"We can get better or we can get bitter"

[ChicosBailBonds]

Buzz's comments after the game.  I like the attitude.  He's got a tough coaching job in keeping their heads up with two tough games coming up.  I wouldn't want to be G'Town right now as I have a feeling MU has a big game.

[reinko]

I sense your sarcasm Chicos.

Cut it off.

[ecompt]

I really don't see how we can get better playing only seven players, two of them tremendously undersized, in this conference. We have played 78 minutes of the best ball we can play the last two games and we're still 0-2.

[79Warrior]

I really don't see how we can get better playing only seven players, two of them tremendously undersized, in this conference. We have played 78 minutes of the best ball we can play the last two games and we're still 0-2.

That is it in a nutshell. Unless Buzz can work E Will in for a few minutes to rest Zar and JB, we are going to come up short. JB would normaly be a lock for that shot under the basket. his legs were gone. I do not see how any team can play 7 guys and expect to win in the BE.

[Boone]

Mbao is a project but Erik supposedly is not. If he's not playing now -- and w/Buzz likely to add at least one 4 in the Spring, who will play right away -- I seriously wonder if he ever will.

[Jay Bee]

That is it in a nutshell. Unless Buzz can work E Will in for a few minutes to rest Zar and JB, we are going to come up short. JB would normaly be a lock for that shot under the basket. his legs were gone. I do not see how any team can play 7 guys and expect to win in the BE.

  Yeah.. he 'normaly' would be a lock, so if Ewill could have spelled him 5 minutes we would have won. 

[MU B2002]

Mbao is a project but Erik supposedly is not. If he's not playing now -- and w/Buzz likely to add at least one 4 in the Spring, who will play right away -- I seriously wonder if he ever will.

I think it may be a little premature to write off E Will 14 games into his freshman year.  Will Buzz add a 4 in the spring? Probably, but who knows if this unknown prospect will be able to step in right away. 

[avid1010]

That is it in a nutshell. Unless Buzz can work E Will in for a few minutes to rest Zar and JB, we are going to come up short. JB would normaly be a lock for that shot under the basket. his legs were gone. I do not see how any team can play 7 guys and expect to win in the BE.

Da'Sean Butler was able to play 38 minutes and hit the game winner against MU.  Ebanks didn't struggle to finish at the end of the game and he played 40.  

Based off of what I saw today, the seven players on the court can improve a great deal, especially the underclassmen.  If you don't think the play of JB, DJO, DB or JF can improve you didn't watch the same game I did.

[MisterJaylenBrownMU]

MY favorite quote:

"'If we keep working the way we're working, something has to give, something has to change,' Hayward said. 'We can't keep working as hard as we are, and things like this keep happening.'" 

Yet another reason that I love this team and love that kid.  If everyone on the team has that attitude about the last week, we're going to be just fine.  I don't care how undersized they might be or how badly we could use a true point guard right now -- just gotta play with the players that we've got and find a way to swing the margin about 3-points in our direction every game.

Maybe next game we'll even get off a shot on the last possession!

[ecompt]

avid, the problem is we are a terrible disadvantage size-wise at virtually every position. I don't see how we can improve much. We cannot shoot better from the arc than we did at West Virginia, where we played out of our minds for 39 minutes and still lost. Today we did virtually everything right, got a great game out of Cubillan and still lost. These kids have tremendous heart and will never give up, but unless they each grow four inches I don't really see where the improvement is going to come from.

[avid1010]

avid, the problem is we are a terrible disadvantage size-wise at virtually every position. I don't see how we can improve much. We cannot shoot better from the arc than we did at West Virginia, where we played out of our minds for 39 minutes and still lost. Today we did virtually everything right, got a great game out of Cubillan and still lost. These kids have tremendous heart and will never give up, but unless they each grow four inches I don't really see where the improvement is going to come from.

I guess I'm enjoying this year because I'm looking at it more from a growing year for our younger players.  I'm very impressed with JB taking a bigger role offensively this year, and I hope that by next year he finishes the game winner he had today, that's an area of improvement.  DJO made some huge mistakes today, and his ceiling seems to be nearly unlimited.  Hopefully he's growing from these free throw situations as well.  Buycks showed some confidence today that he hadn't shown all year.  That improvement is fun to watch.  Fulce had a tip-in and a couple impressive boards today.  His progress has been very slow, and if Buzz can get him playing better he'll be very helpful to MU next year. 

I wasn't thrilled with Coobies play today.  I'm sick of he and Acker getting beat off the dribble, and their height is very problematic.  I appreciate their hard work though.  I think you're looking at it from a 2009-10 team, and even then, I think it's incorrect to think this MU team has hit it's potential.  I feel bad for Lazar, as he deserves to be surrounded with more talent this year, but this team is playing better than I thought it would be at this point in time.  I'm excited for the future of many of our younger players, and this year provides a good year for someone like DJO to work through his clutch free throw issues, Buycks to work through his turnover issues, etc...  Hopefully E-Will and Yous continue to improve, and when MU brings in a good recruiting class and gets their injured players back they'll have an NCAA caliber team.  With an undersized and under-manned team, they're competing with some of the better teams in college basketball. 

[ecompt]

Agree on virtually every point. I am excited about next year's team, especially if EWill and Yous develop at all. Adding Junior, Vander and Jamail and getting Otule back should give us some of the depth we need so badly this year.

[Daniel]

I wish we could play Erik and Mbao a bit - our guys need a blow now and then.  And Erik, tho defensively a liability, could not have been any worse in the paint under hte hoop today than we were as a team - we could not stop them, as Buzz said.  So why not stick Erik in - see if he could swat one down or get some rebounds.  And he has some offensive moves too.

We need a bench - the Magnificent Seven can only do so much.  They are all working their tails off - you can see that, or we would not have even been in these last two games.

[chapman]

I wish we could play Erik and Mbao a bit - our guys need a blow now and then.  And Erik, tho defensively a liability, could not have been any worse in the paint under hte hoop today than we were as a team - we could not stop them, as Buzz said.  So why not stick Erik in - see if he could swat one down or get some rebounds.  And he has some offensive moves too.

We need a bench - the Magnificent Seven can only do so much.  They are all working their tails off - you can see that, or we would not have even been in these last two games.

Even Fulce only got 9 minutes.  I understand the need to defend four guards, but if they're going to blow right by Acker you might as well let them blow right by Fulce; at least he can pull down the rebound if they miss.

[DaCoach]

Even Fulce only got 9 minutes.  I understand the need to defend four guards, but if they're going to blow right by Acker you might as well let them blow right by Fulce; at least he can pull down the rebound if they miss.

It's much more noticeable when a big guy gets beat. They're just more visible. But it's true that neither Acker nor Cubillan are very good at defending dribble penetration. We'd be able to overlook that if our help defense was better but it has been the one area that we haven't improved.

[Murffieus]

Where we have plenty of room to "get better" is on defense-----by my count we got broken down from the perimeter 16 times for layins or Fts----another 6-7 times for layins that were missed-----and another 3-4 times
instead of a finish attempt the ball was kicked out for a missed trey. Everyone was culpable so please don't pick just on Acker who lost his guy 3 times. Buycks is the worst perpetrator.

MU doesn't have good one on one defenders. So that tight man to man isn't working against teams who have players who can take it to the hoop. Worked against WV, but they have no penetrators (they rely on the jump shot).

IMO, Buzz needs to structure a jam the middle defense against teams with quick guards-----zone or otherwise.

[avid1010]

IMO, Buzz needs to structure a jam the middle defense against teams with quick guards-----zone or otherwise.

Again, I think that depends on what you're trying to accomplish in the long run.  You run a crap zone or something to that nature, and the guys your rightfully pointing out (Buycks) miss out on developing their on ball defense.  Then next year, when we have more talent and want to get up and down the court, Buycks is no better than he is right now.  You couldn't be more right about their on ball deffense needing improvment, but 74 points to Nova and 63 to WV isn't terrible.  They are shortening games at times though...

[Murffieus]

But that's the problem----Buycks and others aren't improving their one on one defense.

However you can jam the middle with a man to man as well by loosening defenders from their man away from the ball----then they are in better position to help----right now with the tight man to man the help defense gets there late.

[MarquetteDano]

But that's the problem----Buycks and others aren't improving their one on one defense.

However you can jam the middle with a man to man as well by loosening defenders from their man away from the ball----then they are in better position to help----right now with the tight man to man the help defense gets there late.

Have to agree with Murf on this one.  Not every team has so many players that can break us down one-on-one like Nova, but when teams do and don't have post options, I agree with jamming the middle more.  If a team has post options, then we can't do it since we cannot deny the post pass as easily when the ball gets reversed.

It will be interesting to see Buzz's strategy for the game in Philly.  Playing the same defense is not going to work.

[Daniel]

I guess it's because of our height difficiencies, but the Nova defenders always fronted us in the paint. low post, and we were almost always behind the player we were guarding int he paint/post allowing htem to get the pass - happened over and over again yesterday.

Is there anything we can do about that?