Official: Tulane Game Thread

[jpe747]

The team has been in kind of a lull this year. Part of that is learning how to play together. Part of it may be they started thinking they were better then they really are. If so this loss may wake them up. Nonetheless, SMU should have won this game. It seemed to me early on Tulane was not in position to rebound. They would leave early after a shot allowing SMU to dominate under the basket. However, when SMU started letting Tulane have cheep shots under the basket the game turned around to their favor. Particularly during the second half it seemed to me the SMU players weren't as disciplined in their game plan as they normally are. I just hope this woke them up.

[Charleston Pony]

Tough loss for sure and we proved we can't afford to be anything less than full strength to have any hope of winning on the road. Not having Chargois really hurt but it also appeared to me that we lost our defensive intensity, especially in the 2nd half when we went into cruise control after getting up by double digits. We did not do a good job of contesting threes all night and give Tulane credit because they finally got hot from three and they were on fire at the FT line, which they needed to be to put this game away. I've felt all along this team would struggle to win road games and they still haven't shown me they can step up away from Moody. Because of that, I thought we would go 11-7 in AAC play and I haven't seen anything yet to make me change that opinion. On to Cincy...

[Charleston Pony]

Jank made a mistake by not subbing out McMurray until it was too late. They absoutely abused him on the post in the comeback, and he turned the ball over several times trying to force it on the offensive end.

Needed to stay with a big like Ray rather than keeping him on the bench the second half.

Learning experience, but this is a frustrating loss.

I wondered why Ray didn't get more minutes. Agau pulled down one rebound in 21 minutes. We really missed Chargois, but I was surprised Ray didn't see a little more time in that game.

[ponyte]

TU exploited the mismatch inside with McMurray. Small ball hurt us last night. Dunleavy is a good coach and used that NBA knowledge about mismatches to his advantage. Also, we didn't try to put up as many 3s as we usually do. We tried too many one on one street ball plays and not enough team offense. I thought it odd to change the philospy of the O for this game but Jank knows more than me.

And TU got red hot when it needed it the most and we went cold. Not a good combination.

Tough lose. Need to recover quickly for Cinny.

[Rebel10]

Dunlealvy is a good coach. Also the team shot almost 70% at the free throw line which should be good enough to win most games. But when Tulane made I believe 8 straight shots in a row from the field that would hurt any team. Again When Chargois comes back and the team regroups I think we will be fine. Not too concerned at this point.

[Pony_Law]

Jank didn’t change the philosophy, he straight up said the kids were making bad decisions on their drives and not kicking enough. Also in his post game he identified the mismatch problems and kind of explained if you think about his comments why there wasn’t more of an adjustment (mainly it was an executionproblem in his mind not a scheme problem and he didn’t like the match up with akoy). My question would have been why landrum or Douglas wasn’t considered.

[RI Stang]

Blaming Shake is absurd - he completely carried us last night, especially when Foster disappeared in the 2nd half (in his defense I think he was exhausted because we played way too much small ball and he had to defend bigs). Did the missed FT hurt? Of course. But if Shake didn't have an exceptional game we lose by double digits. Shake is taken for granted and he will be HUGELY missed next year with no one on the roster looking capable of taking over his role.

I am a huge fan of Jank but this loss is on him. The failure to adjust (before it was too late) to go away from small ball when McMurray was getting abused, we then had to double, leaving their shooters wide open, was mind-boggling. I really don't understand why we just sat back and let it happen. McMurray had an awful night on both ends, so leaving him in for offense doesn't make sense (last night anyway) either.

As for Ray and the comments about wanting to see him more - he was terrible in the minutes he played. I was excited for him pregame in that I've been wanting him to get a chance. But wow, he looked bad on O and worse on D when he was in there. Very surprised by that. I thought we should have used every ounce of energy Akoy had and then bring in Douglas for stretches when needed.

Extremely frustrating loss, but the sun came up this morning and the season is far, far from over. If you had given me a deal before these two games that we could win at Cincy but first would have to lose at Tulane, I would have taken it. The committee has made it clear that big wins, especially road wins, are far and away the most important thing. Granted, that's an extremely difficult task, but Sunday's game is way more important to our chances than this one was (and obviously even more so now). I don't think we have much of a shot at Wichita now that they are at full strength, so this is really our last chance to get a top 25 road win, in my opinion.

[deucetz]

I couldn't watch the last few minutes. Definitely was out-coached. Shows we can't lose any player. We have no bench. Agau is serviceable but not a starter. Our freshman look like freshman, except for Chargois. I just hope we make the tournament.

The game against Cincinnati will tell us a lot about this team's make up.

[JasonB]

Jank didn’t change the philosophy, he straight up said the kids were making bad decisions on their drives and not kicking enough. Also in his post game he identified the mismatch problems and kind of explained if you think about his comments why there wasn’t more of an adjustment (mainly it was an executionproblem in his mind not a scheme problem and he didn’t like the match up with akoy). My question would have been why landrum or Douglas wasn’t considered.

This was a great move by Dunleavy, and a blueprint against us the rest of the year. When we drove, the didn't help, so we had to finish instead of pass. It eliminated our three point shooting and we missed a lot of bunnies. Same thing happened in the Bahamas. McMurray was the missing piece there, but he and Whitt didn't finish or drive aggressively even with the speed advantage. We also kept a big down low that bottled it up. Needed to spread and drive even though Agau was not a threat from deep.

[Pony_Law]

Jank didn’t change the philosophy, he straight up said the kids were making bad decisions on their drives and not kicking enough. Also in his post game he identified the mismatch problems and kind of explained if you think about his comments why there wasn’t more of an adjustment (mainly it was an executionproblem in his mind not a scheme problem and he didn’t like the match up with akoy). My question would have been why landrum or Douglas wasn’t considered.

This was a great move by Dunleavy, and a blueprint against us the rest of the year. When we drove, the didn't help, so we had to finish instead of pass. It eliminated our three point shooting and we missed a lot of bunnies. Same thing happened in the Bahamas. McMurray was the missing piece there, but he and Whitt didn't finish or drive aggressively even with the speed advantage. We also kept a big down low that bottled it up. Needed to spread and drive even though Agau was not a threat from deep.

There were plenty of times we drove where pulling up, or dishing was an option that did not happen. I can remember a specific one (I commented in this thread when it happens), where McMurray drove and got fouled but he had a wide open Gu in the corner by the SMU bench. That pass needed to be made regardless of the OK result on that particular play. Like I said McMurry is just a tad too selfish and he sometimes forces bad shots. His energy is contagious but so is that type of hero ball. Also The coaching error I think was why did he not putting in Douglas for McMurry when McMurry was getting abused in the post repeatedly. You do that and you can invite that Tulane guard to try and shoot over Douglas all you want because his extra length will disrupt the shot (that guy din't have great post moves he just could comfortable shoot over McMurry and could see the floor to comfortably pass). With Douglas your sacrificing a shooter (though McMurry was clearly just off offensively) but you still have a good passer and you still have 4 scores (Shake, Whitt, Gu, and Foster on the floor). From Jank's interview it seemed like it was an option he didn't even consider. The concerning thing for me is, if you have a plan and the players aren't executing you can't expect that reminding them in timeouts to execute it going to solve the problem which seems to be how Jank approaches issues like this (think USC tournament game, and the game last night).

[PonyLawExpress]

Jank didn’t change the philosophy, he straight up said the kids were making bad decisions on their drives and not kicking enough. Also in his post game he identified the mismatch problems and kind of explained if you think about his comments why there wasn’t more of an adjustment (mainly it was an executionproblem in his mind not a scheme problem and he didn’t like the match up with akoy). My question would have been why landrum or Douglas wasn’t considered.

This was a great move by Dunleavy, and a blueprint against us the rest of the year. When we drove, the didn't help, so we had to finish instead of pass. It eliminated our three point shooting and we missed a lot of bunnies. Same thing happened in the Bahamas. McMurray was the missing piece there, but he and Whitt didn't finish or drive aggressively even with the speed advantage. We also kept a big down low that bottled it up. Needed to spread and drive even though Agau was not a threat from deep.

Dunleavy made GREAT in game adjustments. It's hard to play us like they did though when we have guys playing normal. Missing Chargois and Whitt and McMurray being almost completely ineffective off the dribble and shooting isn't going to happen most nights. It did last night so their in game adjustments worked like a charm. If we have one starter missing and only two guys show up offensively we will lose most games we play in conference on the road especially when we play one of our poorer defensive games of the season. Was a perfect storm by Tulane and we still could have won. The disappointing part is we didn't find a way to pull it out when we had the opportunities.

[mustang1992]

The disappointing part is we didn't find a way to pull it out when we had the opportunities.

Sadly I feel like this is going to be the story of this team this year. We should have easily handled Tulane, even without EC. This game had the same feel to me as the NIU and WKU games. Careless with the ball at critical times, defensive lapses, and no leadership down the stretch.

TCU hands us a 11 point loss and goes into Baylor and gets the win. There is a paradigm shift taking place and it's not good.

And last night as I was watching the game with a few random folks, with no ties to SMU, I mention the Arizona win and someone chimed in, "yea well they lost every game at that tourney." Given the NCAA's history with us and the AAC, I'm afraid that's going to be the attitude. The losses that we accumulate, and there are going to be more, are going to be more damning than that win. This is definitely not a top 25 team AND atm does not look like an NCAA bid either. This is NOT the year for SMU to ask season ticket holders to "pony up" more money for tickets. Timing is everything and this has the making of a really disastrous decision.

[Whitwiki Pony]

You guys need to just chill the [deleted] out. Not the end of the world even if we don’t make the tourney.
Everyone has bad days and this team clearly doesn’t play well on the road yet.

[Blunt Pony]

Big wins are more important than bad losses....but you gotta get some good wins. On the road at Cincy will be the first opportunity. I think we must accept the fact that while we are good enough to beat just about anyone on a given night, we also will stumble at times.

Having said that, we REALLY need to get a quality win outside of Moody. This team needs to believe that they can win a big game on the road.

[mustangxc]

Tulane is not a bad loss. It is bad because of the way we lost it. We had the game won and stopped playing with more than 5 minutes to spare. It seems like a bad loss to us because we are ahead of Tulane in the rebuilding and view Tulane much like most of the country has viewed us up until recently. In terms of metrics, it is not that bad. We have to win all of our remaining home games because I don't have confidence we can steal any of the games we would need to steal on the road to boost our resume. I still think this is a one and done NCAA tournament team.