CT Thoughts

[Pardner]

1.  Another slow shooting start.  Fitz move at least tried to inject some energy, but we went 1-11 in the first 6:30.  4-19 twelve minutes in.

2.  Overmatched inside.  In all, 29 PF's and 39 FT's.  Ten shots blocked.  We hit 1 more bucket in the end after garbage time.

3.  What happend to our ball pressure?  If we are going to foul at this rate, we might as well be applying full court pressure all game.  Show various presses--diamond, trap, man, scramble.  We need to create our own energy on the road.  Out hustled for rebounds, back down court, diving for loose balls--overall tentative.  Let's use our guard depth.

[HarveysWallbangers]

We had 19 rebounds and they had 34.  McNeal played 33 minutes and grabbed zero.

[CTWarrior]

Just got home from the game.  I don't think we got outhustled for rebounds, etc.  UConn is every bit as quick as us, and bigger and stronger to boot.  As I have said many times, when we play big and quick (like Louisville, Seton Hall, UConn) we have very few ways to score.

[mu_hilltopper]

Sheesh.  If that's the case, let's find a conference with short and slow guys.

[ecompt]

How about the Horizon League?

[mu_hilltopper]

Whoa.  I just intercepted a fax from the Al Center.

NOW LOOK AT WHAT YOU MADE THEM DO!

[Pardner]

Will we be known as IUPUMU now?

[4everwarriors]

because the way we're playing, we'd be lucky to beat UWM if the game were tomorrow.

[muhoops1]

I liked how Fitz and Matthews showed real Moxie by knocking down some huge treys @ the end.  It really shows their fortitude.  Fitz is a big time player.  Big time.

[spiral97]

ya missed the reply though...

[scooter]

That's too bad, becasue according to another thread, winning the Horizon Conference would elevate us from the realm of "average" teams as opposed to finishing in the top 1/2 of the Big east.

[MarquetteVol]

12 conference wins may get us a bye in NYC for BE tourney. This conference is tough and I don't see a ton of teams winning more than 10 games.

[77fan88warrior]

I was thinking more the MAC. Did anyone else notice how Acker had to shift left to get off his made 3 in the last few minutes? The pass left James' hand and Acker's defender was still in the paint. These guys have to take the chance of getting their shot blocked or we will never shoot! It sure seems like we caught the BE with their pants down the last 2 years.

[CTWarrior]

There are not many teams that match our overall quickness.  We tend to forget because we watch these guys all the time, but we are very very quick, even for the Big East.  We get into trouble with big quick interior players because we seem to have lost total confidence in Barro and Burke.  Even against UConn our guards were able to get past UConn's guards and get into the heart of the defense.  The problem is, once we got there, we tried scoring over their interior players instead of dishing off to a big guy for the finish.  Against ND or Duke or guards could get to the rim, but not so much against Louisville and UConn. 

I agree with Crean that its not just a home/road thing.  We've got to give the defense something other than the dribble drive to respect or we're in for a long season. 

As for the defense, I thought we did a pretty good job making UConn take some tough shots and they had to really work to get good ones.  UConn made a lot of tough shots that they usually don't and just hammered us on the offensive boards. 

[PuertoRicanNightmare]

12 conference wins may get us a bye in NYC for BE tourney. This conference is tough and I don't see a ton of teams winning more than 10 games.

12 wins?! Where do you see us getting 12 wins? I think the only games we can consider almost certain victories are our home games against DePaul, S. Florida, and Rutgers and our road game at St. John's. That gives us 7 wins. After that, it's anybody's guess.

[MU Fan in Connecticut]

As for the defense, I thought we did a pretty good job making UConn take some tough shots and they had to really work to get good ones.  UConn made a lot of tough shots that they usually don't and just hammered us on the offensive boards. 

There were at least a half dozen instances were our defense held UConn for almost the entire shot clock count and UConn shot with 1 or 2 seconds left on the shot clock and they always seemed to score except maybe once.  It was frustrating to watch.