MBB vs. Northwestern State game thread

[PonyPride]

Bench goes berserk when Jalen Smith scores on slick reverse layup

95-47 with 1:12 to go

[Charleston Pony]

Jalen Smith has looked pretty good in his limited minutes. He rebounds and plays pretty good D

[PonyPride]

FINAL

SMU 95, Northwestern State 48

[Charleston Pony]

Blowout wins are fun but teams like Northwestern State don't bring out many fans, Not expecting much more enthusiasm for SE Louisiana but hopefully our guys will be ready for the tourney in Jacksonville

[ponyboy]

Timeout — fans urging Jankovich to leave Davis in ... in a 44-point game with 5:34 to go

Very close to a triple double. Are they aware?

Everyone was well aware. Jank told Kendrick he had two mins to get the triple double before he pulled him. So close!

[JasonB]

A few thoughts. As a disclaimer, I did not see the Oregon game.

- I get it that Mi Weathers was hurt, but that needs to be the starting lineup all season. Great energy defensively early until we got into the flow of the game on offense.
- I have called our Jasey before, but he was very good defensively in this game. And he can dunk? Why doesn't he do that instead of layups? Be aggressive man!
- Davis has evolved on the defensive end of the court. The guards - Nutall, Davis, Mi Weathers, Smith, band - they can really play defense. Tempted to press, but that length in the half court outside of Davis is really, really good.
- This freshman class is going to be what really sets this program back in the right direction. Smith is the first stud defensive recruit I have seen here in quite a while. He is very good defensively. Phelps is going to be great, and even Todorovich has really nice potential with a great stroke.
- I'm not sure who is more invaluable on this team, K Davis or Ma Weathers. Marcus might be the guy we absolutely can't replace if he got hurt.
- I think Mi Weathers might be this year's version of Yor Anai. Athletic, great energy on defense, but out of position, not working in coordination with the team defensive construct. And offensively, can do some things athletically but again, not part of the team construct on offense. We will see, perhaps that is just an overreaction after game 1, but he might go down as a good individual player but not great as part of the collective.
- We are a super athletic team. Teams that can't stay with KD, they are dead. Once the team is forced to collapse, there is too much space and too much athleticism for other teams to deal with. Lots of players who can create their own shot in space, and we share the ball nicely. I still worry about the lack of pure shooters on the team. I am guessing that Oregon was long enough to keep us from driving and we couldn't hit our shots. We will see the same against Houston, maybe even Memphis. I would anticipate a lot of teams throwing zone at us, especially once we get into conference play. We move the ball well enough to open shots against a zone, I just don't know if we can consistently hit those shots at a high enough clip to be successful. Against McNeese we shot 20 threes, and in this game we took 28. We actually hit around 40% which is better than expected for our team. 20 is closer to the number of threes I want this team settling for. 28 or the 29 against Oregon is too much. Against Oregon, more than half our shots were from three, and we only hit 30%. We were well under 50% shots from three in the other two games. I think this team is going to struggle a bit against anyone who can prevent us from driving.

[shadowman]

- I think Mi Weathers might be this year's version of Yor Anai. Athletic, great energy on defense, but out of position, not working in coordination with the team defensive construct. And offensively, can do some things athletically but again, not part of the team construct on offense. We will see, perhaps that is just an overreaction after game 1, but he might go down as a good individual player but not great as part of the collective.

Totally agree with this, especially regarding the offense. Mi Weathers is very athletic and skilled, but he is the type of player, once you pass it to him, you ain't getting it back. When the ball ends up in his hands, he goes into one on one mode and is going to try and score anyway he can.

Hopefully, he will develop into a team player and fit in nicely.

[ponyboy]

There’s no doubt in my mind that this squad is one of the best we’ve had in a while. Once we gel, look out.

And I still say that Big Weathers is a lot like Markus Kennedy.

[Terry Webster]

Interesting seeing our score compared to their games against Tulsa and OU