We DESERVED to lose this game. This was one of the ugliest basketball games I've seen in a long time. I vomited after the first half. Free throws were the absolute ONLY reason we lost by just 1. We should've lost this game by 10.
How can you say this?
We certainly did not play to our potential, however we looked strong in the second half. Games are won on the line. Last year we couldn’t hit foul shots and we lost a lot of close games because of it. To date our foul shot percentages have been great. Our defense was strong in the second half and we didn’t force 3’s like we did last year. We are actually attempting to work an offense, which is a positive change. It’s extremely early in the season. We had a tough lost, but nothing we can’t bounce back from. I expect good things to come this season.
Keep your heads up. Disappointing game yes, but no reason to lose hope.
P.S. can we please stop talking about Lee. I love the guy to death and always will. He won games for us, but he also lost games. We relied on him every game, when he was hot you couldn’t stop him, when he was cold we had nothing else to fall back on. I much rather have an offense that incorporates every man on the floor, which is what we are doing. We have been cold on offense, but we all know what this team is capable of.
I didn’t get to go to the game tonight. My few thoughts are these games happen every year to this program. We tend to lose a few games every year that we should probably win. Even during our last year in conference USA we lost games like these. Hopefully we can turn it around and this isn’t a sign of the season to come. Those upset about lack of fundamentals, athletic players that know fundamentals and have high basketball IQ, go to big schools. Those players are very tough to recruit and I think Bobby has decided to go after athletic guys and try to teach the rest.
You dont trap when we are up by 4 with 40 some seconds left. You dont trap, b/c if they break it they get a wide open 3. Which is what happened. You can give them a basket, just not a 3 pointer. This is coaching 101.
We won’t win many games with Mack playing like that. We need at least 1 scorer. Mack has to avg around 16-18 pts a game and hit a decent fg %age for this team to be good.
Jones came alive in the 2nd.
In the past, we didnt know how to play against a zone. But, we had enough shooters that we just would stand around the perimeter and pass it around and wait for a corner 3 to be open. And, we’d hit it sometimes. Thats not a good zone offense. You have to pass it to a good passer at the foul line, collapse the zone, and have him pass to make a play. We either don’t know that or dont have anyone to do it. When they went zone on us, it looked like we didnt even know what one was.
After thinking about the closing minute and shot they hit with 5 secs left, no need to trap and take chances. Just man-up and don’t let them shoot a three. That’s what it came down to.
Excellent second half in terms of energy and intensity. Big Phil played BIG. I liked Dijuan being more agressive and shooting the open 3. 1st half put us in a hole, missed shots and ODU hit clutch shots and executed better in the final minutes.
Get ready for App and then big one versus Clemson.
We miss Gerrity - Dijuan is having to do way too much and Gerrity was better at creating vs the zone (which we have seen a lot of and will see much more of…because we can’t shoot)
Coleman is NOT a shooter. Apparently, neither is Ian or Mack. We are much better at attacking the rim…but we don’t finish very well and without shooters, teams will continue to pack it in.
I’m getting so tired of this every year.
A. We always lose to teams we have no business losing to…at least 4-5 per year.
B. Doing so puts us in catch up mode all year for recognition and postseason tourneys.
C. We will get better all year unil postseason where we will lay the biggest eggs possible n front of a national audience.
D. Offseason = Drama. Injuries/transfers/coaching issues will tear apart our hopes just before the next season begins.
E. Repeat steps A-D
The ONLY good news - Hey, we’re finally hitting MF’n Free Throws!
The problem with our rebounding is the same problem we have every year on rebounding. We don't box out. It has nothing to do with our size, it has to do with the fact that we try to out jump and out-athelete people rather than boxing out. I didn't see the game, but I'm sure from watching every other year that our shooting was poor because of shot selection.
Agree completely about rebounding. Does Lutz not coach boxing out? Even if you want the guys to jump, at least have them attempt to put a body on the other guy first, then jump. Is this not-boxing-out a legitimate strategy?
Disagree on shot selection. I complained all year last year about this, but from what I could tell (with the crappy camera angles and all), the shot selection wasn’t that bad. Sure, guys were missing from 3, but it was Andersen, Coleman, and Mack missing fairly open shots. If they can’t hit these, we’re in trouble. There wasn’t much of the first pass down, man in your face, heave ho this game. That said, we did have better results most times when we worked it inside on the drive or pass.
The bad: Poor game management the last 2 minutes. Just poor. Somebody mentioned the pressing we did to slow them up coming up the court, and that was part of it, but we gave them two wide open 3’s in the last minute and failed to take care of the basketball when it counted most. I don’t care what defense we’re playing, that can’t happen when that’s the only shot that will get them back in the game. If they were contested, fine, but those were wide open. I don’t care if they put the water boy in the game to shoot a 3 at the end, you don’t leave anybody wide open behind the arc when you are up 2. We went from up 4 to down 1 in 17 seconds. Don’t remember when exactly the unforced turnover from Harris occurred, but it was huge too. Can’t have that from our ball handler. Can’t remember the last time we’ve had two games in a row where we have missed so many close shots. Lots of layups that we just are not finishing on. 4-14 from behind the arc, and now 8-32 on the year. We have to get better here, or we will not finish much above .500 on the season. ODU zoned us quite a bit, and if we keep shooting that bad from outside, most everyone will. ODU had 14 offensive rebounds. They had big guys inside, but giving up double-digit offensive rebounds has got to end. 39-23 overall advantage to them. Not good.
The good: Big Phil was killer on defense in the second half. He got us and the crowd going with those 3 blocks in a row that we capitalized on. The adjustments we made in the second half to shut them down from outside worked great until the last 2 minutes. We forced 18 turnovers and only made 10 against a pretty good defensive team. I’ll take my chances that we win with those numbers most every game. Free throw shooting has been almost unbelievable the first two games. 88.7% after two games is awesome. I’ll take 78% for the year right now in deal or no deal.
A loooooooooooooong ride home tonight. I hope the ride home Wednesday and Saturday seem much shorter.
[QUOTE=contemptor;361021]Didn’t get to see the entire game, but I did get to see Ian drive for one of the first times in a while :o At least he drew a foul[/QUOTE]twice actually.
not much to add other than to reiterate the Niners perimeter defense sucks and it sure is nice to see some foul shots made 2 games in a row.
the season is far from over, but damn it would’ve been nice to get this win.
still playing these kind of games in mid December??? I will start to get worried.
ETA: kinda scary throwback for those of us from the era of Niners Hoops that is not discussed in great detail. A coach on the visitors bench was holding up cards for his players.
Flashbacks to the early 80’s flashcards of Niners basketball ensued. Falling behind on the scoreboard made things worse. Fortunately, halftime arrived and I was able to get the image out of my mind before I started becoming unable to account for my actions*.
Before anyone thinks something strange, you have to remember how dificult it was to be a Niners fan during the era after Lee Rose and before Jeff Mullins.
I'm not surprised. If UNCG was even a mediocre team, we would have been slaughtered.
Gonna be a really long season. But I didn’t expect a lot from this team.
I did expect a lot. This is one of the TALLEST teams in my brief knowledge of niner basketball, yet somehow one of the worst at rebounding. I still expect a great season, but not if we don’t step it up and build a ferocious mentality when it comes to crashing the boards.
The good -
Phil showed up
Excellent free throw
Great intensity at 2nd half
I like how Lutz rotate players on offense & defense
Ian actually drove the ball a few times and drew fouls.
We go inside a lot this year.
The bad -
We looked confused as hell against the zone in the first half, we just pass the ball around perimeter. Harris wasn’t penetrating and got pulled by Lutz. I actually think Dew was doing a little better against that zone.
We need better perimeter defense
WE GOT NO FKING SHOOTER TONIGHT!!!
Harris turned over in the last min was a killer, so was the clutch free throw.
Harris needs to shoot more
We got out rebounded, wtf happened ?
Overall - We played pretty hard and ODU isn’t really a bad team. I think they got a bit lucky with the ref and a few lucky 3 pointers. This lost is hard to swallow, but it is not unacceptable. I’ll get over it soon. Let’s beat App state and clemson!!!
And I think that something was a guy called Leemire Goldwire...
Exactly my thoughts in the final 3 minutes. You realize just how much you miss someone like him in a tight game and needing to have the ball in the hands of a clutch player. He’s gone and someone has got to step up and be that guy. It’s ironic because for years we’ve hoped for a team that didn’t rely on the 3 as much. Last night I found myself wishing we had someone that could actually shoot them.
I was VERY impressed with Phil. If he can continue to play like that and build his confidence, he will be a beast.
We were terrible on the boards and IMO, that was the difference in the game. You’re not going to win many games when you get outrebounded by that much.
FT shooting was tremendous again. Two straight games at near-90%. And a lot of it coming from our big men. Very nice job!
Wednesday will be tough. If we drop that one, I think both the team and fan morale will take a big blow. It’s a must-win with a very tough ACC game to follow it. I certainly think we can win the Clemson game but a 1-3 start would be crushing so the App game becomes very important.
[QUOTE=Charlotte2002;360948]We shot great from the FT Line, this game was ours to have after a great second half come back. Why are we trapping with a lead with less than a minute left??? They hit 2 3s they wouldn’t have even shot if it was straight up man to man defense. What is Lutz thinking???[/QUOTE]
We didn’t rebound, we gave up open looks in the first half, but the bottom line is that Trapping with 40 secs beat us. Then when we came back and Harris hit 1 free throw to put us up 2, coming out of a timeout we Trapped again!!! ballgame.
I’m beside myself. App will be just as good as ODU especially at the guard position.