Jordan Sheppard was money tonightâ27 points, 8/8 from the FT line. Every game it is a different player. I bet that makes it hard to game plan us. I know it makes it hard for me to know what to expect.
We really struggle to score, and I guess that isnât going to change this year. The good news is our guys never give up and their defense keeps us in it.
Coach Sfera said before the game that we need to:
Keep Liberty-Freeman under his 22 pt average - he scored 17
Limit our turnovers - we won the battle 13-19
Donât let them own the rebounds - They led 29-28
We did what he said, and we won.
Thursday we play 1-10 Maryland Eastern Shore. Their only win is against Clarks Summit University, whoever that is. Sanchez said we might need to bring in some help off the bench. I guess that means we should be fresh for EZU.
I didnt make it to the game, and there was no tv, but we scored over 60 and didnt hit many threes. What did we need to do better? Were the twos we got lucky or just not enough of it? Not being rude either, just was wondering.
This was just a grind it out win. We didnât trail after going up 4-3. We just couldnât put it really away until the end. It was a good win against a decent team. We have a great shot at starting conference play above .500.
I think that is key for our confidence, going into conf above .500. The kids are playing hard, and with the conference (us included) being so evenly weak, we really have a shot to do well.
Good effort and team win. Several wtf plays on offense that needs to stop but good game overall. Shot the ball well, low turnover total and not a lot of fouls called. Bad FT shooting in the 2nd half to close the game besides for Shepherd.
Not sure how good of a team Valpo is at the moment so hard to be too happy more than just glad we won.
7 man rotation. Thatâs essentially Sanchez calling this game a âmust winâ. No foul trouble allowed this.
BasicallyâŚSheperd scored 27 and we made 17 free throws I think. Itâs just not a pretty offense that runs plays. Itâs literally pass it around looking for back door passes until thereâs 5 secs left.
We hit quite a few crazy tough shots at the buzzer.
Donât get me wrongâŚit was effective enough to win but it can just be painful to watch.
Better to win ugly than lose prettyâŚbut it is pretty damn ugly at timesâŚat a lot of times.
i actually think we run our offense pretty well but it looks so much worse bc weâre not a good shooting team. the team moves without the ball(with occasional exceptions) but its not the old major stand around offense.
Wasnât able to catch much of the game (too much to do before the Bahamas).
Great to see us being 5-4, beating UMES and ECU would be a great way to end the year along with being 7-4. Looks like .500 this season is becoming a strong possibility.
Hence the 6 total assists for the game. We wont win many games where we only have 6 total assists.
I didnât get to listen but it sounds like TRL hit the nail on the head. This offense is conducive to racking up assists. Only having 6 would say to me it wasnât successful and we were able to create and make shots in the last 5-8 secs of the shot clock.
We are so different on offense this year versus last year when JD held the ball for 30 secs and then tried to find a shot. We over-pass the ball this year. Last night guys were passing up open shots to make another pass which resulted in a worse shot selection. I think this will get better with some film study over the next few weeks.
I think our offense is a product of being completely unselfish (a good thing!) to a fault (not so good thing!), plus not having that go-to player who always has a green light. If someone puts up a bad shot at a bad time, theyâre out. Weâll eventually have someone start to stand out who has a green light all the time, as well as get some guys who shoot a more consistent 3 who will take them whenever there is space. Those two things plus unselfishness is what weâre growing into eventually, which I think is Sanchezâs ultimate vision.
I agree that unselfishness is a good thing but it looks like they donât even consider making a move to score until 5 secs are left. They swing the ball back and forth and at no time does anyone player try to make a play until the shot clock is running down.
As much ball movement as we haveâŚafter 4-5 passes and the defense is scramblingâŚany aggressive playmaker should be able to attack and breakdown the defense even further to create a shot for himself or a better shot for someone else (like a kickout) when help comes.
I guess my point isâŚthat thing we do with 5 secs left in the shot clock would work just as well with 12-15secs left in the shotclock too. And we probably have 4-5 guys capable of doing it but they all defer to Sheperd (or they did last night) and give him 5secs to operate.
I too hope it evolves and at some point it has toâŚbut itâs an extremely frustrating offense.
But againâŚeffective enough for us to winâŚfor now.
Not really surprised nor is this a news flash, but the paper version of the o had nothing except the score of this game in yesterdayâs and todayâs editions. Nice articles today about Highsmith being named AA and about Harris and DeLuca being supportive even though they have been out with injuries this year.
As bad as our offense looks to the eye test, our Effective FG% is the highest weâve had as far back as KenPom data goes (1996-97 season). The biggest thing holding us back in regards to overall efficiency is Turnovers, time will tell if the underclassmen can grow and overcome this issue, and offensive rebounding rate, which I donât see changing due to Sanchez prioritizing getting back on D.