I’m not sure where last night sits alongside Public Enemy #1 Deron Washington beating us at the buzzer a few years ago, but let’s not even begin to open that discussion: they were both awful. When I got home, my fiancee said that she could tell I was sad from the way I opened the door. I thought about just posting the first result of a Google Image Search for vomit on this blog and calling it a night. It was that kind of game – the loss even ruined the joy I got from Jeff Allen getting kicked out of the game.

This team has a pretty big problem that doesn’t get talked about much: a glaring lack of a third player who can create his own offense. Sylven and Scott are both reasonably dependable and have confidence enough to be the alpha dog, but there isn’t really anyone else on the roster with the ability to create something for themselves in a pinch. This lack of a third scorer leaves us prone to droughts if one or both of the Sylven/Scott duo is having an off night, being defended well, in foul trouble, or even just getting a breather. We ran into two killer droughts last night.

The first one came after Syl sat with four minutes and change to go in the first half after picking up his second foul. Tech responded by pouring it on and ended up on a 16-5 run to take a 28-27 lead into halftime. The second went from when we were up 62-52 and really stretched through the end of the game – our only baskets during that stretch were two desperation Sammy threes and a meaningless JJ three with ten seconds left. Three baskets, 8:44, ballgame.

I remember looking up at the scoreboard with three minutes left up ten, and thinking that we’d be in good shape if we could keep the margin at ten until the two minute mark. Almost on cue, things fell apart, and the lead was instead just one at the 1:30 mark. I could tell bad things were going to happen, and so could everyone else there – the place was loud, but for the latter part of the game it was more a pleading peal than anything exultant.

Mike Scott needed more looks last night. He wasn’t in foul trouble, and wasn’t being defended particularly well by Tech’s bigs – he should have had 30 points last night and we should have won. He put up 14 in the first half, and could have easily reproduced that effort in the second half if his teammates hadn’t forgotten about him – instead, he took just four shots and scored just seven more points.

We really struggled last night once Tech went to the press, and some of the blame for that can actually be placed on Bennett. He should have known that Tech would press down ten and starting to run out of time, but yet still didn’t have either of his main two ball handlers (and more importantly, inbounders) out on the court. By the time Sammy came back in, Tech had already chipped into both the lead and our confidence.

I hope I’m wrong, but last night’s game felt like a turning point for our season. We’ve lost two straight, there’s been some unrest amongst the masses with the whole Baker nonsense, and we’re going into a game Sunday night where we could easily get run out of the gym by UNC on physical talent alone. We’re at an uncomfortable turning point right now with three games to go until the ACC halfway point. Winning two of these games (with NCSU and Wake visit the JPJ in the coming week) seems at least possible and would go a long way toward making everyone involved a lot happier.