When a team that is dependent on threes goes cold for a night, and when a team with one serviceable frontcourt player runs into a team that actually realizes all they have to do to beat us is dump the ball down low and dunk. The reason we lost this game is because pitt realized that they had a gimme 2 everytime they had the ball. Just dump it low, easy dunk. And if Hayward plays defense, even better, draw a foul. If georgetown or Uconn had realized this, we would have lost those games too. Also the offense, which is still dependent on the three, but was still an attacking offense in previous games, looked like the crean offenses of the 04, 05 season. Pass the ball around the top of the key, don't have any motion, hope a guard can beat three people off the dribble. The worst part about this game isn't the loss in itself, its that pitt showed every team in the big east all you have to do to beat marquette is continually dump the ball down low. We can probally hang on and beat cinncinati, but samuels and Louisville are going to eat us alive, and if Harangody is back for Notre Dame, we are gonna be in big trouble
Side Note: Apologize for spelling, slightly drunk, and by slightly, I mean wasted.
+1 to everything!
KipsBayEagle has the correct idea about what happens when a "7 man roster" MU team does not play hard, smart, intelligent basketball. This was a tough game for MU even though Pitt plays the best defense in the League. Along with a poor game came a very poor referee performance by the ref crew of officials Bob Donato, John Gaffney, Tony Greene. Donato clearly did not "choose" to call some of the contact against the Pitt defense while, I believe, calling more "ticky-tacky" against MU. Refs do not win or lose games, but their actions of "choosing" what to call sure can affect the tempo and fairness within the game. Bob Donato, specifically, drew the ire of Coach Buzz during the last time out. I have officiated and coached and do know how tough BOTH jobs are.... but grading of officials needs to be given a higher priority in NCAA basketball.
Quote from: KipsBayEagle on February 18, 2010, 11:20:02 PM
The reason we lost this game is because pitt realized that they had a gimme 2 everytime they had the ball. Just dump it low, easy dunk. And if Hayward plays defense, even better, draw a foul.
Side Note: Apologize for spelling, slightly drunk, and by slightly, I mean wasted.
If it's that easy, why did Pitt only have 58 points? How many and 1's did they have off Zar fouls? My bet would be zero.
Quote from: karavotsos on February 19, 2010, 12:07:07 AM
If it's that easy, why did Pitt only have 58 points? How many and 1's did they have off Zar fouls? My bet would be zero.
Dude, what are you talking about? Pitt shot 55% from the floor. They had to adjust their basket because they had so many dunks. They scored 58 points because that's how they play.
The original post is right on. Our lack of size and depth was exposed big time, by a good team with a great coach. Things were only compounded by Acker's foul trouble. When that guy is on the bench, our offense stinks.
NRJ's right. The guy who's been many peoples whipping boy, Mo Acker, showed tonight that he is invaluable to this team. When he was on the bench, we had no offense.
Quote from: NavinRJohnson on February 19, 2010, 07:43:40 AM
Our lack of size and depth was exposed big time
John Thomas lacks neither size nor depth
Quote from: JohnThomasisAngry on February 19, 2010, 08:56:56 AM
John Thomas lacks neither size nor depth
John Thomas is also neither funny nor interesting.
I agree with Rico49 and the officiating, it was a huge momentum changer, and one of the big reasons MU had only two runs during the game, after being down 4-0 and at the start of the 2nd half. What is so frustrating is that there was no offensive flow to the game. MU's best offense was transition ball, creating turnovers. If we were deeper, they may have won with providing consistent ball pressure and trapping, as they caused Pitt to be sloppy with the ball. Plus, it did at times, slow down the post presence. Where is Faisal Abraham, what will it take to get a power forward to stay at MU? This team is gutsy, but the years and years of being "small" is not how a program can consistently go deep in the NCAA's. Zar would be an All American with any offensive help on the inside.
Quote from: NavinRJohnson on February 19, 2010, 09:29:41 AM
John Thomas is also neither funny nor interesting.
can the new UN's for the sake of having a new UN be moderated somehow? It is getting really annoying having to read some stupid comment in between every post on this board.
Quote from: wyoMUfan on February 19, 2010, 09:51:23 AM
can the new UN's for the sake of having a new UN be moderated somehow? It is getting really annoying having to read some stupid comment in between every post on this board.
That's a problem with most forums, and the whole internet really. The Internet is filled with anonymous jerks with their own opinions. If you find a solution to that you could make yourself a wealthy person :)
Quote from: Skatastrophy on February 19, 2010, 09:58:21 AM
That's a problem with most forums, and the whole internet really. The Internet is filled with anonymous jerks with their own opinions. If you find a solution to that you could make yourself a wealthy person :)
Sweet a project for all my friends that are unemployed software engineers. :)
MU got whooped last night, but the bright side is that even though we were out played and out muscled on both ends of the ball we did have a chance. We were never completely out of the game, I think with good coaching and the maturity of our players they will learn from last night and we will see a much better performance on Sunday afternoon.
(We have a serial new-userist, creating a new account every few days. )
Maybe he (or she) has multiple personalities that cry out to be heard
I think I am in the middle of the views on these threads. On the one hand, MU got destroyed inside and it exposed us. However, I think that literally everyone knew our lack of size already. Pitt's inside players are stronger than others. Harangody is big, but he is ulitmately a finesse player. Monroe and UConn's bigs are big and athletic, but not really as strong as Pitt's players.
Jimmy has usually been quicker than opposing bigs, and Lazar has usually been the strongest guy on the floor. That was not true last night and that is what happens.
On the other hand, we did give up less than 60 points. Pitt's d was partially responsible, but we still forced turnovers and got some looks that should usually fall. If Lazar shot 40% in the second half, it is a different game. We lost because we did not score enough. We were never going to hold a ranked team under 50 points with the team we have out there. Chalk it up to bad shooting more than anything and lets hope we get Pitt again in the BE tourney.
...bad shooting, yes, but also bad shot creating. Not enough "paint touches".
Quote from: BrewCity on February 19, 2010, 01:17:10 PM
...bad shooting, yes, but also bad shot creating. Not enough "paint touches".
I disagree on the paint touches. I think that we drove the ball well last night, but just did not hit shots. Lazar is the only one on the team with the green light to fire it up from three off of one pass, but I think Jimmy, DJO, and Buycks did a fine job on paint touches.
This team has talent, but is going to lose some games. I think we just lost to a good team and we are not good enough to win without hitting shots. The game plan was fine, the shots just did not fall.
Quote from: HoopsMalone on February 19, 2010, 01:25:00 PM
I disagree on the paint touches. I think that we drove the ball well last night, but just did not hit shots. Lazar is the only one on the team with the green light to fire it up from three off of one pass, but I think Jimmy, DJO, and Buycks did a fine job on paint touches.
This team has talent, but is going to lose some games. I think we just lost to a good team and we are not good enough to win without hitting shots. The game plan was fine, the shots just did not fall.
+1
How many deflections did we have?
Quote from: HoopsMalone on February 19, 2010, 01:25:00 PM
I disagree on the paint touches. I think that we drove the ball well last night, but just did not hit shots. Lazar is the only one on the team with the green light to fire it up from three off of one pass, but I think Jimmy, DJO, and Buycks did a fine job on paint touches.
This team has talent, but is going to lose some games. I think we just lost to a good team and we are not good enough to win without hitting shots. The game plan was fine, the shots just did not fall.
Buzz says "fewest paint touches since I've been here."
Quote from: NavinRJohnson on February 19, 2010, 07:43:40 AM
Dude, what are you talking about? Pitt shot 55% from the floor. They had to adjust their basket because they had so many dunks. They scored 58 points because that's how they play.
I'm really not sure what you mean by 'that's how they play.' We held them well below their average points per game. We shut down their top scorer, Gibbs. Three of their points came from Robinson on a clutch three pointer with under 4 min to play when he's made 3 3's all year. I understand that MU has had a problem with giving up too high of a field goal percentage to opposing offenses, and they give up a lot of points inside, whether layups or dunks. However, those exposures, although obvious, are not even the majority of what's going on in the game. For instance, Taylor was 3-3 all on dunks, but all in the span of 2 minutes. He and McGhee, the 2 bigs who supposedly exposed the awesome strategy of just throwing the ball inside every time to a guy who can dunk had a combined 16 points.
Look at the ND-Louisville game on Weds. That's getting dominated on the inside. We had 18 more shot attempts than Pitt. We turned them over 11 times in the second half. They did not dominate us offensively by any stretch of the imagination. If we put up any type of an offensive performance, we win that game. I think its ludicrous after all the MU basketball we've watched this season, to support the theory that, oh you just throw the ball inside and you beat us.