Biggest Crowd Ever at the MAC Witnesses Monmouth Fall to Villanova, 76 – 36

Well, it was an interesting night at the MAC Center in West Long Branch to say the least. The Monmouth University Hawks hosted Villanova University, the #8 team in the nation, in a contest that was about as lopsided as you could get in front of a reported sellout crowd (which would be the first sellout in MAC Center history), though there were some open seats here and there. I’m one of these sports guys who believes that any team can beat any other team on any given day, but today wasn’t Monmouth’s day by any means. And especially in terms of shooting three pointers – read on…

Most folks probably thought that Monmouth was going to be trailing rather quickly in this game and while the Hawks competed with Villanova for a few minutes, it quickly became a one-sided game. However, I’m not sure if it’s in Monmouth’s playbook to start trying to shoot three pointers once they’re 10, 20, 30, or 40 points behind, but they need to take that page out the book and burn it. Then they need to piss on the ashes of that page. Seriously.

The Hawks were 1 for 19 three point attempts. Ahem… That’s ONE for NINETEEN attempts! Look, everyone in the arena tonight “got it” – the team was down by a significant margin and the best way to gain ground is to get 3 points at a time instead of 2. But when you’re 1 for 5 from three point territory or 1 for 10 or 1 for 15 or 1 for 19, I would think you stop and say, “Ummm, let’s change this strategy. This three point shot stuff ain’t working!”

Then again, the Hawks couldn’t sink a basket for their lives tonight. From the great Tony Graham over at the Asbury Park Press blog The Hawks Nest: “Monmouth shot 25.5 percent (13-for-51) in the game and 1-for-19 from downtown.”

Really? Only 25.5 percent?! Good grief!

Anyway, I’m glad that non-conference play is over and that Monmouth is has some time to lick their wounds before getting into Northeast Conference competition against Bryant in early January. In the mean time, here are some forty pictures from tonight’s game. Look for captions later tomorrow. Enjoy!