All of a sudden, we’ve got a ball game!
PROFESSOR X
Sometimes Lee is just going to have to take over. Play through him.
Outside of the Rutgers game, Lee is going to be the best player on the court for the rest of the season. Mitch has to use that to his advantage.
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Lee getting a little tired now. He needs some help.
Blake hit his last two treys. But someone else has to get a bucket/FTs.
Does Pierce have a peg leg or something? He definitely has to be injured.
Briefly up 3… now down 4 with a minute left.
Ugh.
Texas State getting every single important rebound on their end of the court.
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Led 77-74 with 2:30.
7-0 Texas State since. Oh well. At least Lee gave us a chance - just ran out of gas.
Hard to blame Xaivian for that ugly turnover when no one else on the team can score (other than Blake, who fouled out).
Miss by Davis: end of game
Davis misses a 3 to end our chances.
Another painful loss where the team looked lost.
Lee with a 30p/6r/5a/2s game but Caden with another disappearing act. Is he sick? Injured? Something must be up.
At least the message boards seem to be working good!
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Wright State and Texas State played so much harder than us.
Embarrassing effort all around. The season is in serious jeopardy.
I’m assuming a loss tomorrow and then some Thanksgiving soul-searching before the St. Joe’s game. Maybe that’ll fire them up - a “marquee”-ish opponent.
This team plays remarkably well in stretches and then just disappears. Down 13 deep into the second half they (well, Xaivian) go on a tear to take a three point lead then, just like the Loyola game, they collapse at the very end.
Feeling a lot better about the team at this moment then I did before their run, but what happened to Cade and Dalen in the second half, tonight?
I don’t know enough about bball strategy but I am certain when you only have one player who can score you aren’t winning many games. Perhaps pulling out those early games was actually disadvantageous.
For 5 games, we had three guys who seemed to be able to score at will in Lee, Pierce, and Davis and two others who could get hot and score in bunches (Peters and Malik). Tonight, two of our players got hot in the second half, then one of them succumbed to exhaustion and the other one fouled out.
Bingo! But I think they’ll figure it out.
I just rewatched a big play that sums up this team’s frustrating - yet fixable - problems. There’s a clip of it on the main ESPN gamecast page:
Up 77-76, TSU runs a pick and roll with Gumbs and Pope. We switch. Gumbs misses a runner over Byriel. Davis beats Pope to the spot under the basket but immediately backs out to give Pope an easy putback - then fouls him weakly from behind for the and-1. Texas State leads 79-77.
Even at 6-0, all Davis has to do is hold his ground and Pope would have a much harder time getting the rebound. It’s plays like this that prove being undersized isn’t an excuse. Messing up defensive plays like these are the difference between a 5-3 record and 7-1.
Thanks for posting this. I don’t agree with the interpretation in toto, however. Viewed from the opposite baseline, they arrive about the same time. Davis is slightly to the right of the hoop, Pope slightly to the left. The ball bounces left and Davis has no shot, so he retreats and swipes. It is the swipe that is the error. But Davis was never between the basket and Pope, IMHO.
I see what you mean. I still think Davis was capable of boxing out and that’s all we needed. Just make it harder to grab the rebound and get the putback. Even little guys can do that - they might even get an over-the-back call like what happened to UConn yesterday (causing Dan Hurley’s meltdown).
Either way, it’s plays like this that confirm my initial thought about this team’s poor rebounding - size is not an excuse for being THIS bad. As Mitch said in the postgame presser, it’s poor discipline.
BTW, I found it sad and hilarious that the official website’s headline for this game was:
“Xaivian Lee Scores Season-High 30 Points At Myrtle Beach Invitational Against Texas State”
Didn’t even mention the result of the actual game! It was that embarrassing. Just a bummer of a start to this highly anticipated season.