Hartford 75 Vermont 74 OT
The win streak comes to an end.
Austin Williams was unstoppable for Hartford and Moses Flowers put back a miss with 5 seconds left to hand Vermont their first conference loss. Already without Ryan Davis, Finn Sullivan was ruled out before the game as well and Vermont couldn't take advantage of an equally depleted Hartford team. In the first half, the Hawks couldn't miss and Vermont struggled to find an offensive rhythm. Vermont fought back in the second half but couldn't pull away. Ben Shungu tipped in a miss at the buzzer to send the game into overtime and give the Cats new life. Moses Flowers scored all 8 points for Hartford in OT to lift the Hawks to victory. Since the COVID rescheduling created this road trip, this seemed like a likely spot for the Cats to drop a game. Then with the injuries creating further challenges, a loss felt inevitable. However, the players fought hard and it was an incredibly exciting game. Vermont struggled to makes plays on both sides of the ball. Too many mistakes on defense and too many threes on offense. The Cats ended with 32 attempts from three and too often settled for jumpers in the second half. A ton of credit goes to Hartford who played an incredible game and knocked down shot after shot. Honestly more concerning than the loss is having to go to OT and play so many minutes in the midst of this difficult stretch. That makes the next game at New Hampshire very tough. Vermont wants to be healthy come playoff time and they have a significant cushion for the regular season title. It is going to be important and stay the course and make sure guys get healthy.
It was an uneven performance for most of the Cats tonight. Ben Shungu led Vermont with 21 points, 12 rebounds, 3 assists, 2 steals, and 2 blocks. He played almost the entire game and tried to will Vermont to victory. A gutsy performance on a night when Hartford was selling out to stop him. Kam Gibson got the start and scored 18 points to go along with 5 rebounds and 2 steals. He also played better defense in the second half in limiting the Hawks three points shooting. He was 5-12 from three but missed a crucial layup toward the end of the game. I give him a lot of credit for not losing confidence with his extended bench time and several times in this game he brought the Cats back with big threes. Justin Mazzulla and Isaiah Powell really struggled to finish around the rim combining for 4-17 shooting. Missing the bunnies really prevented Vermont from pulling away down the stretch. Aaron Deloney scored 13 points to round out the Cats double figure scorers. The Cats really missed Sullivan's defensive energy in tonight's game.
Several of the long winning streaks have gone down this week or were very close to going down. This is often the toughest stretch of the season and the compressed schedule makes it even tougher. No matter how good or bad teams are the second time through the conference schedule almost always produces a game like tonight. This one definitely stings and the next one is going to be equally as tough. New Hampshire is another tough physical team and even if the Cats get Sullivan or Davis back, the rest of the guys are going to be gassed after tonight's game. This is the first significant adversity for the Cats since early on in the non-conference and it will be interesting to see how they respond.
What's Finn's injury???
ReplyDeleteYes, the missed bunnies inside which weren't gimmes by any means cost Vermont the game. If David and Finn play, some of those go in. Fiorillo is great, but he's not a center or really an inside presence.
As far as the exhaustion factor, the Cats should be ready to go. These are young men in their prime we're talking about and the conference title is at stake. A former player educated me on this not long ago. Also, UNH played on Monday night too. No excuses.
Perhaps Guillory should've played more on Monday. He's a tough, physical defender and he might've been able to slow Williams down.
Nice to see Kam deliver. Good for him.
The report was that Finn was sick. Excuses aside, there is an impact to being on the road, sleeping in hotels, etc. UNH has been at home for their games much like Vermont was when they had the three games in five days earlier this year. If the Cats were fully healthy I would absolutely agree, the health factor is certainly complicating their game planning Guillory has some tools but he the way Williams was playing I am not sure he is at that level yet. Gibson finding some success was very nice to see.
Delete