James 3 pt shooting finally lost us a game

[Wade for President]

DJ's terrible 3 point shooting, has finally done something I always feared would happen this season...cost us a game.  1 for 9 from behind the arc?  What in god's name convinces him that he's an outside shooter?!?

Even though everyone was flat tonight, I lay this loss squarely on his shoulders.  How does Buzz not control this aspect of his game?!?

If DJ would've put up a 3 with that last possesion, I would've gotten in my car and driven to Florida to slap him in the face.

[wheresthecake?]

I think Acker hurt us just as much as James.  He missed the one that woulda put us up 4 with under a minute to go and led to the fastbreak that gave them the go-ahead basket.  Ouch.

[Wade for President]

Would LOVE for Acker to get his stroke back.  He has had absolutely NO confidence in his outside shot this entire season, and it is painfully obvious.

[shaquilvaine]

James' three point shooting certainly hurt a lot, but there were MANY reasons we lost this game_ for as good as mcneal is, he needs to hit those free throws down the stretch.  6-12 from the line is terrible. We as a team couldn't hit anything from three.  Wes only got to the line twice.  We gave up too many offensive rebounds. The list goes on.  this team is too good to lose because of one player... the reality is multiple players didn't play well. 

[farmdaddy]

James should know not to shoot when the 3 ball isn't going down for him.  I don't know why he continued to shoot it in the second half.   UGGGGHHHH. Besides the 3 pt shooting not going down, USF did a great job utilizing their height by creating open lanes to drive to the basket.

As was stated earlier in the week: Whenever we go down to USF we enter an alternate universe.  However, I think that this loss will be better in the long run for us.  Although we will go down a little in the rankings, I believe this game prepared us for the tough games ahead.  Marquette was as hungry as ever during the game, it's just that the shots did not go down.  It happens.

[77ncaachamps]

This should not be on James.

McNeal should shoulder most of the blame. He took the most attempts at the line and just needed to hit 2 for the win.

[ecompt]

Problem is, we may live and die with DJ's outside shot the rest of the way. If I'm on our schedule the rest of the way I don't even guard him outside of 10 feet.

[muhoops1]

Check the stats Acker hasn't made a shot in Feburary.......


How about James' assist to the baseline with 1:00 left?  WTF?  Totally played down to the competition.  SF sux huge.  What a joke.

[Wade for President]

Just a shame that he continues to throw up junk from behind the arc.  

In a weird way...wonder if having Jay Williams on the call, influenced his need to try and impress.  It was stated during the NC State game (when J-Will was last broadcasting an Eagles game), that DJ grew up idiolizing the former Duke All-American.

I know I'm probably off on this assumption, but it's the ONLY justification I could think of, why our senior leader would continue to put his team in a disadvantage.

[WarriorHal]

This season, DJ hasn't been forcing up the threes like he has in the past. He usually stops after he misses a couple and focuses more on driving and setting up everybody else. But tonight was a lot like the past two seasons. Painful to watch. Lots of blame to go around, though. Outside shooting in general was terrible, but the wost part was the foul line. Can't give away all those easy points. Still should have won the game. Wes had the winner...Zar had the winner. I'd rather lose by 50 than by one with a  chance to win at the buzzer. Whole f...ing weekend is destroyed and it's only Friday!

[wheresthecake?]

Remember that time we won at Notre Dame? At least we don't have a 6 game losing streak.  That makes me feel better.

[77ncaachamps]

In a weird way...wonder if having Jay Williams on the call, influenced his need to try and impress.  It was stated during the NC State game (when J-Will was last broadcasting an Eagles game), that DJ grew up idiolizing the former Duke All-American.

If he idolizes Jay Williams, he should at least try to equal his numbers!

College career stat comparisons (up to USF):

STAT: Jay Will - DJ

FG%: 45.7% - 40.8%
3PT%: 39.3% - 29.2%
FT%: 67.1% - 62.6%

[legacy]

James should know not to shoot when the 3 ball isn't going down for him.

I don't think this is strong enough.  James problem is not that he has off nights, but that he is simply not a good 3 point shooter.  Yes, he will occassionally have a good shooting day, but that still doesn't mean it was a good idea ex ante.

I am not a James basher, but it is frustratint because he could be a very, very, very good point guard, if he could just lay off the 3 point shot.  He would be a guy who: 1) does a teriffic job of handling the ball, creating, and not turning it over; 2) defends like a madman; 3) rebounds; and 4) scores at a very efficient rate.  with Wes, Lazar, and Jerel, that's all this team needs.  Buzz should give him a hard limit of no more than 2 3-point attempts a game, with a goal or zero.

[ATWizJr]

DJ cost us the game?  Get real.  We shoot 50 % from the line and we win it. Regardless of anything else.

[bamamarquettefan]

Even though I confess I was yelling NOOOOOO everytime James pulled up for a 3, I don't agree with the comment on another strand that the team needs to stop taking so many 3s.  I think the whole reason the offense has been so good is that we have three guys shooting great from behind the arc in Lazar, Jerel and Wes.  We have to have them putting it up to open up the lanes for the drives.  I do agree that it is crucial that Acker get his stroke back though.  James is a great player when he doesn't put up 3s because of his turnovers to assists (1-3 last night, but that still makes him 41-10 in the last 7 games), and the way defenses have to adjust to be ready to give help if he drives.  However, Acker isn't a treat to drive, so we really need him to be a 3-point threat when he is in there.

For as cold as we were last night, we battled back.  In the end, the dreaded back of the rim wsa the differences between winning and losing.

Let's just hope Nova can pull out this Syracuse game so they can shoot up enough that a win for us there on Tuesday would give us a HUGE road win.

[avid1010]

Say what you want about MU's shooting from the line, but going 1-9 from the 3pt line is unacceptable.  I have been very happy with DJ accepting his role this year, but to shoot 1-9 with 3 turnovers and 1 assist is killer.  The times at which he took many of those shots was awful too.  Free throws have always been a problem with this group.  James taking 9 three point shots has not.  He had an off game, which is fine, but there's no reason to keep jacking up 3's. 

[detroitwarrior]

DJ does a ton of things well. Defense,passing and driving to the lane amongst them as well as generally speaking making smart decisions in running the team as the pg. However, 3 point shooting is one thing he is horrific at. He is 2-15 for the last two games and that is simply not his game. Until the last two games he has seemed to have his three point shooting attempts under control and limited to 4-5 a game. I can't help but wonder if with all the publicity and love that McNeal has received the past two weeks if human nature kicked in and DJ thought to himself that he would show that he can also score and put up numbers which unfortunately has backfired the past 2 games and not what we need from him this year.

[legacy]

DJ cost us the game?  Get real.  We shoot 50 % from the line and we win it. Regardless of anything else.

I would never pin the loss on DJ, so I agree with you.  On the other hand, whenever you lose a game by one point (at the end), you can point to many small things that "cost" you the game. That is, improve a little on any one dimension and we win: Lazar's shooting, perhaps Jerel's fouling out, small moves or non-moves by Buzz, and certainly our free throw shooting and three point shooting, with DJ being a prime culprit.

[avid1010]

DJ does a ton of things well. Defense,passing and driving to the lane amongst them as well as generally speaking making smart decisions in running the team as the pg.

I'd agree...my thought is he does the things listed above well, but for some reason decided to take a break from many of those and jack up 9 three's yesterday.  Everything else MU did poorly really didn't surprise me; however, DJ not playing his new role and reverting to more of his old role was disappointing. 

[jaygall31]

i'm so glad you started this thread. You know there's like a 3 percent chance his 3 goes in. and what, like a ten percent chance it hits the rim?

pass the ball dominic....and get to the rim. That's what makes us a top ten team. Not when you jack 3's

[ecompt]

I still think this came down to his trying to impress Jay Williams after their lovefest at NC State. Problem was, of DJ's eight misses, not one was even close to going in. Some of the worst shooting I have ever seen.

[DaCoach]

I would never pin the loss on DJ, so I agree with you.  On the other hand, whenever you lose a game by one point (at the end), you can point to many small things that "cost" you the game. That is, improve a little on any one dimension and we win: Lazar's shooting, perhaps Jerel's fouling out, small moves or non-moves by Buzz, and certainly our free throw shooting and three point shooting, with DJ being a prime culprit.

You have spoken the truth. This game was a tsunami for MU. A loss by 1 point means if any of a dozen things were changed even a little bit we win. Statistically speaking, the odds of all those things repeating are infinitesimal. Some of them are correctable with experience or practice. As someone else mentioned, I think the presence of Jay Williams had much to do with James insistence on throwing up the 3. Great players recognize when it's not their night but Dom refused to accept that. A coach is charged with reminding the players of that during the game. Apparently Buzz didn't. But I believe he'll learn from that mistake and will be a better coach from here on out. The Nova game is our chance to make things right again if we consider ourselves an elite team. I'm confidant that we will do that.

[Mayor McCheese]

Maybe this will be cliche... but the basketball team I coach we have a saying of "together"... we say it with everything we do...

we win together
we lose together
we make a shot together
we miss a shot together

why are we pinning losses on any one-two-three players... I think this team feels the same way, it was a TEAM effort... who cares if DJ shot poorly... should he not have taken that three against NC State which won the game?  Great players don't worry about their last shot, they just keep shooting.

"I've missed more than 9000 shots in my career. I've lost almost 300 games. 26 times, I've been trusted to take the game winning shot and missed. I've failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed. "
 - Michael Jordan

[downtown85]

Maybe this will be cliche... but the basketball team I coach we have a saying of "together"... we say it with everything we do...

we win together
we lose together
we make a shot together
we miss a shot together

why are we pinning losses on any one-two-three players... I think this team feels the same way, it was a TEAM effort... who cares if DJ shot poorly... should he not have taken that three against NC State which won the game?  Great players don't worry about their last shot, they just keep shooting.

"I've missed more than 9000 shots in my career. I've lost almost 300 games. 26 times, I've been trusted to take the game winning shot and missed. I've failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed. "
 - Michael Jordan

-1

It is a cliche.  You could say, "We run the point together"  Wrong!  Each player has a role.  DJ's is to run the point.  He had 1 assist and 3 turnovers.  You can't tell me that none of his teamates weren't open.  Something just got in his mind that he can start hitting 3s.  Maybe he heard that there was an NBA scout in the building and he wanted to show he could shoot.  Who knows? 

Anyway, the PG is probably the most critical position on the floor.  DJ has been great at getting in the grill of opposing point guards and disrupting the offense of opposing teams.  However, my recollection of the game is that SF played a bit off DJ, mostly in a zone.  This normally should allow DJ to initiate the offense and pass to his teamates.  Whaterver it was, I hope the DJ that showed up at South Florida does not show up at any of the rest of the games this year. 

[Canned Goods n Ammo]

-1

It is a cliche.  You could say, "We run the point together"  Wrong!  Each player has a role.  DJ's is to run the point.  He had 1 assist and 3 turnovers.  You can't tell me that none of his teamates weren't open.  Something just got in his mind that he can start hitting 3s.  Maybe he heard that there was an NBA scout in the building and he wanted to show he could shoot.  Who knows? 

Anyway, the PG is probably the most critical position on the floor.  DJ has been great at getting in the grill of opposing point guards and disrupting the offense of opposing teams.  However, my recollection of the game is that SF played a bit off DJ, mostly in a zone.  This normally should allow DJ to initiate the offense and pass to his teamates.  Whaterver it was, I hope the DJ that showed up at South Florida does not show up at any of the rest of the games this year. 

Did DJ miss 1/2 of Jerel's free throws?

It's a team game.

If DJ makes some 3's. MU wins

If Jerel hits his free throws. MU wins

If Acker hits that 3. MU wins.

If Hayward makes the tip in. MU wins.


DJ is not the only reason MU lost.