One More Homecoming Wreck For Edgar Sosa
One could see it coming early.
Edgar Sosa pumping his chest, waving his arms, winking at the camera, the kind of stuff players usually do when a game is in the bag.
Doing it in the first half, acting as if a 10-point lead was 25, and it was only a matter of time before Rick Pitino would clear the bench.
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The Louisville basketball team was playing well in the first half, probably one of the better halves this season, sticky quick on defense, challenging every pass, every shot, every defensive rebound.
Feeling good about themselves. Real good. Especially Edgar Sosa.
Danger time. That’s when bad things begin happening for this team.
Second half, different Sosa, over-confident, making circus passes, NBA-distance three-point attempts. Throwing the ball to wrong people — Terrence Jennings and Jared Swopshire — at the worst possible times, neither of them known for hitting shots at clutch time.
Sorry, Sosa, no Kyle Kuric around for much of the second half to bail anybody out this time around. His hot shooting hands relegated to the bench. Pitino’s most predictable decision this day.
Sosa with 20 points in the first half, lucky to get eight in the second.
Still, just another bad night for Sosa in Madison Square Garden. This is the one that will hurt the most.
Don’t feel so bad about the loss to UC after Thursday night’s UC vs. WVU game. Playing their third game in three days, the Bearcats took WVU to the wire and lost on a last second three by WVU’s DaSean Butler.
Repeat after me, Rick…Siva to point guard, Sosa to “2” guard and Kuric, Jennings and Samardo to fill out the starting lineup.
Repeat after me. Recruit better.
There is not one well rounded, consistant player on this team. All of them have certain things they can do well but each of them also has a lot of things they do poorly. And we have a difficult time getting five guys on the floor at the same time whose strengths compliment each others strengths and compensate for each others weaknesses. Better players make for better coaches unless you are someone like Pat Kennedy.
Bottom line is that a point guard doesn’t need to dash down the court and take a three right off the bat. I’ve said it all season long…if Edgar wants to be a shooting guard…move him to the “2” and put Siva at the point.
Otherwise, pass, distribute the ball and take the occasional jumper. Be a point guard. Or put one out there, Rick. Sosa is a great shooter at times and but too selfish to run the point.
Maybe we are just hoping for to much with this team. As I have mentioned before the team is full of players with unrealized or yet to be realized potential. Swopshire, Jennings, Knowles, Kuric, Delk are all great role players who play hard but would probably get 3-5 minutes of playing time on any of the top ten teams. There just isn’t enough talent to get consistant performances each game and it has played out that way all year. What stands out to me is that Sosa seems to be a very image conscience type player who thinks the ability to make great plays translates to being a great player. He just has never matured into that Scotty Reynolds type player that Louisville needs.
I’m so sick of Edgar Sosa being slammed by our own fans. Seriously, of all that went wrong last night, you choose to talk about Sosa’s poor shot selection and decision making? How about Knowles going for ONE OF TWELVE from the field? Or how about how our point guard was our leading rebounder? As for the comment about passing to Swop, he was WIDE OPEN. I’m sorry but if he can’t make a wide open mid range jumper when we absolutely have to have it he shouldn’t be on the court at all. He went 0-4, on the night, btw.
It seems very short sighted to pick on Edgar Sosa when it was clear that he and Delk seemed to be the only two interested in trying to make plays and win the game.
Plenty of blame to go around but we all saw Edgar’s game going south as it was happening. He’s the point guard, the quarterback, he’s supposed to be the player that makes things happen or not happen.
You’re right about Knowles unable to hit shots.
Unless you are a Kobe, an MJ, or the like it can get tough when you have so little help. Anytime you have to try to do the work of multiple players the results will be uneven.
Charlie, try doing this blog all by yourself and see how even your results are.
Good points, cbcard. Just a little disappointed that he didn’t couldn’t quite get the team on his shoulders against Cincinnati.
Thank you Edgar. You laid it on the line, had the courage to take and make many tough shots. You were beautiful. Unfortunately, you did not get the support you needed, but you will play some more and we look forward to watching you.
Louisville simply got out-toughed by the Bearcats in the final twenty minutes. Cronin is building a team that is in many ways similiar to the old Huggins Bearcat squad. Big and physical. An emphasis on strength and aggressiveness, not speed and quickness.
It served them well tonight. No one player that you can hang this loss on. Another typical Cardinal fold after winning a big game. We’ve seen it too often this season.
To use a cliche, Cincy came out and smacked us in the mouth in the second half and we had no counterpunch available. The rebounding stats are a major indicator that UofL’s front line needs to toughen up considerably in the next outing.
I assume we’ll get an NCAA bid. While waiting, the Cards better find some of that toughness and hustle that they seem to only bring out against big opponents.
He probably will blame himself. That is his biggest problem and I think we contribute to it. Maybe the team let him down. There’s nothing more demoralizing than watching a team get three and four opportunities to score while you’re running around out front challenging shots. If sosa doesn’t play as he did we lose by 15-20. No one else wanted to take shots at crunch time. If you ask his teammates I think they’d tell you that. He was cocky at the jump ball. His greatest failing was that he tightened up at the line.
I agree that we can’t pin the loss on Sosa. But when he started getting cocky and careless, Sosa opened the door for Cincinnati. That’s when his leadership abilities deserted him, losing confidence, creating doubt among his teammates. He knows he let them down, believe me.
Not to mention his poor free throw shooting, which would have made the difference…again. Otherwise, he kept us in the game with his scoring, but I don’t understand why he can’t hit freethrows when we need them most.
You are being way too tough on Sosa. Without him we are never in the game. Two points off the bench! Swopshire, Jennings, Knowles all having terrible games. No one on the team who can spell rebound, not even with a five letter head start. This wasn’t Sosa’s fault.
I left out Siva who had a bad game also. And Kuric accomplished nothing of value. Buckles got one rebound basket and perhaps a block. That was his contribution. Subtract Sosa, Samuels and Delk and we couldn’t have beat a bad high school team tonight.
I don’t think we pin this on Sosa. He looked like a man with a hand pump trying to save the titanic. Where was the help? Kuric was scared to shoot after the air ball. Siva…well. Swop? Didn’t we start two 6’9 front court players? Rebounding isn’t sosas responsibility although he may have led the team in that category as well. He looked to me to be the only player who came to play. A very soft effort all around.
Where was Kuric and Marra? Sosa started out well – then got careless and another game was given to Cinncinati—-ahahah. I feel like Pitino loves mind games and didn’t make the right line up for the most critical moments…