Hard to get the crowd excited when you play as poorly (and as boringly)as we did the first half. Also doesn't help when only THREE ROWS of students show up for the game and the band doesn't attend. I know it's winter break and all, but that's a little rediculous. The real student fans showed up today and kudos to them. They weren't loud, but they were mighty.
the students dont care. i still say take away their chairs and make it first come, first serve. as far as the band, well they suck. the only thing worse than the band at a basketball game is that moron who comes out during tv timeouts. i have no idea who he is but im glad im not related to him. im related to some baboons but nobody as bad as him. he is awful. embrassing really...
To add to CB40's post:
This team played FLAT in the first half and for the first 2-4 minutes of the 2nd half. Pulling Lauderdale and Mullens for the extra guard and Kyle Madsen gave this team the effort and energy to pull away in the 2nd half. I say give Madsen the game ball. When he was in, we were actually getting rebounds, getting down the floor quicker on both ends, and playing with that extra spark.
yup, first 24 more minutes were flatter than two year old RC Cola. mullens actually played well on offense and kep the team in the game.
matta went to madsen for a spark, it worked eh... kyle played hard and well im not really sure that the point was taken by dallas/bj.
Evan played a terrible first half. Correct me if I'm wrong, but I counted 2 points and 3 turnovers in the first half. I'm glad he decided to turn it on in the 2nd half. He seemed to be the most affected by Lighty's injury. Put a whole lot more pressure on him to perform. Hopefully we can get more players (like Buford, Mullens, Madsen, etc.) to step up and take some of that pressure off of Evan.
ive come to expect turnovers from evan, he played better in the second half.
bufford bugged me. he should be a good rebounder and defender, hes neither. he needs to step it up now that it is crunch time if the team wants to go anywhere. effort/consistency in those two areas are lackluster. he got plenty of minutes, somethign youll continue to see.
Diebler is playing like we all expected him to play last year on offense. That said, I'm awfully proud of how he's performing on defense. He still needs to work on rebounding and blocking his man out, but his hustle is really paying off with steals and contesting shots. He's only going to see more time out there with Lighty out and how he's playing right now. Good to see him shooting the ball confidently too. I don't want to jinx him, but he looks like he could develop into a leader down the line here.
he pulled his teammates away from a fight more than once, best move he made all day.
he also has been a good team rebounder.
Mullens is still playing like he's been playing all year. He shows flashes of brilliance (almost exclusively on the offensive end), followed by reminders that he's only a freshman (the majority of which are on the defensive end). He looks like he's feeling a lot more comfortable in the zone, but he's a step slow. He's letting the forwards that he's guarding have the baseline, he can't contest the long jumpers and 3's, and he's only half the defensive presence that Lauderdale is down in the blocks. That said though, we need to find more ways to get him the ball down low on offense. Iona didn't have an answer for him when he got the ball.
condition leaves something to be desired. def players have hugn him out to dry (bufford) and to a lesser extent diebler/turner.
i beg to differ, he actually has more presence than dallas, teams dont even bring it at him. teams bring it at dallas knowing hell committ a silly foul.
mullens he needs to get the ball down low, and needs to be willing to kick it out to the perm and reset.
ive seen some real nice things from bj. he excites me a lot.
I need to watch Buford more. He's got a beautiful looking shot. He hasn't "gotten it" yet on D, but he works really well with Evan and Diebs. When we're in four guard sets, it's hard to put a body on everybody, especially when Evan or BJ demand a double (or triple) team whenever they touch the ball inside the arc. When he finally "gets it" on D, I think you'll see him being be a better NBA prospect than Evan.
its not a gets it. its an effort/consistency thing. hes never had to play defense, guess what? someone is goign to have a newsflash come conference play when coaches have him scouted down to his choice of toothpaste brand...
Dallas has GOT to work on his free throws!! He's physical enough that he's going to get fouled a lot this year when we start Big Ten play. If he keeps missing (and missing horribly, at that) like he is, teams are going to use the "Hack-A-Shaq" method of defending Dallas. That could be the difference between a W and an L in the Big Ten championship race.
or moving his feet, defensive positioning. dallas has well i dont see what some others have seen. hes playing ok on offense and defensively hes not reboundign and out of position and has given up to many easy baskets for my taste.
In all seriousness, Madsen needs to get in the game once a half. The energy that he brings to our team is contagious. You might not see the stats he gets outside of rebounds, but Madsen was the only big man on the floor when we started pulling away from Iona. I said it once in the exhibition game thread, but Madsen is the most improved player this year from last year. He's gone from a bench-warming program player to a glue guy, role-playing spark this team needs off the bench. Kyle had the 2nd loudest ovation when he was subbed out of the game tonight (next to Evan's curtain call).
hes a plug, nothing more, nothing less. hell see time, important time when he just needs to help keep it close. if we have to rely on him for extended minutes, it could be a long year. physically not really ready for b10 play.
Next to rebounding, this team needs to work on defending that 3-point shot. Too many times we left that guy wide open in the corner. Lauderdale had the unenviable task of guarding #30 (a supposed "7-footer") who could hit the three. His release point was so rediculously high, there really wasn't anything that even Lauderdale could do. You just had to hope he missed it. Besides that situation, there were WAY too many threes let off uncontested.
they shot what half of their shots were threes? dallas close out is well weak, mullens isnt stellar either. get used to the bigs shooting, um will want to do that. maybe he shouldnt have worried abotu blocking the shot, rather a good close out, a seal and rebound?
Want to see more out of Crater. Iona left him WIDE open for stretches of the game, especially early. He needs to prove to the other team that he can hit the jumper and be be a dangerous threat with the ball so that teams won't be more apt to double team Evan or Mullens. Down the stretch, we're going to need more than 2 assists from him. That said, both of those assists were beautiful. He can really put the zip on that ball to get it through traffic.
he also made some iffy choices, his shot leaves something to be desired. he has the ability to run the slow and secondary breaks by getting penetration, id like to see him try and push it to the rack in this situations.
I'd love to see all of our guards drive to the hoop more and create more chances on offense for fouls, dishing to our big men, pull-up jumpers, popping it out to the swing man for 3, etc. It's something that we're really missing and will continue to miss even more with Lighty out.
when you say dishing to big men i hope you dont mean a 90mph belt hight over the head/baseball pass... thats about the only dish ive seen...
Overall, I think there's still a lot left to be desired. This game came at exactly the right time. If we would have played a ND or Miami today, we would have lost. Looking forward to seeing us progress without Lighty against UNC Ashville and get that momentum going into the West Virginia game.
it is early.
Thad is doing amazing stuff with these guys. Considering that Groce is no longer helping him coach on the sidelines, it makes what he's doing just that much more impressive.
still a good group of guys in major, peters etc.
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