Any issues with our coach, defense of offense today?

[mviale]

Nice quality win. 3 amigos looking so smooth.  Playing much better than LY.

Notice how much Layer provides in terms of advice. 

[muarmy81]

Solid win...still too many turnovers and our Free Throws were tough to watch but you gotta love a game where we match our strength with the other team's strength and come out with a win. 

[muhoops1]

This game will not get any style points (other than Wes' awesome bank shot), but a win is a win.  

How about the comment on ESPN when McNeal or Matthews refused to pass the ball to a wide open Hazel after breaking the press.  "That was a good decisions, once he realized the open man was Hazel he decided to pull the ball back."  Then Fran followed with "No offense to Hazel".

I thought Layer was good with big men?

[Badgerhater]

last comment was lame because of the situation the game was in.

Hazel is 50 percent FT shooter and he would have been instantly fouled.

DJ dumped the ball as soon as he could at the end of the game so he was not at the line.   Going to blame an assistant coach on that too?

[MR.HAYWARD]

well the possesion or two before DJ hit him with a wide open pass that he lost for a turnover whiel the game was still tight.

Agreed no style point but those only count in ice skating and diving.  1-0 in the Big East with a win over the #15 in the country.  Nothing to complain about.  Come out tommorw and work to get better.

I think Lazar needs to touch the ball more.  I would like to see Wes as the flasher in their zone offense and have lazar on the perimeter with his tre shooting

[Tulsa Warrior]

Layer is good with big men.  No miracles yet.....just a solid role player role for Hazel.  He is performing above expectations.

[Badgerhater]

VU had 10 more fouls than MU and MU made more FT than VU shot.  In our old defense we would pile up the ticky tack fouls reaching in and going for the deflection.   MU loses this game if the free throw attempts were reversed.  I like Buzz's defensive philosophy in this respect.

[nyg]

Agreed nice win, sloppy, but 1-0 is a nice start.  Vill did not really go inside against our weakness, and took alot of outside shots.  Maybe Burke and Lazar played better defense than I saw.

Who would believe Butler goes 0 for 4, but had 7 rebounds.

Big four each played 35 minutes, thanks to no foul trouble on each.  That won't be the case every game.  Someone, someone must score from bench, not just role playing.  Cubillian=5 seconds played. Acker 5 minutes.

Now DJ.  I love his intensity, is playing under control, but here are some issues:

- second possession, dribbles ball off foot
- missed back door ally oop
- slide on floor with no one around
- bad pass with 10 seconds left in half, led to easy turnover basket
- missed 3 free throws in a row in first half
- had three brutal bricks from 3 in second half

He hit some nice, clutch shots in second half and was smarter with the ball.  Especially not getting fouled in closing moments.  

Congrats to Buzz on first BE win.

[Badgerhater]

Being too tough on DJ.

Everyone dribbles the ball of the foot once in awhile.  It happens.

The floor was slippery today.   The sweat mop boys need some training.

DJ picked up a couple of key charges and had a great defensive game that won't always show up in the box score.

[denverMU]

First, Great win MU! We need to get Otule some minutes, we are going to need him against bigger teams.  I don't care if Buzz doesn't think he has "earned" them yet, he needs game minutes with the starters.

[nyg]

Didn't mean to be tough, I have always liked him, especially his intensity.  My previous thoughts actually praised his play, just at certain times some things go wrong and those were very noticeable.

[Blackhat]

DJ was superman today on D.  I hope the NBA scouts noticed him completely lock down Reynolds.   McNeal had a period where he may have gotten tired but hit some huge shots.    When we had to take out one of our big 4 was when we lost ground.   When they were on the court and not winded you knew we had the goods to pull away from Villanova.   It's when we had to sub we got reeled back in. 

[MR.HAYWARD]

yes DJ made more mistakes today than he has normally this year.  he was still very good and more than won his matchup with scottie reynolds.  in fact he completely dominated him and fouled his A$$ out of the game.  hit some big shots and onece again had 4-5 dishes that should have led to layups if we can catch or make a layup.

Jerels first half was absolutely brutal too.

[Daniel]

I think James is back to what he knows how to d obest - run the team.  TOs were too high today, but dribbling off a foot or slipping I can't get nuts about.  A few lame passes, but overall did a good job running the team.  I hope he continues to quarterback us. . .

[bilsu]

I think a lot of turnovers were the result of what the refs were concentrating on. They were definately watching the feet and more travels were called than normally would have been. Also anytime anyone drove to basket they called a charge.

[Pardner]

Great, great way to get off in the BE...storing up some W's for those brutal last five games.  Some observations:

>>DJ was Jekyll & Hyde.  The last four minutes of the first half were painful.  He missed two FT's, then late getting back on D and made a bad reach foul, then the horrible pass with 10 to go.  But, all his TO's were in the 1st half and then he came back with some clutch D and shots in the 2nd.  That is good leadership.

>>Wes stepped in when we needed him.  Clutch trey, bank shot, FT's.  Last BE season he would have remained silent in the background.  Studly.

>>I have never seen so many travels.  I think they stored the floor in a cold warehouse over the holiday and set it up right before warm-ups allowing for condensation.  wtf???  I wanted to blame Rudolph the Red-nosed Higgins or the Dwade shoes, but it was a sock-hop out there.

>>We did a great job playing defense with our feet .  Won the foul game which was the difference.  Gotta give Burke and Hazel props on their positioning with Cunningham--denying the entry pass and forcing Nova to shoot the jumper.  This was a big mismatch for us and the guys limited him nicely.

>>I think Jimmy got 90% of his FGA's and Rebs on the same play.  JB has to shoot when he has the open jumper (shot clock violation) from the outside.  Teams are giving him that shot knowing he is afraid to take it.

>>Nova made a run at us with the 2-3 zone.  Good to see us hitting from the outside today, but with DW/PH combo on O being limited and our bench not willing to shoot, we really need Otule to come around to stretch our O against the zone.  We are going to see zone a lot upcoming. 

>>First MU game in my life that the alumni were louder than the students.  NYE hangovers in full effect? 

>>Buzz is going with a short bench to start the BE.  Loved that he was making subs with 30 or so seconds before the media time-outs to give the starters some extra air. 

>>It is critical for us to get off to a good BE run here...seniors stepped up big today and stayed with it vs. a quality team.

[Niv Berkowitz]

Three of our first four games are at home so yeah, I agree with Pardner in that we MUST get off to a strong start (3-1 is critical). It's insanely early, but that game to me was must win for MU. Not only for Buzz and the team, but for fans to not start freaking out so early. Every game will be tough in the BEast, but lets face it, our first four are much, much more palatable than say, our last five games (which are ulcer inducing).

I think that was one of James best games this season. Sure he made some mistakes and turnovers, but he hit his open shots, he dished and played tough D on one of the quickest guys I've ever seen.

Funny, someone mentioned getting Lazar more looks. I thought the same thing of Wes. The fact is, we have four legitimate scorers that could light up 20/25+ per night. YOu have to feed the hot hand and go with who's open. One night it's Jerel, the other night Wes, the next Lazar and so one and so forth. The last six games there's been someone different on MU lighting it up every night.

Great win. Happy for Buzz...but don't even want to think about next season.

[muarmy81]

Funny, someone mentioned getting Lazar more looks. I thought the same thing of Wes. The fact is, we have four legitimate scorers that could light up 20/25+ per night. YOu have to feed the hot hand and go with who's open. One night it's Jerel, the other night Wes, the next Lazar and so one and so forth. The last six games there's been someone different on MU lighting it up every night.

I think the announcers mentioned that MU is one of a handful of teams, if not, the only D1 team in the nation that has 3 players averaging over 17 pts/game.