Putting Two Halves Together...
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We’ve had a hard time putting two halves of basketball together this year.
I recall not long ago posting a thread basically thinking it is a good idea for us to come out slow.
Not sure why we went so flat the second half. Our defense was horrible. Horrible. Wide open treys for a team that could only beat us by getting hot from trey.
We can think we have an offense-driven team, but we ain’t going anywhere with out defense.
This may be our guys “responding” to Bill’s compliment about us playing better now. That sure wasn’t the case today.
I would be happy to give the Clones credit for this victory, but I can’t. They didn’t hit well-guarded shots. They didn’t run some outrageous offense. Their defense wasn’t tenacious. Their rebounding stunk. Sure, they hit wide open treys.
This loss is all ours. We B L E W it! No other explanation.
Thank your lucky stars we have teams like the Mildcats to help us drive for #13! UPDATE - and the Cowboys!
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Yep, sleepwalking through the game finally caught up to them. When a team plays that poorly, they deserve to lose. What is puzzling is why we didnt do anything different the second half. No forcing them off the three point line, no pressure and our offense was stagnant.
I don’t believe they were looking ahead to next week at all. Iowa State was hot at the right time and exploited what we all knew would come back to bite them one of these games.
Now they have to go to Manhattan on Monday night which should be a hard fight and one that will be an absolute battle. Hopefully they realize you can’t afford to take possessions off or constantly make risky passes. We can win but they will have to mentally focus like they did against Kentucky and Baylor.
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The effort and pride were the issues for me. 3/8 in last 2 minutes and ot from the line in our own gym. Didn’t have guys getting after the loose balls or hustling at all outside of Mason and LL I thought most took a day off. I can handle an L but the longer I think about losing one like this the more ticked I get.
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Btw, does Bill teach overhelping on drives? That three Svi gave up at the end was the nail in the coffin. Has anyone heard if Bill wants to put two or three guys on guy when he drives in the lane? Seems unnecessary to me.
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@drgnslayr I would disagree to a point. I thought they hit some guarded shots…can’t say how many without re-watching. The first ones that come to mind are the step back 3 (Long, I think) and Morris’ step back 2 in OT. I think Burton hit a couple of highly contested 3s as well. But you are right…they had too many open 3s…I was screaming at the TV on those.
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@HawkChamp I thought we played well in the first half. 2nd half…I agree with your comments.
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20 KU turnovers to ISU’s 13. Poor D. Not Selfian D, & I’m beginning to wonder if they’re capable of playing Final4 level D. This wasnt it, esp by JJ on Burton.
But a nicely timed reality check. Let this L soak in. Cue the repeat Selfism’s in the film study room…right…about…(checks watch)…now.
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Let’s see how we respond in the Sherronagon.
We seem to play best when we are pushed in a corner. Well… we are now. We are going to have to win on the road, and let’s not forget our next home game is WVU. Two home losses in a row?
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@drgnslayr At least WVU is not a good shooting team from 3…I think they will have to be really hot to beat us in AFH.
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@Hawk8086 said:
@drgnslayr At least WVU is not a good shooting team from 3…I think they will have to be really hot to beat us in AFH.
Like ISU did in the 2nd half? ISU isn’t a great 3 point shooting team either, but they got hot today.
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Our perimeter defense has been spotty all year. We haven’t focused on it because our offense just glosses over our flaws.
Every one of these losses is going to help us. We’ve got to get better and we don’t do that by squeeking out victories.
Right now, I believe our Achilles heel may be our perimeter defense. We have no excuse for this.
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@Texas-Hawk-10 I could check…but do the stats support that they are not a good 3 pt shooting team? I thought differently.
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Just like most years under Self, effort and energy are this team’s weakness. They didnt bring it most of the second half and it showed.
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@Hawk8086 I think they were 36% as a team last I looked. Not horrible, but it’s not good either. ISU is just a team that shoots a lot of 3’s so they tend to make more because they shoot more, not that they’re a good shooting team.
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@Texas-Hawk-10 Never mind. I checked. ISU and WVU were almost identical. I’m surprised.Maybe that’s good…today was more of an anomaly than I thought. Chances are it might not happen again. Or…due to our poor defense. Crap.
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Sometimes you lose to hot teams. Hey, at least we werent down 37 like Arizona was.
