DURHAM, N.H. – Bill Herrion summed it up rather succinctly in the middle of his post-game press conference.
“We’re rock bottom,” said the subdued New Hampshire head coach. “I’m not going to lie to you, we’re rock bottom right now.”
Thursday night’s 51-40 loss to Hartford was the Wildcats’ ninth in a row. It was another game where the offense struggled to get going, and once the defense had some trouble, the game was over. In past years the Wildcats would defend well enough to stay in the game, and the offense had enough to win some games. That’s not the case with this team, and that’s before we get to the fact that they don’t seem to play well together at the offensive end.
Herrion didn’t have answers, and frankly, from a personnel standpoint the Wildcats as a whole don’t. The bottom appears to be falling out.
New Hampshire isn’t lacking talent, but this was already a fragile team before this current losing streak. They’re especially seeking answers at the point, where Jordon Bronner can defend but hasn’t given them much offensively and Chris Orozco is a freshman. They are high on Orozco, and he’s shown promise, but he’s still a baby physically and plays like a freshman at times. Not having big man Chris Pelcher due to injury certainly didn’t help, but it’s not like he’s a game-changer.
This isn’t a deep team, so the Wildcats are in a real hole right now as they try to make something of this season with still a lot of basketball to be played.
“We’re obviously not in a good spot right now at all,” said Herrion. “The problem, though, is that when you’re in a really tough hole like we are, sometimes the best way to get out of it is you try to go to other guys, you try to get some juice and you try to get some energy and a lift from other guys off the bench, and we’re not getting it at all.”
New Hampshire started Orozco on Thursday night and he was generally little more effective than Bronner has been. With no assists and three turnovers, he was but one who didn’t have a good stat line there as the Wildcats had three assists and 16 turnovers on the evening while shooting under 35 percent from the field. They didn’t make a single shot from long range and got just two points off the bench on a Scott Morris fast break layup.
More talented players like Patrick Konan (five points on 2-6 shooting and eight rebounds) and Ferg Myrick (10 points on 4-14 shooting and five rebounds) didn’t have their best nights. With Konan, that’s been the story of the season as he’s never been able to get untracked even though he’s potentially a tough matchup. With Myrick, that’s a case of what you see is what you get; he makes about 39 percent of his shots for his career and has never maximized the tools at his disposal.
Herrion has certainly tried to get this team going. New Hampshire is a very hard place to win, and they’ve had some good years by historical standards under him. This year’s team isn’t as talented as some of those teams and seems to be very much lacking in intangibles by comparison as well.
New Hampshire heads on the road with a quick turnaround to play at Binghamton on Saturday. That’s a game they could win given that the Bearcats are early in a rebuilding phase, but nothing can be taken for granted at this point. Herrion is at the same point regardless.
“We need a spark,” said the Wildcat mentor. “We need something to juice this team up.”
