Game (scrimmage) thoughts

LA_Mustang · Post by **LA_Mustang** » Sat Nov 20, 2004 1:08 pm

I viewed this game for what it was, a scrimmage. My positives and negatives.......

Positives:
Hop- I thought he looked great. He was very active on defense and his shot looked great.
Pearson- he’s developing into a big-time player. His offensive game is light years ahead of last year. Outside of Hop, he’s probably our most complete player.
Defense- I loved the aggressive man-to-man defense. The days of an opponent hitting 10 of 20 3s in a game should be over.

Negatives:
Rebounding- It’s pretty simple.....the rebounding has to improve.
TOs- We had way too many turnovers playing against UT-Tyler.
Crowd- We had the usual 1500 in attendance. Often times the 20 or so Tyler fans were making more noise than the SMU faithful.

btw, going to the game I flipped the radio to 770AM and it’s great to have Josh and Alan doing the games again this year.

Pony_Fan · Post by **Pony_Fan** » Sat Nov 20, 2004 10:37 pm

Pearson is going to be a stud. I saw great potential in him last year. I think he has enough muscle to get rb's if he works on positioning. Seems like Simpson sat a lot in the 1st half - maybe b/c of fouls?

Isham was flying all over. I hope he steps it up...it is frustrating b/c he is so athletic and his leaping ability is incredible.

I thought Bhop was just ok. This was against Div III competition. He should have dominated. I know you are a big fan but he needs to protect the ball, be smarter, and stop doing silly things.

Killen looked like he can handle the ball ok...much better than Voc ever did.

The refs called about 10 traveling calls and couldn't keep the whistle out of his mouth. Very herky jerky game.

Charleston Pony · Post by **Charleston Pony** » Sun Nov 21, 2004 8:41 am

I like the shooting percentage...53% FG shooting suggests we got a lot of good looks...and we had more assists than usual. Got to improve that assist:turnover ratio, though. I'd like to see BHop at 2:1 or 3:1. Only Isham had nice numbers with 5 assists to only 1 turnover. Pearson has to be the most pleasant surprise with his scoring and 5 blocks. Low post guys fit 11-16 FGs. Lots of positives, but this was a D-III opponent. Let's see what happens in Montana.

LA_Mustang · Post by **LA_Mustang** » Sun Nov 21, 2004 12:17 pm

I really believe this was a case of playing down to our opponent. There was never a flow to the game and the refs had a lot to do with that. A few of those traveling calls were absurd.

To defend Hop, I believe four of his seven turnovers were a result of those questionable offensive fouls and traveling calls. When I say he looked great, I’m referring to his defense, lateral movement and the bounce in his step. His shot looks better than it ever has.

MustangStealth · Post by **MustangStealth** » Mon Nov 22, 2004 11:21 am

I think the fact that we only beat a Div 3 (no athletic scholarships) team by 15 at home is somewhat troubling...

But I guess it's ok as long as we win.

DiamondM · Post by **DiamondM** » Mon Nov 22, 2004 11:40 am

Tyler had the full court press on pretty much the entire game. This, I thought, was a positive because it really tested our new passing style offense and made our guys really work. They had some (well, many) mistakes, sometimes being almost too pass happy and not making smart passes, leading to turnovers. We are definitely going to have to improve in taking care of the ball, but I'd rather have that than the ball hog no passing type offense we've seen the past few years. As they get more of a rhythm, there will be more of those passes turning into points than turnovers.

I thought the defensive intensity was really really good. Isham had a couple of awesome hustle plays -- one where he caught up to a break away and stuffed an attempted dunk. And he was many steps behind to start out. He was pumped after that -- as well he should be.

My observation of the crowd is actually a bit more positive that previously offered. I was pleasantly surprised because the student section was pretty full (at least for the first half), and I disagree that the Tyler folks were louder. Only a few isolated times where they cut it to single digits and hit the half court buzzer beater at the end of the first half did you know they were there.

ponydawg · Post by **ponydawg** » Mon Nov 22, 2004 12:34 pm

One of the things that worried me was that we didn't take very many jump shots from to far out. It seemed like most of them came around the paint, which would be great, but I don't think we will have that option to much against teams with size. I was surprised with DP having 17 points, it was a quiet 17 which is great.

SMULLET · Post by **SMULLET** » Mon Nov 22, 2004 1:14 pm

I liked the noticeably more intense D, however I felt like we almost ‘over-pursued’ on a few occasions. It seemed like a double team would turn into a triple team when the ball seemed to be coming loose. This left a UT-T man open for a lay up. I think I remember this happening about three times on Friday night.