Nice assist/TO game for Junior...

[T.V. Diener 34]

Yes Junior had a nice game with an 8-1 assist/TO ratio but at the same time, there's no reason for any player to set foot on the court for 30 minutes and not record a single point.  With that said, I thought the guys played a great game for the most part and any road win is a great win in the BEast.

[tower912]

With about 4 minutes to go, the graphic flashed that we were 16-22 from the line up to that point.    4-10 down the stretch.

[APieperFan3]

But..in the future...we can't miss 6 FT's in the last 2 minutes of a closer game..it will prove fatal...but..I also don't expect Cadougan to be in the games for those, and Buycks will at least be warm instead of ice cold.

Agree, Ners.

Kind of "unfair" to bring Buycks in cold - i'm not exactly sure when he last was in the game - and ask him to knock down FTs.

That being said, I also absolutely expect him to be in at the end of games.

[willie warrior]

Junior stepped up with Buycks hurt. JC needs to hit his free-throws.

Yes he does, but I noticed that Buycks missed both of his also in crunch time, and he is a senior.

[Big Daddy 84]

I cannot believe anyone is giving JC a hard time....he played great...I know Buzz was more than happy with his play.  If he was out there jacking up shots I could understand some of the comments..but he didn't. He knows his role, he knows there are better scorers on this team than him and he gets them the ball.  JC is a quality person and has worked hard to come back from an injury that if anyone of us got we would still be limping.

I pose this question...does MU win last night if JC is not on the court...I know what my answer is.

[Stretchdeltsig]

Dont' want to sound negative, but... Junior has not shown anything so far.  His ball handling seems suspect.  Often his dribbling is high and about to lose control; his shooting is awful; he has trouble making layups and free throws.  Want to be nice, but, we haven't seen any upside to his game.  At best he should be a short time reliever for the other guards. 

[willie warrior]

I cannot believe anyone is giving JC a hard time....he played great...I know Buzz was more than happy with his play.  If he was out there jacking up shots I could understand some of the comments..but he didn't. He knows his role, he knows there are better scorers on this team than him and he gets them the ball.  JC is a quality person and has worked hard to come back from an injury that if anyone of us got we would still be limping.

I pose this question...does MU win last night if JC is not on the court...I know what my answer is.

You won't get any of the Cadougan urinators to answer this no.
Yes, he has faults, but so do all the players. No he is not the best player, but IMO he is our best PG. If he did score 15 points in a game--which is not his role, the detractors would still bitch about his faults.

[brewcity77]

I cannot believe anyone is giving JC a hard time....he played great...I know Buzz was more than happy with his play.  If he was out there jacking up shots I could understand some of the comments..but he didn't. He knows his role, he knows there are better scorers on this team than him and he gets them the ball.  JC is a quality person and has worked hard to come back from an injury that if anyone of us got we would still be limping.

I pose this question...does MU win last night if JC is not on the court...I know what my answer is.

I'm also proud of Junior's recovery, and I hope to see him continue to improve as a player. He had a good game last night, though it's clear that his offense is behind the much-maligned attacking skills of Blue right now. His passing is good, and he had a few really good assists.

However, if you are asking if we win if Buycks is healthy and plays 29 minutes instead of Junior do we still win, then the answer is an emphatic yes. Anyone stupid enough to think that our eight-point victory would have been even a one-point loss with Buycks out there should probably be put down for their own good. Maybe Buycks doesn't get 8 assists, but I'd bet he would have had at least 5, and the points he would have scored would have made up for that difference. Maybe he would have turned it over once or twice more, but he probably would have also caused one or two more turnovers, and when he did get a steal he wouldn't have had such an ill-advised drive into traffic like Cadougan did.

However, if you mean do we win the game if we are playing 5-on-4 for 29 minutes, or do we win the game if Frozena (our only healthy guard that didn't log significant minutes) is running the point most of the night, then you are probably right.

[lab_warrior]

I think Junior played a terrific game in that situation last night.  He was asked to play a lot more minutes, and didn't turn the ball over or take bad shots (what, only like 3 shots or something?)  I don't think he's a horrible shooter, it's just that he defers to the alpha dogs on the team: DJO-Butler-Crowder.  Seriously, the kid is essentially a freshman.  He did what was asked of him.  Clearly, Buycks is the starting PG on this team, and Junior got some valuable experience last night in his backup role.  That will help us win games.

[mileskishnish72]

Finally got to see these guys in person vs. RU - it seemed like no one was taking care of the ball, between out-of-control drives into traffic and lazy passes - it was a surprise to see Jr's numbers (8 to 1) when I got a look at the box score - hard to argue with results like that for a stand-in.