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Ask UConn. They had no problem beating a very good Memphis team three times, twice on their home court!

mustang1992 wrote:Ask UConn. They had no problem beating a very good Memphis team three times, twice on their home court!

Exactly. Until someone shows me with numerous data points to the contrary, not beating a team three times is an old wives tale.

I think Louisville will show this saying means nothing.

I may be wrong, but isn't UConn an older/more experienced team than we are?

Majority of their starters are Sr/Jr's - Napier (sr) , Boatright (jr), Giffey (sr), Daniels (jr), Kromah (sr) - those are UCONN's leading scorers. All upperclassmen.

Not an excuse for SMU losing to UH, but we are still young and learning to win.

ponyinNC wrote:I may be wrong, but isn't UConn an older/more experienced team than we are?

Majority of their starters are Sr/Jr's - Napier (sr) , Boatright (jr), Giffey (sr), Daniels (jr), Kromah (sr) - those are UCONN's leading scorers. All upperclassmen.

Not an excuse for SMU losing to UH, but we are still young and learning to win.

Houston is just as young as we are. As far as age is concerned SMU is probably just as old or older than UConn. Our entire team is made up of juniors and seniors academically as Coach Brown pointed out. And even if it were not we beat UConn every time we played them.

acdemically? I don't think that is relevant.

My point is this is the FIRST year our starters are playing together.

But you are correct, UH is young too and in any case, it is no excuse to lose in the first round.

UConn matches up with Memphis better than we match up with Houston. We actually match up very poorly with Houston when you look at it. Our defensive weakness is the 3 (as I have said all season) and that is Houston's strongpoint.

Houston is tougher than their record reflects. FWIW we didn't beat them soundly in our first two matchups... I feared possibly losing to them because of how much we had to grind it out against them previously. Unfortunately my fear became reality. Hopefully we got the bad out of our system and can regroup for the tourney.

Our guys need look no farther than the examples of 3 successful programs in our own conference yesterday. First Louisville showed how to get a lead and keep grinding until the end without a let up. UConn showed how to get a lead and maintain it to the end. Cincy showed that when a lead is lost, recover, regroup, and get the win. We still need to learn how to handle ourselves in the ups and downs. It will come in time.

Ask Chad Elsey and the cave man lawyer coach about beating unlv three times in a season.

it will come when we have two guys with a handle - and that is next year. Look at how hard UL is to beat because they have two elite quality guards. Look what happens with us when Nic is out of the game, or when someone decides to throw a blanket on him. Our O works when we are getting it to our strength - inside guys - choose any of the four they are all great. But when that gets disrupted then we got nothing. Add Mudiay to his exact same team and you are overnight competitive with UL. I think this year we have a two game run in the tourney - and we all go crazy waiting around for next year to start again. I already miss Moody.

We had two cold periods when we needed baskets but couldn't make them. Both were in the second period. The last was at the end of the game. Otherwise we would have won. You got to make shots (particularly when you are behind at the end of a game).

Houston might be as young as we are, but are they as inexperienced? We have a lot of talent, and the future is bright as hell, but we have seven guys (Nic Moore, Ben Moore, Markus Kennedy, Yanick Moreira, Sterling Brown, Crandall Head and Keith Frazier) who are all in their first year of playing for SMU. Talent is vital, but experience and chemistry are important, too.

HorsePower wrote:Houston might be as young as we are, but are they as inexperienced? We have a lot of talent, and the future is bright as hell, but we have seven guys (Nic Moore, Ben Moore, Markus Kennedy, Yanick Moreira, Sterling Brown, Crandall Head and Keith Frazier) who are all in their first year of playing for SMU. Talent is vital, but experience and chemistry are important, too.

It's about the same. In fact, we might have a little more experience. We have 2 players starting that are 5th years seniors in Russell and Williams (I don't think Houston has that). Moore, Head, and Kennedy have all played college ball at other colleges. And Head even had 2 years of college experience before coming to SMU. I agree with Coach Brown in that that is not an excuse. Notice that Coach Brown was kind of irritated when that question was asked as well as the question about beating a team 3 times. We are not a totally young and inexperienced team.

HorsePower wrote:Houston might be as young as we are, but are they as inexperienced? We have a lot of talent, and the future is bright as hell, but we have seven guys (Nic Moore, Ben Moore, Markus Kennedy, Yanick Moreira, Sterling Brown, Crandall Head and Keith Frazier) who are all in their first year of playing for SMU. Talent is vital, but experience and chemistry are important, too.

Can you really say "inexperienced" 30 games or so into the season plus most of these guys practiced with the team for a year...........