I thought USF did a nice job forcing us to take threes.

[79Warrior]

they did well defensively clogging up the lane.  USF played well and deserved to win.

Coach Buzz needs to take control of shot selection after this display.

[Warrior]

Would have been nice if someone besides James was shooting the 3s

[MR.HAYWARD]

my thought exactly is Jerel is 1-9 I could live with it a little more.  Dj was not only 1-9 he was not close.  Also very disappointing is most of the threes were extremely quick...so frusrtating we looked like we did for three years I thought we had purged that stupidity.  Very disappointed in DJ, Dj of old no defense, 1 assist and 9 3fga's.

when we attacked the zone we were actually effective, unfortunately we quick shot threes without attacking it way way way too often

[bilsu]

We might have won, if James had missed his first three. I think the fact that he made it encourage him to keep on shooting.

[Tampa Warrior]

they did well defensively clogging up the lane.  USF played well and deserved to win.

Coach Buzz needs to take control of shot selection after this display.

Just back from the game (well, from postgame brews). Yes, USF deserved to win. They hit some early shots, dictated the pace to have the game played at their deliberate speed, didn't get rattled when we made our mini run to go up 5 in the second half. Props to the Bulls.

Still, if we shot decently from the field or the line (or hit either great look at the end) we win the game.

I hoped that this team was experienced enough to avoid a classic trap game, but unfortunately not quite. Seniors are still college kids, after all.

So we move on. We may look back on this as a needed wake-up call when all is said and done.

[ecompt]

Having had a few hours to recover, we had no right shooting as well as did against Cincy and West Virginia. So I guess last night's woes even things out a little. Let's go beat Nova.

[ATWizJr]

Trap game? Crap Game! 

We weren't trapped into shooting 39 % from 2 point range, 16.67 % from 3 pt. range and 10-23 from the FT line. 

We simply had a bad shooting night and consequently were held 25 points below our average. 

Understandable, except for the free throws, which if we shoot a lousy 50% we win the game.  That part is very frustrating.

[denverMU]

No one "forced" us to do anything.  We had very poor shot selection.  Last 4 possessions...2 bad 3 pt shots by Acker, turn over by Rel, 1-2 from the line by Rel.

[79Warrior]

No one "forced" us to do anything.  We had very poor shot selection.  Last 4 possessions...2 bad 3 pt shots by Acker, turn over by Rel, 1-2 from the line by Rel.

Really? how may times did the team drive the lane? USF defended the paint very well.

[Pardner]

Is it a coincidence that two of our three loses came to Izzo disciples who employed a match-up zone on us?  Or that Pearl, who usually goes man, threw a match-up at us?  USF not only put up a picket fence on our dribble penetration last night, they also limited and shut off Zar and Wes.  Zar wasn't getting his FT line looks and Wes was having trouble posting up.

Two real choices for Buzz:  hit the threes to open it up inside creating open looks with a lot of motion (small ball)...or put in Otule to space the zone.  Down side to each, USF has quick guards...and Buzz feels Otule is not ready apparently.  So, he danced with the one he brought.  It didn't work last night...we had tired legs and shots weren't falling.  Somehow, we have to focus on finding the spacing in the zone.  We will see it the rest of the season (Nova is a man team, but let's see what they do).  When DJ is going east-west, it will be a long night--1 assist last night was the key stat.

[CTWarrior]

Really? how may times did the team drive the lane? USF defended the paint very well.

When we ran the weave and constantly probed for driving lanes we usually found them.  We just settled for a lot of threes with plenty of time left on the clock.  Hayward wasn't getting that foul line jumper that has been one of our most effective weapons against the zone, either.

Shot selection (impatience) was the key to this game for us on offense.  I know we shot the ball terribly, but that's when you have to go the extra mile to get into the lane.

Lack of becnh showed up last night, as we have no one to turn to for a burst of energy on offense on the bench.  Butler is our only useful bench guy now, and he is more of a rebounder/garbage man than true scorer.

I cannot imagine how we could have played worse and we still were within an easy putback of pulling the game out.  Wretched performance from us and hopefully we learn from it.

[CTWarrior]

Trap game? Crap Game! 

We weren't trapped into shooting 39 % from 2 point range, 16.67 % from 3 pt. range and 10-23 from the FT line. 

We simply had a bad shooting night and consequently were held 25 points below our average. 

Understandable, except for the free throws, which if we shoot a lousy 50% we win the game.  That part is very frustrating.

We actually shot 56.7% from 2 point range (17-30).  That was the problem, too much settling for threes and not enough attacking the lane.  So we scored 34 points on 30 2 point shots and 12 points on 24 3 point shots.  Easy to see where we should have concentrated our efforts.

[romey]

I've been reading these posts for the last 30 minutes.  It's funny how we're arguing over which aspect of our play cost us the game.
1 - we were terrible from the free throw line - if we shot 50% we win
2 - our three point shooting was atrocious
3 - Wes didn't get to the line enough
4 - USF's defense kept us out of the paint
5 - Zar missed an "easy" put back at the buzzer
etc. etc.

Pick any one of those - we failed in most every aspect of the game last night.  If we were successful in any one of those, we win. 

[ecompt]

I'd be shocked if Nova didn't play the same type of matchup zone, but with the man on DJ's side falling back to double low on Lazar/Jerel/Wes. If I'm Jay Wright I don't even challenge DJ's outside shot. If DJ hits a couple, we have a great shot at winning there.

[CTWarrior]

they did well defensively clogging up the lane.  USF played well and deserved to win.

I do not think USF did a particularly tremendous job clogging the lane nor did USF play so well that they deserved to win.  If anything, their patience on offense may have lured us into rushing on offense in an attempt to speed the game up.  We would beat USF 99% of the time, when they play at the level they did Friday night, I think.  Unfortunately for us, Friday night was the 1%.

I re-watched the game Sunday morning after mass, which is my normal habit for weekend games.  We shot half of those 24 3's with 25 or more seconds left on the shot clock.  We shot all but 6 of them with more than half the time left on the shot clock.  We only took 4 under 10 seconds and two of those were the second to last possessions of each half when we were deliberately winding the clock down.  When we did attack the lane, we were pretty efficient either scoring or getting to the line (though obviously we didn't convert there like we'd like).

We lost because our shot selection was poor and rushed for no reason, we did not make enough of an effort to attack the paint, we hit an inordinately low pecentage of our three point shots even taking into account the poor shot selection, we stunk on the foul line, and we missed an open (albeit rushed) no-footer as time expired.  A perfect storm of bad things, but nearly 100% self-inflicted.

That's why I'm not too worried about this loss uncovering some heretofore unseen flaw of our team.  If somebody tries to slog it out with us again, hopefully we've learned our lesson that we just have to be that much more committed to taking the ball into the paint.   Losses are chances to learn and get better, so this loss isn't necessarily that a bad a thing other than the obvious impact that it is going to have to our Big East and NCAA tournament seeding chances.

[detroitwarrior]

I do not think USF did a particularly tremendous job clogging the lane nor did USF play so well that they deserved to win.  If anything, their patience on offense may have lured us into rushing on offense in an attempt to speed the game up.  We would beat USF 99% of the time, when they play at the level they did Friday night, I think.  Unfortunately for us, Friday night was the 1%.

I re-watched the game Sunday morning after mass, which is my normal habit for weekend games.  We shot half of those 24 3's with 25 or more seconds left on the shot clock.  We shot all but 6 of them with more than half the time left on the shot clock.  We only took 4 under 10 seconds and two of those were the second to last possessions of each half when we were deliberately winding the clock down.  When we did attack the lane, we were pretty efficient either scoring or getting to the line (though obviously we didn't convert there like we'd like).

We lost because our shot selection was poor and rushed for no reason, we did not make enough of an effort to attack the paint, we hit an inordinately low pecentage of our three point shots even taking into account the poor shot selection, we stunk on the foul line, and we missed an open (albeit rushed) no-footer as time expired.  A perfect storm of bad things, but nearly 100% self-inflicted.

That's why I'm not too worried about this loss uncovering some heretofore unseen flaw of our team.  If somebody tries to slog it out with us again, hopefully we've learned our lesson that we just have to be that much more committed to taking the ball into the paint.   Losses are chances to learn and get better, so this loss isn't necessarily that a bad a thing other than the obvious impact that it is going to have to our Big East and NCAA tournament seeding chances.

CT...spot on. While credit must be given to USF for playing well, the loss was self-inflicted. If Jerel hits a couple of free throws, if DJ gets a few more assists rather than shooting 9 threes, if we get the normal amount of paint touches which usually translate to better shot selection or foul shots, we win the game. A perfect storm is the right way to describe the loss and after reviewing the game with the team, Buzz has plenty of ammo as to why the loss occurred which hopefully will result in the team getting back to playing the type of basketball they played against Nova,WV,Cincy,ND and Georgetown.

[downtown85]

Trap game? Crap Game! 

We weren't trapped into shooting 39 % from 2 point range, 16.67 % from 3 pt. range and 10-23 from the FT line. 

We simply had a bad shooting night and consequently were held 25 points below our average. 

Understandable, except for the free throws, which if we shoot a lousy 50% we win the game.  That part is very frustrating.

Word is that USF springloaded the rims and raised them 1", then practiced all week with them like that.  ;-)

Buzz should've gotten out the measuring tape.