Last Seven Games

[Dr. Blackheart]

MU is 6-1. What changed versus the first four Big East games where MU went 1-3?  Well, perhaps the first four games had tougher competition.  But, some marked improvements occurred offensively as noted in the averages:




• Team Orating game average of 114.5 versus 95.9
• Markus is 116.3 versus 102.3
• Koby is 110.0 versus 71.8
• Brendan is 127.4 versus 106.0
• Jayce is 146.8 vs. 93.5 excluding the NAs
• Sacar is 107.0 versus 98.8
• Theo is 115.7 versus 70.0 excluding an NA due to foul trouble
• Jamal is 125.0 versus 60.5 excluding NAs due to playing time

Is it a surprise that these numbers are better? No, with tougher competition earlier and then winning. To me, though, it's also the magnitude and completeness of improvement across the team that is most telling, especially BB and JJ. Jayce barely played in the Butler and Creighton losses and didn't play at all versus Nova at home. Does Jayce make Theo better too as he doesn't need to expand outside his skill set? 

When you have a small AA shooting guard, big men matter too, even with Ed moving on. Jayce is a handful and has changed the complexion of the team as it has freed up others.

[Cheeks]

Agree with this

JJ got healthier

Different competition

Players found their roles

Koby came out of his slump

[BrewCity83]

Ed Morrow left the team 7 games ago.  Coincidence?

[skianth16]

From just the eye test perspective, I give a lot of the credit of the team's improvement to Koby. He's playing with more control, forcing fewer shots, and looks more composed lately. His improvement has made a big difference to the way the team plays; if he can keep this up for the next month, we could be pretty dangerous in the BET and beyond.

[We R Final Four]

Koby came out of his slump

Yes. Not just shooting slump, but became the complete player we were all hoping for.

[brewcity77]

They have been playing insanely well over this stretch. 9th best in the country per Torvik. If they can keep this up (big if) they are a legit Final Four contender, though the defense hasn't been great in that stretch.

[Cheeks]

I would bet Nova and 5 points as well.  Feels like their game tonight.  Happy to be proven wrong

[bilsu]

I thought during the Creighton game that our schedule did not really prepare us for our conference games.
Last year we played games at Indiana, a neutral court game against Kansas and December  home games against Wisconsin, Buffalo and Kansas St.

Our schedule this year is highly ranked because we dropped the big bottom feeders for smaller bottom feeders. I felt we did not play enough high competition games before the start of conference. Since Kansas St turned out to not be very good this year, we actually played no tough games in December. As a result we were not ready to play a high level game at Creighton. I partially our blame the schedule for our 1-3 start.

[Marcus92]

Great breakdown. Hope the trend continues tonight!

[Mr. Sand-Knit]

Ed Morrow left the team 7 games ago.  Coincidence?

We win the Provi game if Ed had quit before.  There was a stretch where he went in and they fed Watson or Young like 5 straight times and they caught they ball and layed it in. Deep post catches n easy layups, ballooned the lead and Wojo couldnt get him out fast enuff the pullup 16 footer was in the middle if it all!