St. Bonaventure 80 Vermont 68
Vermont takes another tough loss on the road. The hits keep on coming for the Cats as they struggle to find consistency. Ernie Duncan missed another game which continues to negatively affect Vermont's offense. This game boils down to free throws and threes. Vermont could not stop the Bonnie's perimeter shooting and did not cash in on their own chances at the foul line. I think back to when Vermont was around 4th in the country in free throw percentage just a few games ago. The Cats free throw percentage has fallen off a cliff and it has coincided with Duncan sitting out and Dre Wills returning. For the first part of the season the right players on Vermont were taking the free throws and it definitely inflated the numbers. Free throw shooting is going to continue to be a struggle as Dre Wills, Ethan O' Day, and Drew Urquhart are below average free throw shooters. As far as the perimeter defense, it is becoming a significant concern for Vermont. In years past they have struggled through the non conference with their defense and it has never seemed like it was going to be a season long problem. This year there is something different about their defense and it is going to need to improve by leaps and bounds over the next month in order for the Cats to find success in the conference schedule. The America East is looking like it is going to be significantly better this year and Vermont is going to have to start getting on track soon. Getting healthy will be the first step in the right direction. Since it was announced that Duncan was a game time decision for this game it seems likely he will play in the next game as Vermont has a week off to prepare. Vermont absolutely needs Duncan to be healthy. This week is going to be a time where Ethan O'Day really has to do some soul searching. He is playing very poorly and it is unclear as to why. Vermont needs O'Day to dig deep and find himself again or it is going to be a long season. I am also very interested to see what happens with Urquhart's playing time. He has been on a yo-yo this season and it seems like neither he nor the coaching staff know which Drew is going to show up. He put up a 9 point, 12 rebound performance in tonight's game and it would be a significant boost if he can start to find some of the consistency he began to display at the end of last season. With a week off to mull over the losing streak, this is a critical point in Vermont's season. If the players and coaching staff don't start feeling some positive momentum soon, this season has a chance to slip away. This is one of the stretches where a team finds out what they a really made of and the game next week will be a good indication of which direction Vermont is headed.
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