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First of all, Hopkins had 16 points, 10 (!) rebounds and 7 assists. I'll take that line from him every time. Good job, BHop.

Now .... I don't know if you guys have read the story on the home page that came out of the Honolulu paper about last night's game, but something jumped out at me. There's a quote there from Coach Dement that says the Ponies stayed almost exclusively with the zone defense because we're not a very good man-to-man defensive team. OK, fine. But it seems to me that we're not a great zone defensive team, either, seeing how many teams shoot the lights out from the 3-point line against us. Whatever questions we might have about Coach D, the ongoing belief I've always heard is that he is a fundamentally sound coach who can "X and O" with the best of them. If that's the case, can't at least one form of defense be taught? Is practice spent entirely on offense? Sure, it would be a lot easier if we had a Shaq-sized monster in the middle whose mere presence in the lane would scare would-be penetrators into the basketball version of the witness protection program. But we've got to tighten things up before the WAC tournament.

Dement's teams have never played good defense. What is the sense in playing zone when the other teams still get the ball inside on you for lay-ups? We're giving more offensive boards because of the zone this year. He has the athletes to play man to man in the WAC. I rather lose playing man to man and making the other team work a little more for the shots than just standing around and letting them pass the ball anywhere they want.

If the zone is the way this team is going to defend, we need Rack to establish himself as more of a physical threat. He has the size, and if he would plant one penetrating guard in the floorboards at the beginning of the game, they'd think twice before driving the lane. If Rack could be taught to get nasty, the zone could work.

playing tough man to man defense is in part physical ability but also desire. I wonder which one Dement is most concerned about? Most likely he doesn't like our depth and match up issues playing man defense. Part of Bhops problem, at least from the games I've watched on TV, is that he does 90% of the ball handling on offense and when opponents pressure him, he gets worn down which affects his shooting. Ask him to play tough man D on top of that and my guess is he shoots 33% all the time. We need to be more physical and to have quality back ups at every spot on the floor...and to be better conditioned in order to play about 30-35 minutes of man defense.