5th year PG Ryan Barbeau gives us his 2nd Captain's Blog installment.......
Tis The Season!
Hello all! I just wanted to bring you up to date on basically the first half of the season, our progression and what the second half looks like for your Mustangs! As you have probably read about, we are currently 3-5 and sit at the bottom of the OUA west standings, but the light is certainly not as dim as it seems, as that record could easily read as its reciprocal. Some poor late game execution and lack of toughness down the stretch is all that keeps us from being in the middle of the pack.
After the trip to Ottawa, where we played very poorly and came away with two losses, we knew that it was time to make a change and we needed to become tougher and more disciplined with the stuff that we were trying to accomplish, both offensively and defensively. Playing at the University of Toronto the following Friday night was a very tough task for our young team, as Toronto is one of the better teams in the East and a very veteran group. I thought that we battled extremely hard all game and with Pete providing an offensive spark for us we were able to be in a one possession game with the clock winding down and had it not been for yours truly missing a crucial three pointer we may have been able to get the game into overtime. That loss definitely hurt but we had to regroup to face a very athletic Ryerson team the very next night. Once again, the fourth quarter hurt us and we were unable to come up with enough defensive stops to secure the win, and ended up losing that game as well. I think what we learned from that weekend was that we are very capable of competing and giving ourselves a chance to win the game, we just need to be more disciplined and learn to execute better in the fourth quarters. Being 1-5, we knew we needed two wins the following weekend against Queens and RMC. Quinn Henderson (16 points) provided us with an offensive spark against Queens and our three point shooting allowed us to come away with the win, in front of 1200 screaming grade 6 kids from all over London. It was a pretty cool environment to play in and definitely one of the highlights of the season so far! The next day we played RMC and were able to come away with the win behind a double double from freshman Jermaine Bernard (15 points, 10 assists). Safe to say it was nice to end the first half of the season on a winning note and hopefully we can carry this momentum into January.
I truly do not think that our team is very far away from becoming one of the better teams in the OUA West. Getting Adam back, hopefully in January is going to add toughness and a rebounding aspect that we have been lacking thus far this season. I can see that the rookies on the team are starting to feel their way into the system and becoming more comfortable with what we are trying to do, and I also think that because guys are starting to know their roles it is going to make January and February much more successful!
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