Before jumping on Luke Fischer and calling him soft I just want to explain some of the weirdness that happens with bigs in college basketball.
Fischer has been our bear player for a lot of games this year, he had an off game. Diamond Stone who has been pedestrian all year scored 39 last night.
An even weirder situation is Freshman Dererk Pardon from Northwestern. Yesterday was only Pardon's 2nd game, he was supposed to red shirt the year but due to injuries had to play. He had 28 points and 12 rebounds last night against Nebraska.
Now does this make a true Freshman Pardon better than Fischer. Not even close. Fischer had a bad night, he will bounce back. Bigs in college can put up some incredible games, and some real clunkers but the better ones (like I think Fischer is) will usually be better.
I'm not even sure Fischer had a bad night as he did a bad half. Still managed 10 in the first. Now Ellenson had a bad night (except on the boards).
But agreed, this game won't be indicative of the season. Both our bigs were pretty good against LSU, ASU, and UWM. And they will be on other nights, just not yesterday.
Fact is our best 2 players in my opinion, Fischer and Ellenson both had off games. I chalk this up to making the adjustment to BE play much like the Iowa game was an adjustment to playing a legitimate high major. You have to go through the intensity of conference play to understand it. I think we will pick up the intensity again and be okay in conference, how much, I don't know, but we will be competitive. Yesterday was another learning experience.
Still trying to figure out how 12 points, 9 boards, 3 blocks, on 6 for 11 shooting is a "bad night" .
Quote from: Mutaman on December 31, 2015, 11:02:50 AM
Still trying to figure out how 12 points, 9 boards, 3 blocks, on 6 for 11 shooting is a "bad night" .
Agreed. He was bad attacking the rim in the second half, but overall had a decent game. Luke wasn't the problem last night. At least not the main one.
Quote from: Mutaman on December 31, 2015, 11:02:50 AM
Still trying to figure out how 12 points, 9 boards, 3 blocks, on 6 for 11 shooting is a "bad night" .
Agreed, he was fine. Especially when you consider he had to go to the bench for the last 8 minutes of the first half with 2 fouls. So when you include halftime he didn't play for 21 straight minutes.
Quote from: wadesworld on December 31, 2015, 11:06:15 AM
Agreed, he was fine. Especially when you consider he had to go to the bench for the last 8 minutes of the first half with 2 fouls. So when you include halftime he didn't play for 21 straight minutes.
He could and will be better. but its like almost every poster is attacking Fisher. i don't get it. Look at the box score- Some bad numbers pop out and they're not Luke's.
Interesting note. Our bigs outrebounded their bigs 23 to 19.We dont need a inside banger. We have two of them. Its our guards who have poor positioning and not enough fight. 6"2 Carrington outrebounded our guards 10 to 7 by himself. Thats where we need to improve. The Ivory Towers cant get them all though they are trying their darnedest.
I would like to go a step further in saying that the game of basketball is weird. Having a group of 10 individuals trying to put a round ball through a hoop seems very childish. It's crazy how many of us love watching and following it.
The only part of Luke's game that disappointed me last night was the fact that he only got 11 shots. Part of that's on him, but our guards also share the blame for not doing a better job getting the ball in to him. And most of our PG minutes come from two frosh who were playing their first BE game.
Luke will be just fine.
I kept waiting for some better plays designed to get the ball to our bigs.
Quote from: brewcity77 on December 31, 2015, 10:59:45 AM
I'm not even sure Fischer had a bad night as he did a bad half. Still managed 10 in the first. Now Ellenson had a bad night (except on the boards).
But agreed, this game won't be indicative of the season. Both our bigs were pretty good against LSU, ASU, and UWM. And they will be on other nights, just not yesterday.
I see what you did there....and I love it!
Quote from: Mutaman on December 31, 2015, 11:02:50 AM
Still trying to figure out how 12 points, 9 boards, 3 blocks, on 6 for 11 shooting is a "bad night" .
Our bigs weren't great last night, but it really didn't matter. In today's college basketball world, if your other non-bigs cannot hit a single three-point shot, you have zero chance of winning.
If our non-bigs throw up an 0-fer against Depaul or St. Johns, we will lose those as well.