A big night tonight as we roll towards Saturday’s conference openers. We’ll deal with those games later today. We need to address UNCW literally handing away last night’s game at Richmond.

Brian Mull recaps it best–you know, he was there and all–but it was a strange game that you generally only see around Christmas-time. The halftime score was 18-13, which of course meant the second half was entertaining from the first possession. The Dub saw a 59-51 lead disappear in the game’s final four minutes and lost.

UNCW bludgeoned Richmond on the boards by a 48-28 margin, further proving Gasaway correct. But it speaks mainly to the new catch-phrase around college hoops: value the basketball. The Hawks coughed it up four straight times from the 3:05 mark, made two free throws, gave up a Richmond offensive rebound for a dunk, hit two free throws, then turned it over twice more. UNCW had just two field goals in the final 5:54.

That’s not going to get it done. We’ve wondered twice in the Monday Melange about the secret to end-game execution. Benny Moss has joined us.

That would’ve been a nice one to get, but c’est la vie. Time to move forward.