MUScoop
MUScoop => Hangin' at the Al => Topic started by: ChicosBailBonds on March 03, 2007, 10:37:23 PM
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David Cubillan with 20 points. Wes Matthews with 20 points. Dominic James with a career high 10 assists.
We shot 45%...when we shoot 44% or higher we almost always win. That has and remains the key stat for this team. When we lose games, it is because we shoot in the 30's, not because we are outsized.
Great job for MU. These guys were exhausted at the end, but they played their tales off. Wonderful day for MU all the way around.
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Loved the way James played tonight. Cube too. We're in the perfect spot as underdogs for the BE tourney. We may disappoint, but we'll be dancing no matter what.
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David Cubillan with 20 points. Wes Matthews with 20 points. Dominic James with a career high 10 assists.
Lets not forget those key three pointers from Kinsella.
Some would say your big men shouldn't be taking outside shots, but Kinsella helped open the lane for MU, enabling that big first-half run.
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First Great and much needed win!
However, we should not have been sweating down the stretch. This team has never been able to put a team away this year. I knew that we would crumble in the last 10 minutes. Crean needs to stop the slow down crap. It makes the players play tentative and passive. We are not talented enough to do that. We need to stay aggressive for 40 minutes. When we get passive we stop attacking and start shooting too many 3s without even probing inside and eventually our percentage fell back to reality in the 2nd half.
Our bigs continue to show that they belong in the horizon league. We were lucky that Gray didn't assert himself until the last 4 minutes or so.
I don't want to be accused of being too negative though. Matthews stepped up huge, James played great and stayed within himself, Cubillan was great offensively, even Kinsella was serviceable. The intensity was great. If we played that way all game instead of the slow down garbage in the 2nd half, and if we get McNeal back, we can play with any team in the country.
Nice job by the fans too.
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wrap it up - was there any doubt?
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First Great and much needed win!
However, we should not have been sweating down the stretch. This team has never been able to put a team away this year. I knew that we would crumble in the last 10 minutes. Crean needs to stop the slow down crap. It makes the players play tentative and passive. We are not talented enough to do that. We need to stay aggressive for 40 minutes. When we get passive we stop attacking and start shooting too many 3s without even probing inside and eventually our percentage fell back to reality in the 2nd half.
Our bigs continue to show that they belong in the horizon league. We were lucky that Gray didn't assert himself until the last 4 minutes or so.
I don't want to be accused of being too negative though. Matthews stepped up huge, James played great and stayed within himself, Cubillan was great offensively, even Kinsella was serviceable. The intensity was great. If we played that way all game instead of the slow down garbage in the 2nd half, and if we get McNeal back, we can play with any team in the country.
Nice job by the fans too.
In a perfect world....
No McNeal. No James. Young Team. We did fine. To expect to bury the #12 team is not a given.
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In a perfect world....
No McNeal. No James. Young Team. We did fine. To expect to bury the #12 team is not a given.
Never said it was a given, just that there is a disturbing pattern of the coach, players, or both letting off the throttle every time we have a lead in the last 8 mins or so.
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10 assists.
Playing like the PG he should be.
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Never said it was a given, just that there is a disturbing pattern of the coach, players, or both letting off the throttle every time we have a lead in the last 8 mins or so.
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Come On! I've been as critical as anybody about the late game stall but this time we really didn't have a choice. For the last 9 minutes of the game your normal starting backcourt was gone. Everything for this team is based on the drive and finish or the drive and dish. With DJ and Jerel out your 2 main guys to break down the defense are gone. Wes is more a finisher than a passer and asking Cube to make things happen off the dribble in cruch time vs the #12 team in the nation is asking a lot. Pitt was just waiting for those guys to drive in so they could swat it back in their faces. Plus the way the game was being called you were not going to get to the line off a drive. Bottomline with the guys we had left we were going to end up with a 3 off a perimeter pass anyway so it might as well be at the end of the shot clock. No that was a gutty preformance by a team that was out of options. Thank God Pitt had their usual luke warm, uninspired game against us.
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I think we are in for a short BE tournament if James is cramping up with 10 minutes to go in the game. There is no way we are going for a run in tournament if James cramps up in a game after a week layoff.DC is the MVP as far as I am concerned. Didn't someone say he is transferring?
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Our bigs continue to show that they belong in the horizon league. We were lucky that Gray didn't assert himself until the last 4 minutes or so.
Zener, I'm not trying to pick on you here, but, come on people! We were up 17 on the #12 team in the country, and the #2 team in the BEAST (which is apparently "down" this year, even though we've got 5 top 25 teams and our 10-6 conference record was good for 4th place last season but only 6th this time around. anyway...) and that was without one of our 2 best players for the entire game, and the 2nd of our 2 best players for much of the 2nd half (which coincided with our late dry spell on offense). Let's be honest, MU DOMINATED this game.
As for your comment re: our bigs, how can you imply that our guys had nothing to do with holding Gray down until the last few minutes? Gotta give these guys credit where credit is due. Ouse & Co. did a great job defensively against Gray (I distinctly remember several strips, blocked shots, box outs and rebounds) until those last few minutes. Not to mention Ouse & Kinsella provided some big points early.
All in all, a great day for MU. Honoring the ENTIRE '77 Championship team, completing the season sweep against PITT, setting yet another state attendance record. Lots of good things going on in Milwaukee.
FIRE UP MARQUETTE!
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I think we are in for a short BE tournament if James is cramping up with 10 minutes to go in the game. There is no way we are going for a run in tournament if James cramps up in a game after a week layoff.DC is the MVP as far as I am concerned. Didn't someone say he is transferring?
James was cramping up because of how hard he had to play tonight. No McNeal meant those guys had to play that much harder. If McNeal can play on Wednesday, I don't see the cramping as significant of a problem.
Then again, if you believe some Badger fans on other boards, they claim DJ is faking it. I love some people. ::)
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I know everyone is going to heap tons of praise one Cubillan and Matthews, and we should, but James last night showed why people think he is a great player and an NBA talent. We were not the same team without him on the floor. He was tremendous penetrating and dishing and only took maybe 1 or 2 shots that had you shaking your head. His defense was outstanding, too. The offense stalled and became pass it around the perimeter when he sat.
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Aside from observations made here, I thought Crean was much calmer and relaxed last night. He just looked more in control. A purely subjective observation. Great game. Boy, do I love HD TV! It just makes watching the game so much more enjoyable.
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Absolutely insufferable....is Chicos Rainman's twin? If MU did not have the worst front court in the Big East we would be a top 5 program. Having a good back court is not mutually exclusive from having a good front court. Teams like OSU, UCLA, FLA, etc. that have both are top 10 programs. Your insufferable posts telling MU fans what to think would not be so intolerable if they had any fact to them.
Bottom line is if we had an average front court we would be immeasurably better. We would not have given up 18 offensive rebounds, we would not have gotten killed on the boards, we would have won more easily and we would have won alot more games this year. Absolutely a great win this year. Let's hope Crean can continue to bring in the great guards and begin to attract a better caliber big man so MU can take the next step on the national scene.
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Sorry - did we beat the #12 team last night or did we lose?
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Absolutely insufferable....is Chicos Rainman's twin? If MU did not have the worst front court in the Big East we would be a top 5 program. Having a good back court is not mutually exclusive from having a good front court. Teams like OSU, UCLA, FLA, etc. that have both are top 10 programs. Your insufferable posts telling MU fans what to think would not be so intolerable if they had any fact to them.
Bottom line is if we had an average front court we would be immeasurably better. We would not have given up 18 offensive rebounds, we would not have gotten killed on the boards, we would have won more easily and we would have won alot more games this year. Absolutely a great win this year. Let's hope Crean can continue to bring in the great guards and begin to attract a better caliber big man so MU can take the next step on the national scene.
And again Indiana Man, I would love to have both too. So would Crean. But because of the difficulty of landing talented big men, you build with guards first.
Why is this so hard for you to understand I will never know. We have 23 wins this year, many against teams with superior front lines (in fact, you say we are 16th out of 16 for the front line)....thus a talented guard team can get it done in a big way. Thanks for proving my point.
You want to know why Wisconsin has struggled a bit of late....GUARD PLAY.
I'll tell you what Harrison, I will be with Ben Howland for about 6 hours on Monday, March 12th as he is our spokesperson for Mega March Madness. I've had a few conversations with him already. I'll ask him what he believes is the best way to build a college basketball team. I'll even have him say it on the many interviews we are doing that day on Jim Rome, PTI, etc....do you think Howland's opinion would matter? I'll dedicate the question to Harrison in Indiana. ;D