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Worst loss in 4 years - tied for worst loss of the LB era (to Rhode Island in 2012). That's discouraging

Good Lord people get a grip. We lost a BB game. It would count the same if it had been a one point loss. They just need to see the problems and work to correct them whether it is attitude or performance. We will win some more games. All is not lost.

Preach on Mrydel!

That is my shortened silver linings post. I am currently waiting for the John Cleese/Eric Idle show to begin in Vegas.

Rebel10 wrote:

ponyboy wrote:Fran's point was a good one. Michigan has circled this game on the calendar.

How could they have had the game circled when they did not know if we would get past Pitt or if the world get past Marquette.

Nope. They circled it. We embarrassed them twice.

BTW: I walked out to the street with LB. No talk at all about the beat down we just took. We talked about how good DeShawn can be. Silver lining folks.

Silver lining.

sadderbudweiser wrote:

Rebel10 wrote:

ponyboy wrote:Fran's point was a good one. Michigan has circled this game on the calendar.

How could they have had the game circled when they did not know if we would get past Pitt or if the world get past Marquette.

Nope. They circled it. We embarrassed them twice.

BTW: I walked out to the street with LB. No talk at all about the beat down we just took. We talked about how good DeShawn can be. Silver lining folks.

Silver lining.

What did he say about how good he could be?

Guys, wwe walked into a buzz saw. They made everything they threw up. Granted they played great defense and would have won regardless but the margin of victory was largely a function of " it was their night". The last shot T the end of the first half was typical of their night. So many contested threes from NBA range ...... Nothing but net.

Move on guys...... And realize that there are some good teams that get hot.

Contested threes? Really?

some CLASSIC meltdowns tonite on SMU boards

In 8 quarters of basketball this season, we have run the offense well in 3 of them.

We aren't moving the ball and creating open shots for others. Lots of standing around on offense. But also a lot of minutes played back to back nights, so that could have been a factor.

Against Pitt, we got away with the 1v1 isolation game because Pitt isn't good defensively, they have no size, and we dominated the boards athletically.

The 1v1 isolation game loses against good teams. Michigan had the size to protect the rim without pulling players from the perimeter. Even when we did go inside, they didn't have to double because we couldn't score on their bigs. We didn't have a lot of open shots.

We got exposed a little defensively as well. No rim protector, and when we have to play tight on the perimeter we can get beat on the dribble. Our length will allow us to play off players with most teams and protect a little, but teams with good shooting, quick guards are going to be trouble.

Michigan is a much, much better team than people realize. Good size, athleticism and good shooters. Top 15 team I think.

I'm not being a super Debbie downer because I still think we have a good shot to win conference this season and will make the tourney. But I won't expect a run in the tournament until I see us run our offense against a good team that is strong enough defensively to play us man most of the evening.

We had clear. obvious weaknesses on this team-it was fun for awhile to pretend they didn't exist but now its pretty clear they do. Hey most teams have weaknesses-we can still have a great season

Weaknesses:
No proven PG-no floor general like Nic Moore
No rim protector
No real big men
Only 1 big (but lean) man with experience, one 6-6.5 stud we knew was going to be great but really playing out of position and one overweight freshman
All 3 Big Men ideally would not be playing in the Low Post -remember we didn't get the 2 guys targeted for the Low Post-so we adapted
The team is generally physically deficient-from a strength perspective
Only a small nucleus of proven experienced players-B. Moore, Sterling, Shake, Jarrey --add Semi if you want
Extremely weak, inexperienced bench-counting on 3 true freshman to slowly develop/contribute
Only 8 Man rotation-only 9 scholarship players that can be expected to play due to sanctions
NCAA Sanctions have made it more difficult to fill these deficiencies

I'm not really too surprised we were exposed and I still think we can win 22-24 games, contend strongly for conference championship and make NCAA. Never was convinced we were a Top 25 team in first place. I think its a little unfair to blame SMU's short roster for some of these deficiencies which ideally could have been addressed without the NCAA probation. We are counting on them to transition the program through the probation. Pray we have NO significant injuries

Stallion wrote:some CLASSIC meltdowns tonite on SMU boards

haha.

Fwiw to the board, I think Michigan might actually be for real again. Been a few years but I think they got a real good team this year. Donnel has come on strong and the guys that needed to take the next step did. I guess we'll find out but scUM dismantled a pretty solid Pitt team the other night. I think at the end of the year, Michigan is going to have a nice quality win and SMU is going to have taken a loss to a top 15 team. Not a big deal...Just a bad night. [deleted] happens.

Stallion wrote:We had clear. obvious weaknesses on this team-it was fun for awhile to pretend they didn't exist but now its pretty clear they do. Hey most teams have weaknesses-we can still have a great season

Weaknesses:
No proven PG-no floor general like Nic Moore
No rim protector
No real big men
Only 1 big (but lean) man with experience, one 6-6.5 stud we knew was going to be great but really playing out of position and one overweight freshman
All 3 Big Men ideally would not be playing in the Low Post -remember we didn't get the 2 guys targeted for the Low Post-so we adapted
The team is generally physically deficient-from a strength perspective
Only a small nucleus of proven experienced players-B. Moore, Sterling, Shake, Jarrey --add Semi if you want
Extremely weak, inexperienced bench-counting on 3 true freshman to slowly develop/contribute
Only 8 Man rotation-only 9 scholarship players that can be expected to play due to sanctions
NCAA Sanctions have made it more difficult to fill these deficiencies

I'm not really too surprised we were exposed and I still think we can win 22-24 games, contend strongly for conference championship and make NCAA. Never was convinced we were a Top 25 team in first place. I think its a little unfair to blame SMU's short roster for some of these deficiencies which ideally could have been addressed without the NCAA probation. We are counting on them to transition the program through the probation. Pray we have NO significant injuries

Very accurate assessment. Very frustrating to see that seemingly endless supply of bigs come off the Michigan bench. Anybody see the original ALAMO with John Wayne?

Despite the fact that just about everything that could go poorly did, the bottom line is that we were out-manned and that was exposed on the second day of back to back games. Thank you NCAA.

We lost to one of the true blue blood programs on national TV playing in Madison Square Garden with a young roster of kids who are playing in their fourth game of the season. Good grief. We should be so lucky to complain about a loss like this.

Its good to get this out of the way early and identify what we need to work on so that when conference play gets going we are well positioned to contend for the title. We are a 40-80 program. Nothing about last night's game changes that. We're going to be alright. Chill.

StallionsModelT wrote:We lost to one of the true blue blood programs on national TV playing in Madison Square Garden with a young roster of kids who are playing in their fourth game of the season. Good grief. We should be so lucky to complain about a loss like this.

Its good to get this out of the way early and identify what we need to work on so that when conference play gets going we are well positioned to contend for the title. We are a 40-80 program. Nothing about last night's game changes that. We're going to be alright. Chill.

Yup seriously: we're way better of than Thomas More.