Why we lost

[Pony_Law]

We lost because we have a slew of players that only show up at home, or versus very poor competition...Which is the same problem as last year.

Sure, Keith has made strides this year, guy really can't handle any kind of on ball pressure. He feasts on teams like Midwestern State, but when we need him the most he is nowhere to be found. We don't have any other reliable shooters outside of Nic and Keith, which puts too much pressure on Nic to produce. And when he doesn't, we go on our 3 minute scoreless runs which often times is insurmountable on the road, ESP in conference. Same thing happened last year. When you can't shoot the 3, it clogs the lane - which is why we turn it over so often trying to force passes down into the paint. Why a HOF coach like LB doesn't understand this I haven't the foggiest.

Also, LB needs to take Nic off the other player's best shooter unless they are 5'8 or shorter. Russ Smith, Kevin Pangos are highlighted examples of shooters not fazed by his D, or his sagging off to help on a guy driving into the lane who hasn't scored all game. Cobb shooting over Nic and Saturday was painful to watch. Barefield will take over as PG, and slide Nic into a spot up shooter role, which is where he should be in the first place if EM didn't bail.

Some things I agree with here. I think everyone is overstating how bad we are on three point defense. At the end of the day teams shoot a lot of 3's against us by the % is sill only like 33% which is fine. The thing that is killing this team are unforced turnovers and bad rebounding on long misses.

[Morris Code 11]

We lost because we have a slew of players that only show up at home, or versus very poor competition...Which is the same problem as last year.

Sure, Keith has made strides this year, guy really can't handle any kind of on ball pressure. He feasts on teams like Midwestern State, but when we need him the most he is nowhere to be found. We don't have any other reliable shooters outside of Nic and Keith, which puts too much pressure on Nic to produce. And when he doesn't, we go on our 3 minute scoreless runs which often times is insurmountable on the road, ESP in conference. Same thing happened last year. When you can't shoot the 3, it clogs the lane - which is why we turn it over so often trying to force passes down into the paint. Why a HOF coach like LB doesn't understand this I haven't the foggiest.

Also, LB needs to take Nic off the other player's best shooter unless they are 5'8 or shorter. Russ Smith, Kevin Pangos are highlighted examples of shooters not fazed by his D, or his sagging off to help on a guy driving into the lane who hasn't scored all game. Cobb shooting over Nic and Saturday was painful to watch. Barefield will take over as PG, and slide Nic into a spot up shooter role, which is where he should be in the first place if EM didn't bail.

Some things I agree with here. I think everyone is overstating how bad we are on three point defense. At the end of the day teams shoot a lot of 3's against us by the % is sill only like 33% which is fine. The thing that is killing this team are unforced turnovers and bad rebounding on long misses.

I didn't say we are bad at 3 point defense. I am saying we need someone other than the shortest guy on the team guarding the other team's best 3 point shooters. Everyone is so big on Nic they don't realize his faults on the defensive end. He's short, its a bummer, its life. Get Manuel/Emologlu who are quick + lengthy on other team's best guards which are usually the best shooters, and you won't have guys draining threes from the top of the 3 point circle during crucial moments EVERY big game. A huge plus Nic saves energy to run the offense and be our biggest threat on the offensive end...Its not rocket science.

[The Falcon]

[
I didn't say we are bad at 3 point defense. I am saying we need someone other than the shortest guy on the team guarding the other team's best 3 point shooters. Everyone is so big on Nic they don't realize his faults on the defensive end. He's short, its a bummer, its life. Get Manuel/Emologlu who are quick + lengthy on other team's best guards which are usually the best shooters, and you won't have guys draining threes from the top of the 3 point circle during crucial moments EVERY big game. A huge plus Nic saves energy to run the offense and be our biggest threat on the offensive end...Its not rocket science.[/quote]

I think that Manuel should be the guard on the other team's best 3 pt shooter. When he is out
of the game, it would be Sterling Brown. Those two are big defenders who are very athletic.\
Having said that - someone on PF has stated that Brown is old school and prefers to pack it in
the paint and let other teams shoot lower percentage shots from 3-land. By observation, that
appears to be the case with the off-guard on defense sagging into the post to clog up the
lane. Nic and Keith have been consistently doing that all season. It will be interesting to
see if we will continue to do that when/if we play a team that has high percentage shooters
from the 3.

[Morris Code 11]

I didn't say we are bad at 3 point defense. I am saying we need someone other than the shortest guy on the team guarding the other team's best 3 point shooters. Everyone is so big on Nic they don't realize his faults on the defensive end. He's short, its a bummer, its life. Get Manuel/Emologlu who are quick + lengthy on other team's best guards which are usually the best shooters, and you won't have guys draining threes from the top of the 3 point circle during crucial moments EVERY big game. A huge plus Nic saves energy to run the offense and be our biggest threat on the offensive end...Its not rocket science.

I think that Manuel should be the guard on the other team's best 3 pt shooter. When he is out
of the game, it would be Sterling Brown. Those two are big defenders who are very athletic.\
Having said that - someone on PF has stated that Brown is old school and prefers to pack it in
the paint and let other teams shoot lower percentage shots from 3-land. By observation, that
appears to be the case with the off-guard on defense sagging into the post to clog up the
lane. Nic and Keith have been consistently doing that all season. It will be interesting to
see if we will continue to do that when/if we play a team that has high percentage shooters
from the 3.

Yea, agree with pretty much the entire post, esp the sagging off into the lane to help. LB does like to play it old school and pack the paint, daring teams to beat us on the perimeter. Only problem is, there are teams where that works, and other where it doesn't- and the teams that it doesn't for the majority are the best teams we play. A quick example - Michican State knows Indiana well, they defended the 3 religiously all game, made them put it on the ground.

Here is what both teams made IU shoot from 3
Michigan State - 20.8% from 3pt.
SMU - 36.4% from 3pt.

Result? A blowout win and a close loss on the road. I don't see any adjustments and its frustrating. We have the athletes to be a good perimeter defending team, seems like LB is too stubborn to get away from it.