Not at all. He's a Big Ten veteran. |
Not surprised. He's a Big Ten veteran. Those are the kinds of guys you build programs around. |
On paper, we're .500, but if you look in deeper, we're so close to being a really good basketball team. |
Our deficiency as 3-point shooters showed up, badly. When that happens, there is a domino effect. Once we quit making our shots from the perimeter, they stop defending us. Then our No. 1 threat, which is Ian, just gets locked down. Ian did not get a shot at the basket. |
Shooters are shooters. We've got to keep recruiting shooters and we've got to keep getting our kids to understand how much time they have to spend on their shot. |
That has to be the No. 1 point of discussion when the A-10 coaches get together after the season. |
That was a team effort to make him more forceful. His teammates had to play a part in that, to continue to look into the post every time. To Ian's credit, he re-established himself as a dominant center. He was too much for them to handle. |
That's how it's been for us. It's been unbelievable. We've literally won and lost for 19 straight games (dating to last season). The good news is last year I would have died for that. The bad news is that we can't get on a winning streak. |
That's not the way we scripted the game to start. It just snowballed from there. One of the keys was for us to shoot the ball well early so we didn't have that self-perpetuating problem. This has happened to us before where we get off to a poor shooting start, and we really have a hard time turning the tide. |
That's two full games where we haven't stopped anybody. Somehow we outscored Charlotte. We didn't outscore Dayton. We're messing with fire if we think that's how we can play. We have to stop people. |
The bottom line is, we didn't make shots. It's just disappointing that we played as well as we did defensively, and yet it's a 10-point loss. And we missed free throws. It's just not good enough if you want to beat good teams. You've got to play complete basketball, not just defend, not just rebound, it's got to be complete. We're either going to get it or we're going to continue to be a .500 team. We're either going to figure it out or remain an average program. |
The reason we were able to win is that we did defend very well. It was one of our best defensive games of the year. |
They had every reason to lose tonight and they found a way to win and that's the sign of a good team. |
They have figured it out. We're every bit as good, but we haven't figured it out. I'm not saying we're better than the Missouri Valley, but we're every bit as good. |
They just have to log minutes. As good a player as Tommie is, as good a player as Kevin is, they just need more minutes. They need to keep playing and they need to keep being challenged with great competition and they'll get their mouthful on Friday. |