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Few random thoughts from yesterday’s game
Posted on: November 18, 2016 at 08:37:34 CT
FIJItiger MU
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Wow, what a performance. That was fun, MU was nationally competitive again. Xavier is a very high caliber team and has one of the better backcourts around, and we went toe to toe with them for 45 plus minutes and had them on the ropes multiple times and when they started to take control we battled back and didn’t fold. Considering our lack of depth, lack of size, and most importantly our lack of experience in those kinds of situations that was a really impressive performance.
82% of our shot attempts came from 3 players, nobody else took more than 3 shots. Those same three players led us in rebounding, they led us in assists. We got some decent minimal contributions from others but we need someone else to emerge from that supporting cast, that is too much to put on 3 guys who are all sophomores or younger.
Defensively that was probably the best game I’ve seen us play in the Kim era. Did a great job at neutralizing their backcourt size and athletic advantage, and forcing them into foul trouble so they couldn’t be as aggressive. I thought our help defense and double downs were really sharp, and our rotations and closeouts were much quicker than we have seen in past years. It was definitely a coordinated effort which is impressive given how many new pieces there are.
That was probably the best game I’ve seen either Puryear or Phillips play. Stepped up and made big time plays over and over again, not just in isolated instances. Those guys have got to be exhausted so hopefully they can bounce back this morning and still give a similar effort.
Seems to me Jackson would be much more effective at the 3, not sure I like our decision to exclusively work him in at the 4. We become way too small with him and Puryear as our frontcourt and O’mara abused us in the overtime due to that. Even as a freshman I think Jackson could physically overwhelm some opposing 3’s and have an athletic advantage over them so its an actual mismatch in our favor, and playing Vanleer less at the 3 really doesn’t subtract much in terms of production.
We are going to need Phillips to play big time minutes this season. It’s a huge step down when he comes out, we basically couldn’t even get into our offensive sets and most of those possessions were just wasted offensive possessions when he was on the bench. Given his propensity for accumulating fouls and our lack of depth there, that is going to be an ongoing concern.
If Vanleer is going to play that many minutes, he needs to move offensively without the ball. He basically stands motionless for most possessions or picks away on the perimeter and returns to being motionless, and when he receives the ball his role is essentially to keep the ball moving to other parties. Given his limitations defensively, its like playing 4 on 5 to some degree if he isn’t at least moving to get open and make himself an offensive threat.
The last sequence doesn’t bother me too much. You have to learn how to be in those situations, and nobody on our team at the D1 level had ever been in a situation like that before. Yes it would have been great to win that game and certainly if we executed properly at worst we would be facing double overtime. But as long as we don’t repeat that same mistake over and over, a la Pressey, and this serves as an early season learning instance I think that is hugely more valuable than had Phillips somehow knocked down that prayer with everyone standing around watching him.
Frankie Hughes is currently on pace to be our all time leading scorer. Just wanted to throw that out there.
Great game, looking forward to today’s performance. Davidson will likely be very well coached, and it will be interesting to see if defensively we can disrupt their execution. The biggest improvement for the Tigers early on is their willingness to attack the rim and not settle for bad shots, and to hunt out looks earlier in the shot clock so you aren’t forcing things so often out of necessity or settling for wasted possessions.
Edited by FIJItiger at 08:42:07 on 11/18/16
82% of our shot attempts came from 3 players, nobody else took more than 3 shots. Those same three players led us in rebounding, they led us in assists. We got some decent minimal contributions from others but we need someone else to emerge from that supporting cast, that is too much to put on 3 guys who are all sophomores or younger.
Defensively that was probably the best game I’ve seen us play in the Kim era. Did a great job at neutralizing their backcourt size and athletic advantage, and forcing them into foul trouble so they couldn’t be as aggressive. I thought our help defense and double downs were really sharp, and our rotations and closeouts were much quicker than we have seen in past years. It was definitely a coordinated effort which is impressive given how many new pieces there are.
That was probably the best game I’ve seen either Puryear or Phillips play. Stepped up and made big time plays over and over again, not just in isolated instances. Those guys have got to be exhausted so hopefully they can bounce back this morning and still give a similar effort.
Seems to me Jackson would be much more effective at the 3, not sure I like our decision to exclusively work him in at the 4. We become way too small with him and Puryear as our frontcourt and O’mara abused us in the overtime due to that. Even as a freshman I think Jackson could physically overwhelm some opposing 3’s and have an athletic advantage over them so its an actual mismatch in our favor, and playing Vanleer less at the 3 really doesn’t subtract much in terms of production.
We are going to need Phillips to play big time minutes this season. It’s a huge step down when he comes out, we basically couldn’t even get into our offensive sets and most of those possessions were just wasted offensive possessions when he was on the bench. Given his propensity for accumulating fouls and our lack of depth there, that is going to be an ongoing concern.
If Vanleer is going to play that many minutes, he needs to move offensively without the ball. He basically stands motionless for most possessions or picks away on the perimeter and returns to being motionless, and when he receives the ball his role is essentially to keep the ball moving to other parties. Given his limitations defensively, its like playing 4 on 5 to some degree if he isn’t at least moving to get open and make himself an offensive threat.
The last sequence doesn’t bother me too much. You have to learn how to be in those situations, and nobody on our team at the D1 level had ever been in a situation like that before. Yes it would have been great to win that game and certainly if we executed properly at worst we would be facing double overtime. But as long as we don’t repeat that same mistake over and over, a la Pressey, and this serves as an early season learning instance I think that is hugely more valuable than had Phillips somehow knocked down that prayer with everyone standing around watching him.
Frankie Hughes is currently on pace to be our all time leading scorer. Just wanted to throw that out there.
Great game, looking forward to today’s performance. Davidson will likely be very well coached, and it will be interesting to see if defensively we can disrupt their execution. The biggest improvement for the Tigers early on is their willingness to attack the rim and not settle for bad shots, and to hunt out looks earlier in the shot clock so you aren’t forcing things so often out of necessity or settling for wasted possessions.
Edited by FIJItiger at 08:42:07 on 11/18/16
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Few random thoughts from yesterday’s game - FIJItiger MU - 11/18 08:37:34