Saint Louis Post Game

Bottom line is that if we have 1 or 2 less turnovers we would have won the game. Had we had half as many, and thatā€™s still a lot, then we would have won by 10 or more. We always seem to get the raw end of officiating; knowing this, we have to compensate for it with better ball control.

major should have been screaming this at the top of his lungs[/quote]I heard major yelling to go faster in the timeouts.

Surprised no one mentioned St. Louisā€™ 5 point possession where they went from 1 down to up 4. I heard the whistle, so players stop then watched St. Louis shoot the 3-pointer. Somehow the refs gave them the shot and the ball. Then they scored another bucket. No way the 3-pointer should have counted as the whistle for the off the ball foul was literally atleast 1.5 seconds before the shot. ??? We never got the lead back.

Yeah that was BS

Well from where I was sitting it seemed to me the whistle was blown while the ball was in the air, but weā€™ll never know for sure. Iā€™ve been in my rule book ever since the game was over trying to sort this one out, and the only way it even makes remote sense is if the ball was in the air. Our player basically form tackled the screen man while the ball was in the air, there is no denying that. You canā€™t disallow the shot, because it had already been released, not to mention the foul was on us. When a foul occurs you have to award possession to the team that gets fouled. This may be the one call they actually got right.

A few observations from the Ruckus.
I felt like we simply didnā€™t get up and down the floor as much in the 2nd half. The 2nd half became a grinder which seemed to work in favor of Saint Louis especially with their size advantage. Braz was totally ineffective in the post today because of the length that he was giving up. We needed the game at a more upspeed tempo than we had it in the 2nd half. We seemed shell shocked at times in the 2nd half. This team has much more athleticism than we have had the last few years but we still donā€™t play with as much pace as I would like.
I also thought that this was the first game where I saw Henry really struggle running the team and handling the ball. I guess that will happen some with a freshman and it will improve.
Nickerson simply has to get stronger. He is flat out not strong enough to get it done at this level yet.
Saint Louis also seemed to get every key rebound. Our defense has major problems when Deuce is on the floor. His size is such a gigantic disadvantage on defense.
I know lots of people have been down on him but I still really like Mayfield. I do think he should use his athleticism more to make things happen on offense. It is important over the next 3 years for him to have a large impact. He has the type of build necessary to get it done. Hopefully he can.
We desperately need size. So, I hope (really hope) Major is working hard to get Thorne ready.

  • 22 turnovers. As others have said, the 5 in a row and 7 out of 8 possessions in the 2nd half doomed us.

  • We had no offensive flow for the middle 10 minutes of the second half. Even when we werenā€™t turning the ball over we couldnā€™t get anything going.

  • Conklin is first team A10 All-Dirty. What a hack. Donā€™t know why we didnā€™t maul him a few times as he did to us, or perform his patented flop. What a hack he is. Players like that will make you not want to watch basketball.

  • Defense was great for most of the first half, but we gave up many more easy layups and open 3ā€™s in the 2nd half.

  • Iā€™m going to start a These Refs Suck thread, and these will be the first three listed: Tony Dawkins, Earl Walton , Justin Porterfield. They had no control of this game, and Iā€™ve seen less contact in a rugby match. Pathetic.

  • On the flip side, it took us until we got down by 13 to figure out that we were in a rugby match, and that we could knock the s*** out of them too and get away with it. When the refs are not calling ANYTHING and you generally have a clean style of play like we do, you better change it or youā€™re going to get punked. We mauled them to cut the lead down from 13 to 5 at the end of the game, but we should have played that aggressive sooner in the game to keep them from hacking there way back in it.

  • This afternoon was the first time I would have loved to have had Lutzā€™s ref yelling on the bench for a little while. Major should have chewed those bozos a new one. Constant yelling at them doesnā€™t get you anywhere, but every now and then you need to let the terrible refs know that they are indeed doing a terrible job. Glad I wasnā€™t sitting close to the court today, because I might have missed most of the 2nd half.

I agree, all the great coachā€™s will tell you it does make a difference. Coach K works it perfect for Duke. Iā€™d really love to have Coach Majorā€™s recruiting and Coach Majorā€™s Defense with Lutz game day management/strategy.

Iā€™ll pass on Majorā€™s offense and was never thrilled with Lutz 3 ball (although it worked in his time). Just seems like the offense is Braz (Who was a Lutz guy) or nothing. Seems to me (someone correct me if Iā€™m wrong) but Ryan seems to be the guy ā€œCoachingā€ and making the play calls for Major. In fact I see Ryan talking to players more about what happened and what they should be doing instead of Major. Makes me wonder if Ryan would be a better game manager/strategist.

Anyways, they played hard just seem to wear out in the 2nd half and couldnā€™t get back up and down the floor as well as Saint Louis.

Ill pass on majorā€™s offense too. I hate 50+% from the field and 3 vs one of the best defensive teams in the league.

Obviously you haveā€™t watched much of the 49ers this year. A team ranked [size=30px][font=helvetica]302nd [/font][/size]is a good offense??

The offense is brutal to watch. Nobody moves, itā€™s 4 players standing at the 3 point line passing back and forth and looking for Braz inside. If Braz isnā€™t inside, they are lost.

Sorry, but 302nd is NOT good enough.

If we switch back to man to man 2 minutes sooner , we win. We played a very soft zone that allowed the 3s and layups.

The sad thing is, the guy sitting next to me was saying that with 16 minutes to go. He was telling his friend that it seems Saint Louis figured out our zone and was getting wide open shops (mostly easy layups). This continued until about the 4-5 minute mark when we switched to man to man.

At some point, this has to compute quicker for the coaching staff, they just seem to slow to make adjustments when we are getting beat bad. If fans sitting 100 feet away can figure this out while itā€™s going on, why canā€™t the coaches? Coaching staff has to be held accountable as well.

major should have been screaming this at the top of his lungs[/quote]I heard major yelling to go faster in the timeouts.[/quote]
He told them to slow down and they didnā€™t listen then? Is it an issue of lack of control of the players?

When it was 29-18, we hit a 3, & our scorekeeper made it 31-18. I donā€™t understand why Coach Major, no players, no student section, etc. didnā€™t notice is should have been 32-18? And we lost by one.

They call a foul on us when a SLU player throws an elbow inside a minute left. Even if we had a Personal Foul, which I doubt, why didnā€™t SLU get a T? That would have been FTā€™s to get 1-2 possible points. (And we lost by 1.)

Why arenā€™t we aggressive on D? If we are aggressive, we could win this game by 20 or more.

SLU hits a 3, we get called for a foul, & then SLU gets the ball back, hitting a 2 for a mathematically impossible 5-point play. WTF? If we fouled on the 3, then it should be a SLU FT, of which they can only get 1 possible point, not 2. (And we lost by 1.)

I hope that our wonderful league office gets to see a tape of that play.

I guess itā€™s my fault for going to a political event before the game instead of the tailgate. Weā€™re 1-0 when I give the sign of the cross as an internet preacher to bless the communion of "Green"schlager. If Iā€™d been at the Saturday tailgate to bless communion, weā€™d have won.

The official held up 2 fingers after that play but the announcer called it a 3. Announcer just jumped the gun, seemed it wasnā€™t a good day behind the table as well (what was up with the clock keeper)?

Remember that one play when he started the clock early and PH was almost at mid court without touching the ball. Instead that stopped the play, reset the clock, and Saint Louis came up to pressure and cost us 3-4 seconds. That 3-4 seconds would of been quite helpful at the end of the game.

ninersfan99, I remember the 3-4 second screw-up, but the Refs put it back on the clock.

The announcer should really announce a correction that it was a 2, not a 3. I was distracted the rest of the game thinking we might lose by 1. (Which did happen.)

Well from where I was sitting it seemed to me the whistle was blown while the ball was in the air, but weā€™ll never know for sure. Iā€™ve been in my rule book ever since the game was over trying to sort this one out, and the only way it even makes remote sense is if the ball was in the air. Our player basically form tackled the screen man while the ball was in the air, there is no denying that. You canā€™t disallow the shot, because it had already been released, not to mention the foul was on us. When a foul occurs you have to award possession to the team that gets fouled. This may be the one call they actually got right.[/quote]

I beg to differ. I heard the whistle as I posted before and then watched the shot be released clearly after hearing the whistle. It even appeared that most of the players reacted to the whistle before the shot was released.

[quote=ā€œninersfan99, post:28, topic:26201ā€]I agree, all the great coachā€™s will tell you it does make a difference. Coach K works it perfect for Duke. Iā€™d really love to have Coach Majorā€™s recruiting and Coach Majorā€™s Defense with Lutz game day management/strategy.[/quote] Coach K works it perfectly because refs allow him to say whatever the hell he wants without getting a T. Lutz overdid it without having the respect from the refs. I donā€™t know for sure, but I think there were a few refs who had it out for him as a result.

Major actually did yell at the refs some early in the game, didnā€™t he? Might have been worth a technical this time, those refs were so awful. But not sure how much that helps if you arenā€™t a celebrity coach.