Posted Monday at 4:17 pm

I'm not sure about everyone else, but my heart rate is just not getting back to normal.

We're on the way home with a less-than-full bus as some of the players and coaches who near the East Coast or who had flights to catch have departed to get home for Christmas. Everyone is going to have a really good trip home.

I know hindsight's 20-20, but Coach Zeh is perfectly right in saying that today's game was one it felt like the Griffs could win, despite never leading until the final minute of regulation. After a slow start, they kept hanging around, never letting the game get away from them.

You could sense the pace of the game turning in the first half. When both teams went scoreless for five minutes, the tempo changed from the faster pace that Rhode Island preferred to the grind-it-out fashion Canisius needs to play to defeat a team like Rhode Island.

I could honestly write thousands of words about this game, but it just shows the character of this team. Most of the time, a team would fold down eight points with less than 90 seconds remaining, but they just kept battling. The Griffs could have very easily won in regulation with a foul call on Amanda Cavo getting changed to a no-call as the buzzer sounded.

And speaking of Cavo, after missing her first five shots of the game, the senior made a 3-pointer in the corner in overtime that would have had Bill Raftery yelling Onions! Everyone who was in the late-game rotation was contributing. Marie Warner was flying all over the place to get rebounds and take shots. Britt's drawing of the three-shot foul and then steal to an uncontested layup was heads up. Bri just locked down Shoniker late in the game. JJ Williams gutted out 30-plus minutes. Mic was battling on the glass. Just an unbelievable win for this team going into Christmas. And you can only imagine how nuts the locker room was after the game.

Changing the topic entirely, but I have to touch on this ? I'm glad I wasn't the only one who heard Mike Scott singing “It's Not Over” on the radio. The entire bench heard him. People at the scorer's table heard him. People listening heard him. It was hilarious.

Time to get some Ben & Jerry's. Not sure on my battery power, so if I don't get another update, I hope everyone has a Merry Christmas.

Posted Monday at 12:10 pm

Sorry about the web site being down. All of the JumpTV sites were down across the country, so it wasn't just GoGriffs.com. Nothing we can do but patiently wait.

If that happens in the future, here are the two web sites that will be links for Canisius women's basketball radio broadcasts.

Link 1

Link 2

Posted Monday at 12 pm

The old-school microphone on press row got taken out by a basketball during pregame warm-ups. Coach Tara Fleming commented on the mike (think something that looks like it should get dropped down from the ceiling in an old boxing match) when we got here and it just got crushed during pregame. It appears the public address announcer is actually just holding it. The mike appears okay, but the holder is shot.

Mrs. Cavo was jeering the Rhode Island mascot during pregame warm-ups. He was standing near the Griffs fans and she yelled a hearty “Let's Go Canisius!”

Posted Monday at 11:30 am

We're courtside here at The Ryan Center, which is a sweet building. I had heard it was very nice, but wasn't able to make it to practice on Monday. It's a 7,500-seat arena with two decks. There are a couple of video boards in the corners. The seats are very close to the court, but this place is really nice.

You can tell they built it correctly when you're walking around underneath and there are ample locker rooms, rooms for male and female officials, a nice media room, and everything just seems to make sense. I'm also a big fan of the dual shot clock/game clock behind the basket. You have the traditional one on top of the hoops, but one is also turned 90 degrees on the extension behind the hoops. You see that in bigger collegiate and professional arenas for the fans in the corners and behind the baskets.

Today will be an interesting test for the Griffs. Last year's game was very good and I remember Rhode Island being pretty athletic. The Rams are being bitten by the injury bug a little bit lately, with two of their better veterans injured. Still, it's an Atlantic 10 school and a road game, but definitely a game where if the Griffs play solid for 40 minutes, they should be in it at the end.

Not much else to report after a tame morning. Breakfast went smoothly at Friendly's and checkout was flawless.

I should have an update after the game, but might be limited to one due to the lack of power on the bus. We blew a fuse on the way down.

Go Griffs!

• In my desire to be transparent and correct all mistakes, apparently Brianna Lucas brought National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation on the trip, not Marie Warner. I am not the first person to get confused with the "Bri" versus "Marie" names.
• Marie still doesn't understand why everyone is making a big deal about her Tyler Hansborough comment about his picture from freshman year compared to the picture from senior year being a good predictor of what his twin would look like.
  
• Phil Cavo made the trip for lunch on the bus and had to sing. He chose a Spanish song that the travel party enjoyed.
• Radio play-by-play guy Mike Scott continues to amaze as he didn't know what a panini is. A couple of weeks ago, I learned that he had never ironed before.

Posted Sunday at 12:27 pm

And yes, for those wondering, Coach Zeh and I are still roommates. Two straight road wins will do that. Radio play-by-play broadcaster is one of the biggest fans of the Griffs' road success as he gets his own room.

Posted Sunday at 11:25 am

KINGSTON, R.I. ? Good morning from the Hampton Inn. The team had breakfast around 9:30 this morning. Coach O'Boyle and Coach Zeh were cutting the film from last night's win while Coach Gwin was working on the scout tape for Monday's game against Rhode Island.

With the quick turnaround and impending holiday, the morning would be the only time to watch the film of the New Hampshire game. If the team doesn't watch it prior to Monday's game, the impact will go down if the team would watch it around the 26th or 27th.

Anyway, I'm in the middle of updating game notes and the team gave me a lot to work with last night's performance. There's a lot of defensive notes to look up.

Our hotel is solid. It's very new, so new that it wasn't on the GPS of Steve the Bus Driver. No problems in getting here, although we saw something unreal last night.

Picture a split in the highway where if you go left, you stay on the same road, but if you go right you are merging onto another highway. In the median are those yellow barrels. Somehow, someone got his car on top of these barrels and on top of like a two-foot high snowbank. It was quite a sight.

Also, the cookies and donuts at the front desk were delicious last night, a great snack upon arrival.

Time to get back to the notes.

Posted Saturday at 10:35 pm

Tonight was an impressive road victory for the Golden Griffins, so impressive that is was the fewest points allowed by Canisius in a road game since the program went to the Division I level in 1986-87. The defense was locking down the entire night, executing the game plan from the coaching staff and forcing New Hampshire out of its comfort zone. Outside of a slump offensively during the first 10 minutes of the second half, the Griffs were very solid.

Coach Zeh talked about this during the postgame, but tonight you saw an overlooked quality of Brittan? Russell. With the 3-point shooting of Amanda Cavo and Micayla Drysdale not as productive right now, Russell recognized that and provided more offense than she has for most of the season. Earlier in the season when the Griffs were making a ton of 3-pointers, Russell was distributing the ball, knowing she wasn't need as much offensively.

Other aspects of the game that stuck out were the continued productive rebounding of Katie Hart, who had nine boards and now is averaging 15 rebounds per 40 minutes. Brianna Lucas continued to be a pest defensively. Marie Warner showed why she's one of the best players in the MAAC with her 20 points, which included 11 straight when the Griffs opened up the lead in the first half. Overall, the whole team was very good defensively and is starting to develop in that aspect of the game.

What was also good to see was the play of Tasia Lee and Tauralee Tenn, who came into the game and ran the systems of the team, even with the outcome of the game no longer in doubt. That's something this team prides itself on ? working hard for 40 minutes and playing the game the right way.

We're in the middle of Catch Me If You Can, which is a quality movie. Not sure on the estimated time of arrival in Rhode Island, but it will be pretty late. I'll have an update in the morning.

Posted Saturday at 6:26 pm

We're courtside here at the Lundholm Gymnasium and the Griffs have just gone into the locker room. It dawned on me during the ride over, but this is the first road game for the Griffs in the month of December. It's been nice to be home. Now we get to see if the Griffs can carry over that momentum from the home games with their road win at Binghamton on Nov. 29.

The Lundholm Gymnasium has bleachers on both sides, with about 30 rows on each side. There are no bleachers along the baselines, just a padded wall on the far side and the main doors from the lobby on the near side.
In two of the corners is a shamrock with the name Gerry Friel, who is the winningest coach in men's basketball here at New Hampshire and passed away in August 2007.

Pregame meal was delicious, as we had lasagna, salad, and penne with chicken and broccoli. I definitely made three trips through that line.

New Hampshire is battling some injuries and is only dressing eight players. Coach Zeh has been knocking on wood since he told me that earlier today. If you followed the team last season, you know the Griffs battled some injuries in 2007-08.

We'll be departing for Rhode Island after the game. I'm very excited to cross off another state on my list. I hope to have an update from the road after all my postgame duties.

Posted Saturday at 3:10 pm

It's cold in this hotel.

I don't mind it as I prefer a 65-degree room to a 75-degree room, but it definitely hits you when walking out into the hallway. I haven't heard anything from the team, but I did notice Brittan? Russell sitting in front of the fire in the lobby on Friday.

Anyway, it's been a laid-back day. The team had shootaround at 9 and grabbed a quick breakfast before that. Lunch came from Quizno's around noon and the team is going to pregame at the traditional three and a half hours before the game, which is at 3:30 today.

Radio play-by-play personality Mike Scott has arrived with the travel party and is anxiously awaiting the pregame meal after a day of travel from Buffalo.

Also, the room has become college basketball central as the radio broadcast of Jay Moran is on my computer, Coach Zeh is listening to the Marist-St. Bonaventure game and the TV is showing the Duke-Xavier and Temple-Kansas games.

And it's barely snowing, but the flurries are still coming down.

Posted Friday at 10:25 pm

After practice at the Lundholm Gymnasium on the campus of New Hampshire, we've returned from dinner at Margarita's, which conveniently is located right across the parking lot from out hotel. The team enjoyed some Mexican food as the snowstorm that buried Western New York is now burying New England. Steve the Bus Driver definitely was pleased about that.

The team was in a good mood at dinner, doing a lot of joking, as well as quizzing me on the capitals of the 50 states. This quizzing started after the Canadians on the team were asked about the capitals of the provinces. At one point, it was like rapid fire and I was filtering the long-term memory.

As for the joking, here's a picture to prove that. As coach Zeh put it, the tall (6-foot-5 Monica Kosior) and short (5-5 Brittan? Russell) of it.

The team's in their rooms and I'm enjoying some NBA basketball. Time to go watch LeBron-Melo.

Posted Friday at 2:55 pm

Notes are up for everyone who hasn't seen them.

Now, I haven't done the kitchen in these rooms justice. Lunch came while I was working out, so coach Zeh threw mine in the fridge (which is a very nice Whirlpool with a freezer on top). I wanted to warm it up in the microwave, which normally would have happened in the Styrofoam that held my food.

However, I was able to find a nice plate to put it on and then found some paper towels. Once I warmed it up, I had some nice silverware to eat my delicious meal. All of this courtesy of the hotel! I felt obligated to clean them in the sink with the provided dish soap.

Something else I found in the cabinets was instant oatmeal and a toaster. My family would love this place.

Anyway, I haven't spent much time with the team as they were watching film and had a team meeting around noon. I'll be going with them to practice shortly and then we have dinner.

For those interested, no more than an inch on the ground here in Dover, but it's coming.

Posted Friday at 11:04 am

Good Friday morning as the team had breakfast this morning at 9:30. Breakfast was very complete, as in there were a lot of options ? eggs, breakfast potatoes, bacon, bagels, cereal, bread, waffle maker, yogurt, fruit.

The snow hasn't started yet here in New Hampshire, but it's definitely coming. I've heard numerous reports about the snow back in Buffalo and Coach Zeh is definitely feeling good about the decision to leave a day early. The last thing anyone wanted was an eight-hour bus ride turning into a 14-hour bus ride, which is no good on a number of levels.

One unique feature of this hotel is the elevators. They are very large, with a capacity of 3,500 lbs. However, they are very slow. The doors open slowly and they move slowly. Also, they stop very abruptly.

I'm in the middle of game notes while Coach Zeh is watching film. Time to get back to work. The notes should be up this afternoon.

Posted Thursday at 11:05 pm

DOVER, N.H. ? We've arrived at our destination for the next two nights ? the Homewood Suites. It's a fairly new hotel. One interesting feature is the hardwood floors in the living room/kitchen area. There's a full-service kitchen (oven, dishwasher, fridge, freezer, dishes, sink) along with a pull-out couch before going to the bed area with sink and bathroom. A very nice hotel and I hear it's a great price. That's what you get for staying in Dover, N.H.

The last two movies on the trip were National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation and then the first half of She's The Man. For some reason, the team found it funny when I said that I have seen part of She's The Man. I believe I saw it on a softball trip last year.

Some points of interest from the ride:

• When waiting to get our Curbside to Go at Applebee's, ESPN showed a split-screen shot of Tyler Hansborough from his freshman year to his senior year. Marie Warner said “That's what his twin would look like.”
• The Fiesta Lime Chicken was excellent.
• I must give Marie some credit as she brought Christmas Vacation on the trip.
• That movie has one of the greatest lines in movie history. When Clark Griswold says at Christmas Eve dinner ? “Hey kids, I heard on the news that some pilots saw Santa Claus flying over New York.” Cousin Eddie responds with the greatest line ever ? Are you serious Clark?
• While waiting at Applebee's, there was a cool diagram on the wall about Fenway Park, saying it cost $675,000 to build in 1912. I looked at the inflation numbers, and that equates to just over $14 million in today's dollars. A good deal.