We Just Got Schooled By Harvard
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@HighEliteMajor Also, I liked that mid first Self went with the press and the lead ballooned to 16. But no press the entire second half and it was a nailbiter.
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Man was the team tired. Frank played well because he had an entire seasons worth of experience playing tired. Frank and Devonte even said they were tired. So did Self. This game might have more to do with practice the week before than decisions in game.
This behest problem on d was rebounding. Tough to run when you can’t get the ball. Diallo/Bragg combined for 4 rebounds. Lucas had 8. Diallo couldn’t even get the ball to the rim before it got swatted away. He’s probably never been tired before. Conditioning will improve and so will the freshman.
Bring on holy cross!
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@HighEliteMajor I think he intended to play both the young guys more as evidenced in the first half. But when they closed the gap and then ultimately made it a close game., he did what he has always done…play the experienced guys. You make valid points…but he ain’t t changing, my friend.
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@HighEliteMajor To your point, he could have put the young guys in after 5 mins it he 2nd half. Maybe they would have extended the lead instead of losing it? If not, he still would have had time to put the experienceD guys back in. We’ll never know.
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@HighEliteMajor Great post and great read HEM, I posted about Lucas in the game thread, because I just can’t understand why HCBS can’t see what’s so obvious ? He has Mickelson who can do a little of everything as well as Lucas’s only strength rebounding.
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To me, this game very much mirrored the Michigan state game. We missed free throws, blew a huge lead and reverted to a slowed down cave man offense. The only difference was Harvard lacked the talent to hammer us and ultimately beat us. I do not want this to become a trend…
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@HighEliteMajor I agree for most of your post. But I was not impressed with Diallo at all when he was out there.
He looked liked Lucas trying to finish around the rim, had trouble passing, and was just in general out of control on offense.
On defense, he got pinned down so low in post that his wingspan couldn’t make up for it.
I am not down on Diallo in the slightest. It’s his second game and these games will come. But this game, I actually felt better with Lucas down low. He got some key boards and a big time bucket and the foul.
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@JhawkAlum But I think the point is that Dialo needs pt to improve, and he didn’t get much.
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@HighEliteMajor #7–this team needs to be shooting 25 three pointers a game.
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OMG… we won…oh the horror…
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@KUSTEVE We won World War II also, but it wasn’t pretty.
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@HighEliteMajor Solid analysis. I’d like to add one more point. Why did Vick did not play. I don’t recall seeing him on the court at all. With Selden on the bench he could have gotten some PT
A win is always a win but this one did not leave a good taste in the mouth. Its still early in the season and going forward I hope that coaching staff will take some lessons from this game.
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@Bwag HEMS second point says otherwise.
But let’s just say that is the case. Lucas did play well believe it or not. And Diallo was struggling. This kind of loss looks terrible come tournament time and could be the difference between a 1 or 2 seed.
It was better to grind out this win and let Diallo learn in anothe circumstance.
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@benshawks08 Agree they look tired, but there isn’t any excuse for that. This is a 10 deep roster, which should mean that we should be able to wear down other teams, not the other way around. But, that only works if you take advantage of that advantage. We played basically 7 guys yesterday.
This is the second or third game this year in which Frank and DG played 34+ minutes each. If this keeps up, they aren’t going to have any legs at the end of the year. We saw that with Frank last year - he was worn down and beat up by the end of the year. Unfathomable that Vick didn’t get in for at least a few minutes to give them a blow, esp. with Selden on the bench with foul trouble.
Again, Self tightened up and went to a very short bench in the second half, even though playing everyone is what got us the early big lead. Think about it - Harvard played 3 frosh more than 20 minutes each. Our 3 got 11, 9 and 0 minutes. Does Self have that little confidence in our guys that he thinks the Harvard first years are that much better?
Sure, Diallo looked very raw and Bragg wasn’t on his game, but the only way they are going to get better is with more playing time. And, if it isn’t going to come from playing the Harvard’s of the world, when is going to happen? There aren’t that many Loyola’s on the schedule.
The fact is that we’ve generally performed better in the first half of games when Self typically does play 9-10 guys. We’ve been beaten in the second half a handful of games when it is mostly the starters playing and we get into half court games.
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Since our FT shooting goes hot and cold… guess we should label it as “fool’s gold.”
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@drgnslayr ha-ha. Nice!
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Didn’t get to see the game. I was on the road. Listening to the radio of course. Didn’t sound good to me. But without eyes on it. I have very lil to say… I don’t think the film on that game is gonna scare the UK wildcats about coming to the phog at all
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@cragarhawk after seeing them play UCLA, they better be afraid!
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I would like to be a fly on the wall of practice this week.
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@KUSTEVE Yes, a horrible win indeed. Does this win really inspire much confidence? Does anyone feel that, as someone posted on another thread, Bill has “righted the ship” since the Michigan State loss?
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Ah come on. It’s going to take Coach a little while to fully embrace fools gold as a viable offense system. He’s been slowing down the game and pounding the ball inside for a very long time. In an essence this is all new to him.
I guess my biggest gripe about the Harvard game is Coach’s unyielding belief that the upper classman must play the majority of minutes in tough games.
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@DCHawker exactly. This team’s identity is to play fast all the time, no have a seven man rotation and play half court. If Self does this in March, it will be a very short tournament. We need to play our game.
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@KUinLA OMG …what shall we do?
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@JhawkAlum He had 5 points…
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@DCHawker Big 12 teams will push us much harder than Harvard. Lucas is not going to be the answer.
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@KUinLA The question is why did Bill freeze up and revert to form?
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@Bwag I doubt LL gets many minutes in a lot of games. It’s all about matchups, we needed a big body and he’s the only one that matches that description. Only big guy I can think of in conference is Ridley, that I can see LL being needed. Was harvards big guy a frosh? We r so very fortunate Fran jrs son was injured!
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@KUSTEVE said:
@KUinLA OMG …what shall we do?
Well, if this game is any indication, we shall probably watch another magnificent flameout in March, lol.
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@Bwag Because that’s what Bill does.
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Maybe you should switch your allegiance to winning program, like…MU? Then you will not have to endure magnificent flame-out after magnificent flame-out and you will be so happy when you actually have a magnificent flame-out in March because it would mean you actually made it to the dance; of course this would not happen very often so you will be OK…after all, you will always have UCLA out there in la-la land.
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@nuleafjhawk Schooled by another coach from the K Tree. Hmmm
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Time to bring back the down vote feature.
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@wissoxfan83 What KUinLA said is absolutely true. Johnny Dawkins did it a couple years ago, and Tommy Ammaker did it yesterday. Because Self is so used to doing what he did for years, this team might have another early exit.
But, there is a possibility that he finally sees the situation for what it is and stops trying to fight it and embrace it.
I am not negative or bashing Self. I am being hopeful that he will finally see it how we do. No more half court games.
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@DinarHawk Sorry dude, but it appears that we have a very emotionally fragile fan base right now. A lot of negativity which I understand a bit, but I’m just amazed that you all know better than the coach.
After Maui and Loyola this fan base was ecstatic, but it took one game to undo it.
LSU nearly just lost a national championship winning coach, and while Bill’s seat isn’t that hot, I can see it building to that, and I think that would be a shame.
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@wissoxfan83 I certainly can’t do anything about some who are bitching and moaning. All I am saying is that for years the problem has been a pace that is too slow and it is time to fix it. Don’t let the opponent control the pace.
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@Bwag No one is saying he was amazing. He was just better than anyone else.
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They have no comment when we win, unless it’s a close game. Then it’s the end of the world.
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There’s a lot of mouths to feed on these team and its clear its going to be impossible to give them all the right balance. Self cares about playing the guys he trusts and right now that number is 7 or 8 depending on if you count Greene.
You could argue that when Self has too much depth, what us fans see as the better player(s) and what he sees as the better player(s) are completely different. Maybe having depth isn’t good for him?
I believe he knows Bragg & Diallo are better players than Lucas or Jamari but until they show it he’s going to let them learn the Self way. Other than missed layups I couldn’t see why either of them didn’t get to play more. They played hard on defense and when they were in, the pace was great and they contributed to the lead on the court.
Where’s the ± for this game?
Besides the minutes fiasco, this team didn’t play that well. It was basically a continuation of the Loyola 1st half where we were content to let an over-matched team stay in it for a while. This team has a lot of growing to do still and most of it is still predicated on being a better defensive team. We’ve seen when they really want to guard that they can, but there’s too much of a slip in the consistency. We’ve seen offensively that when perimeter shots are made, the ball gets up and down the court and guys are unselfish that this team can beat anyone. But we’ve also seen at team that is struggling at the FT line, struggling to make the simplest shot- a layup and at times just runs offense with no purpose. Exactly how games like Saturday stay close…
