOU ARE NOT A THREE POINT SHOOTER !!! Go inside 15 feet where you are effecient. Stop making stupid fouls everytime you turn the ball the ball over and stop pouting everytime you're taken out of the game ! Thank you coach Major for realizing Thompson is not an asset and sitting him in the second half ! The team is playing hard and growing and learning each game. All you who don't like them or think they're overrated....don't read the damn articles on the Niners and don't feel you have to share your opinion to those who love and support the team !
Since when did losing by three points to a good ACC team with 4 and 5 star players with only two or three star freshmen and sophomores become a bad thing. They learned from their game with Miami hlped them in this one. This is a good thing and next year those freshmen and sophomores are going to be great players. This is a good team and the students, community, and supporters get behind this team.
It becomes a bad thing when your two highest scoring upper class men are riding pine during an 11-5 FSU run to begin the second half. Cut the cutesy crap and start Braswell and Mayfield.
Henry didn't guard Snaer. Quit acting like you know anything about sports T.
I am tired of the "Wait till next year. We are young and inexperienced" excuse. We've been hearing that for 3 years since Major took over. I've almost decided he does not start our better players so he can use the "young and inexperienced" argument as an excuse for losing. I blame him for this loss but admit he got some help from the ACC biased officiating crew (I noticed David Scott refused to address this obvious issue).
Beating up on Southern Conference type teams is nothing to brag about. The experiment is over. NCAA THIS YEAR or a new coach. No more excuses! Bobby would have won yesterday's game by 5 or more points and he would have started the best team.
^^^^ I sincerely believes Major does not understand when it is time to teach and when it is time to get a win. I blame this loss on him. I just hope this is not the loss that keeps us from receiving an at-large NCAA bid to the dance this year but there is a good chance it may very well be.
Anon 12:31 - Losing to a 6-4 ACC team was unacceptable when I first started following this team in the late 1990s. Not making the NCAA tournament was also unacceptable. It remained unacceptable until Major was hired. Then everything suddenly changed.
^^^ unacceptable? Charlotte didn't make it for five straight years under Lutz. Revisionist history. Major has had two full year recruiting classes. And almost all of those guys play on an 11-2 team. Give it a rest. If u don't see progress you don't understand sports.
Don't see any comments in this blog about young and inexperienced. Make it up a little?
Lutz was fired after a 19 win season when we were considered a bubble team in mid February. Why are we supposed to be content now when we have continuous LOSING seasons. This EXCUSE that we are young is just that. Nothing but an excuse that the coaches keep using every year. He keeps the more talented upper classmen on the bench so he can claim we are young. This is the THIRD year in a row he has pulled this stunt. Enough is enough.
FSU had 2 starters with 4 fouls early in the 2nd half but we did not take the ball to either one in an attempt to foul them out. Why not? Braz and Mayfield are on the bench to start the 2nd half had FSU comes back from 5 points down to take a bigger lead. Still, no Braz or Mayfield in the game. Why? We let our worst 3 pooint shooter take the 3 point shot at the end of the game. Why? We schedule 10 of the worst 30 teams in the nation this year. Why? Never mind. I know the answer to that question. We had to make the coaching staff look good so Judy would not have to eat crow.
Anon 9:24, some of the Major apologists have been using the young and inexperienced excuse. I call BS to that excuse when we do not start 2 of our best 3 players.
Anon 8:12
Huh? It was unacceptable. That's why Lutz got fired:
Chancellor Phil Dubois "We looked at the record the last five years, we've gone to the NIT twice and we've not gone three times and that by definition says you're out of the top 97 teams and maybe more than that. With the investment we've made in basketball, we have to be better than that."
Alan Major's five year period is not shaping up much better than Lutz's last five year period. I really don't anticipate improvement over Lutz's slightly-better-than-.500 record in the A10. And I anticipate missing any postseason for the third straight year with no ncaa postseason in sight.
If you disagree, then just keep doing what you guys have been doing. Keep on hating on your own fanbase, keep holding your grudges, keep telling people to do something else with their time.
And then maybe you'll be proven right. Maybe the team will start winning again and maybe you'll win back a few fans that you can continue shaming to your own delight.
But it doesn't have to be me. I'll spend my time doing something else rather than attending games or watching them on tv. Me and my drinking buddies will find some other sporting event to attend. Don't get me wrong, I'll keep rooting for my school to win and check the scores in the newspaper. But I have to distance myself from the small group of former Lutz bashers that make it so hard to be a regular fan.
Good luck in your continued pissing contests. Hope you win - as you drive away the last remnants of ambassadors off the fanbase forever.
The comments on these post game articles make me ashamed to be a student. Show some class and display some logic, your comments are an embarrassment to this institution.
Coach Major has a 6'11 fellow who was recruited by Marquette. He did extremely well in the exhibition game with free throws,block shots, and rebounds. He runs the court very well. A decision not to use such talent is not in the best interest of the team or winning. I do agree that the Coach is not making good decisions.
Anon 10:13, I know some former Lutz bashers that have stated it is ok to have a losing record FIVE years in a row as long as we make progress in the right direction. That is what I call very slow progress.
I have had season tickets in Halton since the arena opened, have been to numerous conference tournaments, and have been to numerous away games. I am also becoming very disenchanted with the nosedive of the basketball program the past 2 years. Something needs to change, and fast. It looks like the A10 will be ranked the 4th or 5th best conference in the nation this year. My concern is we will tank in conference play, partially because of our coaching staff's sturbornness and inability to make adjustments during games.
bottom line is this:
8-5 or even 7-6 vs a top 100 schedule is MUCH better to the fans and athletes than 11-2 vs 280th worst. Judy Rose slammed the former coach for his OOC wins at her podium.
it is painfully obvious the easy schedule is to keep heat away, and not starting Braz is the crutch to say we are young.
These comments are pretty funny. I have a feeling lots of people who criticize coaches for "not making adjustments" wouldn't know an adjustment if it bit them on the nose. As to the issue of who starts, gets playing time, etc; these same "experts" consistently whined about Lutz's player rotatations. The assertion that any coach would base his lineups on the general public's perceptions is ludicrous. Major is not starting his younger players so he can use the "young and inexperienced" excuse.
Lutz was fired partly because he did not have firm control over his team and his recruiting was in a steep decline. If his 19 win team did not impress Rose and Dubois, then just maybe that was because it did not impress the NIT selection committee as well. Major inherited a team with some "me first" players and, to his credit. now has "team first" guys. If you can't see that, you aren't following the program.
Will Major return Charlotte to the glory days of the early 90's?. Not likely since the 49ers are set to enter a really bad basketball conference. I'm sure there will be fans who will blame him for that, too.
If memory serves me right, those teams that Lutz played were also considered easy teams by you guys. You act like he played Duke and North Carolina every night. No, he played App State and N.C. A&T State University. Those 19 wins came as a result of easy teams as well. That's why his team kept going to the NIT and not NCAA. Major had a lot of problems his first two years with behavioral problems and half a team. I think this season will be a good season for the team. However, if Charlotte goes through losing season this year and next year then you need to look at another coach.
I like this team , but they should have won and when an opponent scores 30 , defense is really lacking . FSU is not a great team . I think we should stick with the black uniforms.
I don't think many people question Alan Major's character. But I think there are some fans who question whether he is a strong coach or a weak coach.
His lack of signing anyone this season is attributed to not being able to offer our recruits any individual promises of starts & playing time due to our team's youth. I can believe that. I can believe that AM is fulfilling his prevous promises, too. Remember those "tough" recruiting battles Major won? I'll bet some of our younger guys were given some promises of playing time while some of the other younger fellas were not.
But where does that leave us? It leaves us with our best players not playing and/or not starting. It leaves a couple of newer players stuck on the bench, too.
All in the name of a team-first philosophy over a me-first philosophy.
Now that's a weak coach.
Too many conspiracey theories in these comments. We need to get NA on here to straighten half of you posters out.
@10:13
Unless you participated in the recruiting process, your premise is unfounded fantasy. Your conclusion is the exact opposite of your speculative premise and your characterization of a team oriented coach as weak is too stupid for words.
Otherwise, a great post.
Total loser creme puff twinkie preseason a joke. Weak coaches and teams always pad preseasons with easy cupcakes to look good. Real schools like UNC are begged for a single shot to play in preseason.
UNC HEELS
This team is making a lot of progress. 11-2 vs an average schedule but Miami and FSU still have ACC athletes. All will be fine. I am a believer!
Uhhh, in case you haven't noticed, your 'heels are terrible this year. They play no defense and almost got beat by EZU. Roy Williams is a terrible coach and Charlotte, with a line up of freshman and sophomores, would likely bully the heels off the court this year. Even with all that prestige, colleges begging to play them, nationally heralded recruits, and a name brand conference, they still suck and are getting blown out by mediocre teams.
Your post screams of backwoods, Walmart fan, class of nineteen ninety never, and it would take just that type of person to come troll another team's blog when his team is in the midst of possibly it's worse season in decades. In the mean time, the NCAA does everything it can to turn its back on the the egregious lack of institutional control the entire university is and has been immersed in since the mid nineties.
LOL at the stupid UNC-chapel hill fan. 100 bucks says he never attended one class in Chapel Hill.
At least we have never had a coach that threw fans from the opposing team out of the arena simply because they were able to purchase seats too close to the court (Presbyterian College was the game).
12:52 AM
who the fuck is talking to you ?
only speak when spoken too faggot .. fuck off
GO HEELS !!!!!!!!
^^^
I.Q. non existant. Manners of a pig. Typical Walmart Hole.
@6:18AM
You need to get laid dude. Go find you a nice russian woman somewhere.
It dont matter if I went to UNC or not I am still a fan. Going to school past the tinth grade is overated anyhow.
GO HEELS !!!!!!!!
There is a grade made completely of tin? Weird.
To the "Go Heels" fan, it is spelled "tenth" grade, not
tinth" grade. So typical for your fanbase.
Anyone responding to the 5:27 "heels fan", please do not feed the troll.
Aint you Niners goin to play no more games this year? I seen about 5 articles a day on my Heels and I aint seen nothing about your team in over a week. No wonder you aint got no fans.
GO HEELS!!!!!
^^^^
Do not reply to troll. Ace--Get a life.
Well? Where is the pregame article for Wednesday's game? I think Anon 428 works for the Observer staff and is trying to hide the fact they have once again given the Niners the shaft. Once again, they resort to name-calling when they cannot think of anything else.
^^^^
Over40 - Get a life.
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