Blame it on the ball?

Disclamer--in tough times I'm going to believe anything to make a teams problems smaller, but I dont really believe this one, I just want to.

I'll be first to admit, I've watched the past two basketball games and we lost based on our play, but I think there is something worth mentioning. The NCAA doesn't have a regulation ball, so as long as it bounces and is some shade of orange you can use it until it:

A) Pops

B) The game is over

C) Zug runs onto the court and steals it

Now where it gets interesting is the ball used in the Charleston Classic. It's called The Rock and it's similar to a street ball, it's sticky, and it's slippery when it get sweat on it (If I had a dollar for everytime I've head that..) but I digress..

Just so happens that the two teams Penn State has played so far in  this clusterpryor of a tournament both use The Rock on a regular basis throughout the season, and while a ball is a ball a few things beg to question if somebody had an advantage going into the past two games.

The first game of the season Talor Battle is 11-20 for 27 points, he pretty much hit any shot he wanted, the next game he doesn't play much and isn't needed for a good portion of the second half because Chris Babb goes off and the team hits 12 threes. On the whole the first two games work out as follows:

First two games averages:  FG=50%   3pt=40%

The next two games averages: FG=31%   3pt=23%

Meanwhile UNCW is shooting over 55% in every catagory including going 10-16 from three and Tulane and 8-19 from three.

Now I'm not suggesting anything, and I'm not trying to make up for bad defense or poor shooting but I do think it brings to light the need to have a single ball for NCAA games. You dont see teams and players go from the showings they had (70,80 point games) to games where a three ball shooting team couldn't hit a shot to save their life two games in a row. I would believe it maybe if the teams they were playing were top notch, but we're not exactly talking the big name teams here. It'll be interesting to see if the stats turn around once we're back home.

Heres to a good rest of the season, come out and support these guys, we've gone too far to give up on them for 2-2 record.