OFFICIAL: BATTLE FOR ATLANTIS GAME THREADS

[Pony81]

I too thought we would win that game until the very end. ( What a change from yesteryear).
But we had the right guy shooting he just missed some open looks. I like the zone at the end. It really through UNI off balance.
But we learned we have a good mid major team .... with McMurray and Amoy I can see us finishing 3rd in our league as predicted. I think the gap between WSU / UC and the rest of the league is going to be huge.
I love Shake but I wish he could hit that crucial shot at the end like Nic could.

[JasonB]

Holy cow, there are some harsh reactions from people who didn't watch the whole game!

1) UNI isn't bad. They are obviously going to contend in their conference. Slow pace, good defense, hit threes. They got hot for a stretch of the first half and that was the difference in the game.

2) Good grit showed by the team. Could have been run out of the building with the run in the first half and again at the start of the second. Fought hard.

3) NONE of our shots were falling. Couldn't hit open threes. Couldn't hit close. Close misses early led to us passing too much instead of going hard to the rim, and we turned the ball over. Credit to UNI for some good defense, but in reality we missed a lot of shots that we normally make. I think we win this game easy if those early shots fall, it really impacted us, and we would have been up 10 instead of 5 at the start of the game.

4) The ref let contact go in the lane on drives, and that had a huge impact on the game. He called it the same both ways, but it lead to a lot of contact misses, including the two Shake drives at the end.

Big learning number one: This team has grit and showed some real fight out there. Played hard defensively even though shots weren't falling.

Big learning number two: Our spacing offensively was poor most of the evening. Our bigs stayed low instead of drifting outside to open up the lane, which really clogged things up. Lots of congestion. Big impact of going against man after the 1-3-1 zone of the last game. They challenged us to beat them off the dribble and helped with the big. This left noone open on the kick to the perimeter, and we couldn't make the slip pass. Should have brought their big outside, but did not make that adjustment frequently enough. This is going to be a great tape to work on.

All in all, I would have liked to win, but not disappointed. This is a great growth opportunity and will help us improve as the season goes along.

That said, the Arizona game will be interesting. Need to hit shots, and also our bench guards didn't play in the second half, and will have to play against Arizona. That game might get away from us a bit if we wear down in the second half, which I suspect we will. But this UNI game is going to make us a better team moving forward, specifically for the USC game coming up.

[sadderbudweiser]

I think Shake played the whole game again. Maybe with a little rest here and there he shoots better. McMurray will be a key addition in both resting Shake and helping on Shake’s off nights.

I anticipated speed bumps along the way... just hoped they’d be against better teams. We had a lot of chances to get this one and we didn’t.

I thought Whitt played pretty well. Like the freshmen, you can see Whitt gaining confidence after his year off. Douglas and Landrum were non factors tonight so we basically went with a six man rotation.... and nowhere near as good as last year’s six.

We need the cavalry!

[One Trick Pony]

Brother you conceived another novel

[Rebel10]

Offense not flowing as well as last year. Ball movement is not the same. Let’s see if that gets better when we play Zona. Also we have to slow down Alonzo Trier.

[sadderbudweiser]

[quote="JasonB"]Holy cow, there are some harsh reactions from people who didn't watch the whole game!

1) UNI isn't bad. They are obviously going to contend in their conference. Slow pace, good defense, hit threes. They got hot for a stretch of the first half and that was the difference in the game.

2) Good grit showed by the team. Could have been run out of the building with the run in the first half and again at the start of the second. Fought hard.

3) NONE of our shots were falling. Couldn't hit open threes. Couldn't hit close. Close misses early led to us passing too much instead of going hard to the rim, and we turned the ball over. Credit to UNI for some good defense, but in reality we missed a lot of shots that we normally make. I think we win this game easy if those early shots fall, it really impacted us, and we would have been up 10 instead of 5 at the start of the game.

4) The ref let contact go in the lane on drives, and that had a huge impact on the game. He called it the same both ways, but it lead to a lot of contact misses, including the two Shake drives at the end.

Big learning number one: This team has grit and showed some real fight out there. Played hard defensively even though shots weren't falling.

Big learning number two: Our spacing offensively was poor most of the evening. Our bigs stayed low instead of drifting outside to open up the lane, which really clogged things up. Lots of congestion. Big impact of going against man after the 1-3-1 zone of the last game. They challenged us to beat them off the dribble and helped with the big. This left noone open on the kick to the perimeter, and we couldn't make the slip pass. Should have brought their big outside, but did not make that adjustment frequently enough. This is going to be a great tape to work on.

All in all, I would have liked to win, but not disappointed. This is a great growth opportunity and will help us improve as the season goes along.

That said, the Arizona game will be interesting. Need to hit shots, and also our bench guards didn't play in the second half, and will have to play against Arizona. That game might get away from us a bit if we wear down in the second half, which I suspect we will. But this UNI game is going to make us a better team moving forward, specifically for the USC game coming up



—

Yup. We watched pretty much the same game. Lots of teachable moments come film day.

A tip of the hat to Jank for the zone switch-ups at the end.

[Pony_Law]

Good perspective, only problem is this team is not going to dominate the aac like we did last year (mainly because the quality in the conference is much higher this year) and dropping games like this is going to bite us hard come selection Sunday.

[JasonB]

UNI is going to finish first or second in their conference. It isn't going to be a "bad loss".

[Rebel10]

Good perspective, only problem is this team is not going to dominate the aac like we did last year (mainly because the quality in the conference is much higher this year) and dropping games like this is going to bite us hard come selection Sunday.

I agree it’s going to be tougher in conference this year.

[Puckhead48E]

Confused what game some of you watched.

Yes, we could easily have pulled this out. So many were shooting poorly.

But, Whitt did not play well. His groundbreaking method of picking up his dribble in traffic then scanning aimlessly before distributing the ball to no one was impressive. He managed to kill offensive momentum at an impressive rate. He somehow had his finger on the pulse of the game, driving into double coverage when we traditionally kick it out, then paint it to a doubled shake when Ray was open in the paint. Completely lack any confidence with him handling the ball in a close game after the first 5 of the season.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[Stallion]

"3)... Close misses early led to us passing too much instead of going hard to the rim, and we turned the ball over."

Nope I think you are the ONLY one who thinks we didn't dribble enough. Everybody and his dog thinks we didn't dish pass enough-UNI did a great job most of the Nite doubling up on the dribbler inside on the mindless drives to the bucket. The commentator was exactly right. We needed dribble dribble pass--not dribble dribble draw double team and throw the ball toward the rim. You can attack the rim without dribbling and throwing the ball to the basket. You attack the basket with interior passing-but Ben Moore doesn't live here any more

[One Trick Pony]

This is still the best thing SMU has going for them believe it

[Puckhead48E]

To add, defense played well for about 1/2 the game. Went to sleep for long runs.

In football we'd call that a good showing...but this is basketball.

It's great to have learning points to take from a game, unless you played poorly enough that there are too many areas that need improvement and you lose that growth possibility. So much to correct from this game and such little time. I'd accept just passing the ball a ton more and not picking up the dribble in traffic.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[PonyLawExpress]

Good perspective, only problem is this team is not going to dominate the aac like we did last year (mainly because the quality in the conference is much higher this year) and dropping games like this is going to bite us hard come selection Sunday.

We just need one quality win in OOC and don’t drop any ugly games and we will be in good shape come Conference.

I liked how the team fought/played defensively and I thought outside of Shake and Chargois offensively the other guys played pretty good games. Shake just wasn’t hitting tonight. This will be a way different team come Conference play. With all the scoring droughts, being outrebounded, our shot by about 10% points and our star guard shooting under 30% we had a shot to tie with under 20 secs left agaisnt a high quality mid-major opponent. Says a lot about how hard we fought and played defensively which is good news, because reinforcements are coming.

I disagree with all the Whitt bashing. He wasn’t great, but he played fine. He didn’t cost us the game. He hit some good shots and made some good passes. All of our guards struggled driving into the lane and turning it over or making sloppy passes out this game. I agree their style of D isn’t a good matchup for Whitt, but considering I thought he played just fine.

[One Trick Pony]

Nicki Minaj and her girlfriend are talking trash to me I wish I had never shared that bus over with them