Just Back from CBE

[willie warrior]

Saw both of our games. Talked to lots of people there. Some comments on the games:
~~Absolutely killed us inside in both games. We have no defensive post presence, and playing Crowder at 6'6" in post is not the solution. Otule does not block out. Gardner played better interior D than Otule. Buzz better figure this out quickly. As usual, we will continue to lose to better teams with big men, because we do not have any matching up.
~~No 3 point shooting. DJO has lost his stroke. Nobody else to step up.
~~Blue shoots poorly--does play pretty good d. No way he should start and Crowder does not.
~~Cadougan is far and away the best option at point. He delivers the ball well to the scorers.
It is going to be a long season.

[TJ]

It is going to be a long season.

It's 2 games early against top 20 teams.  This is not an irrecoverable situation.

I was disappointed yesterday and pissed today, but I was also encouraged by lots of the things I saw in our first games against top opponents.  I think we're going to be just fine.

[Markusquette]

Long season?  We stuck in there with the defending national champs top-ranked duke, and somehow stayed in it with Gonzaga despite a huge disadvantage on the glass and second chance points.  If we can improve and fix these issues, we will be just fine.

I do agree with your points, but gotta be more optimistic!

[ATL MU Warrior]

Saw both of our games. Talked to lots of people there. Some comments on the games:
~~Absolutely killed us inside in both games. We have no defensive post presence, and playing Crowder at 6'6" in post is not the solution. Otule does not block out. Gardner played better interior D than Otule. Buzz better figure this out quickly. As usual, we will continue to lose to better teams with big men, because we do not have any matching up.
~~No 3 point shooting. DJO has lost his stroke. Nobody else to step up.
~~Blue shoots poorly--does play pretty good d. No way he should start and Crowder does not.
~~Cadougan is far and away the best option at point. He delivers the ball well to the scorers.
It is going to be a long season.

Maybe things look different in person but based on what I watched on TV there's no way Gardner is better defensively than Otule.  Absolutely no way.  He's slower, can't move or jump, doesn't react quickly enough to play help defense and consistently failed to get defensive rebounding position.  He got abused inside in both games on the defensive end.  These are things that will improve as his body gets better, but right now he's far worse defensively.

[RubyWiscy]

There are always tons of recriminations after a loss, but this is a young team. These kids will improve tremendously over the season. I expect at some point things will just start to click.

Right now, there doesn't seem to be a set character for this team. I really don't know what to expect from anyone when they step on the floor at this point. I think we will see JC step up more and more as the answer at point.  JB will continue to be solid. After that, who knows right now. I hope DJO will get on track.

While I always prefer wins, as a fan, the current level of uncertainty on the team is exciting. I enjoy seeing players develop and step up. There are so many new guys that show tons of promise.

[LAMUfan]

Otule and gardner are both really bad on D.  Both look lost at times, at least gardner can score...let him get the shoulder healthy

[mu-rara]

Mason Plumlee had the game of his career
Mason Plumlee is a potential NBA lottery pick
Mason Plumlee was a very highly rated recruit

All that and we only lost by 5 points

Would I like to have Mason Plumlee, absolutely
The team is still finding itself.  We will be fine

[Lennys Tap]

Saw both of our games. Talked to lots of people there. Some comments on the games:
~~Absolutely killed us inside in both games. We have no defensive post presence, and playing Crowder at 6'6" in post is not the solution. Otule does not block out. Gardner played better interior D than Otule. Buzz better figure this out quickly. As usual, we will continue to lose to better teams with big men, because we do not have any matching up.
~~No 3 point shooting. DJO has lost his stroke. Nobody else to step up.
~~Blue shoots poorly--does play pretty good d. No way he should start and Crowder does not.
~~Cadougan is far and away the best option at point. He delivers the ball well to the scorers.
It is going to be a long season.

Put a number on "long season". 0-18, 4-14, 6-12, 8-10 in the Big East?

[Thomas' Danish Delight]

Mason Plumlee had the game of his career
Mason Plumlee is a potential NBA lottery pick
Mason Plumlee was a very highly rated recruit

All that and we only lost by 5 points

Would I like to have Mason Plumlee, absolutely
The team is still finding itself.  We will be fine

Coach K was talking about how Gardner, our freshman was "killing them" during the post-game interview.

A hurt, true freshman.  I'm definitely bummed by the losses, but we have soooo much upside.  Those Canadian Dimes...ooooooooohhhWEE were they pretty!

[PE8983]

If Buycks continues with 30+/- minutes a game, I say 7-11.

[AZWarrior]

I miss the "Is DJO going pro after his junior year" posts.   

[GOO]

Long Season?  Based upon these two games against top flight teams/talent, I actually have more hope for our team this year.  With all the new players I think we start to jell after Christmas break/early January.  Teams like Duke are already in mid-season form.

And although we won't be a good shooting team, we will shoot it better, I suspect.

[MUfan12]

Just got back this afternoon as well. A good time despite the results. It has been interesting reading the reactions, and here are my 8 cents.

I don't think they're very good at all right now. I know, 8 points to 2 ranked teams. The Duke score was deceiving, and Gonzaga is nothing special this year. They won't be ranked come Monday. I'm not down on their chances, but there are some trends that are disturbing.

I know this team is well coached. Watching the Revealed videos, I know their emphasis was in the right places. But for some reason it ain't sticking. For being as fast as this team is, they are piss poor defenders. Against Duke, they were constantly forced into help situations because they gave up dribble penetration. Same thing with Gonzaga, #3 had his way with the guards and caused problems. Pretty soon, you have 5 guys on rollerskates and Gray hits a wide open three.

The thing that really gets me though, is they were getting beat in transition, even off of made baskets. That simply should not happen. It certainly has nothing to do with lack of conditioning or athleticism, it's all effort. And for some reason, this team only wants to give a full effort in 5 minute segments. That's what frustrates the hell out of me. Say what you will about Acker/Cubillan's ability, but they didn't let up like that.

Offensively, they're trying to play the same way as last year, but have a bunch of 2 guards who can't shoot. If this team shoots 20 threes a game, they won't win many. Duke played into MU's hands with K not wanting to play zone. Gonzaga was smart. MU had no answer for it, and put nobody at the FT line in the soft spot of the zone. That should be where Jae or Jimmy lives when a team goes to a 2-3. But it was empty, just like it was against Bucknell.

Final thought, on the rebounding issues. I agree that Otule/Big Smoove/Crowder need to do a better job. No question about that. But to be fair, they are getting zero help. Those guys are constantly having to leave their position to help because the guards are too slow/lazy to defend. That takes them out of rebounding position. And to be honest, it shouldn't be all about their rebounding numbers. It wouldn't kill the guards (save Vander, who has rebounded well) to crash as well. It's unacceptable how many long rebounds were given up to Gonzaga. Hard to blame the bigs for that.

This team has the pieces to be good. For some reason, it's taking them longer to figure out how hard they have to play to beat good competition. Once they do, I think they'll be just fine.

[6746jonesr]

Hmmm...it's taking them longer to figure it out.  Come on people--how much experience does this team have.  Cadougan, Blue, O'toole, Gardner, etc--how much college experience for these guys.  Give them some time to develop.  It's going to look ugly for awhile, and we are going to struggle to score since it doesn't appear that we have any pure shooters.  But I am sure that the defense will improve as the season progresses, and they learn to play together as a unit.   Wow--some of you seem awful quick at jumping off the bandwagon.  How long before we hear the fire buzz chants? 

[nomorebuycks]

The problem with Otule, and it's one that can't be fixed, is that he's got hands of concrete.  Not only does  it affect his ability to catch passes in the paint, his rebounding suffers, too.  At least Gardner has good hands.  But I agree that he doesn't use that big body well at all for boxing out properly.

And I think people really underestimate just how hard it is to win vs good teams when you just flat out cannot shoot.    If they go into BE play having lost also to UW and Vanderbilt, it's going to be a really bad season.  They need a good win before conference play starts. 

BTW, please start Junior at PG.

[bilsu]

You can teach a player to block out. I doubt that Gardner, who was over 300 lbs in high school, had to worry about blocking out. I have no doubt that he will learn to do that.

[rugbydrummer]

While I do agree in general with the points in the original post, I have to say.... it is Thanksgiving...so I'm grateful we had the opportunity to find out in very stark form what our shortcomings are.  Come on... golden opportunity to see our weakest links and then (hopefully) strengthen them!  I know that may be more than naive to say, but seriously, is there a better test for your team than going up against the #1 team in the country who also happens to be the reigning/returning National Champions?  That's rhetorical, by the way.    although as always, correct me if i'm wrong.  We honestly had nothing to lose in that game.  Those kids should be proud that they kept it that close.  Yeah there were mistakes; but when an opposing player has the hottest game yet in his NCAA career, what can you do? Im sure we've done that to other teams in the past (like Cubillan going 6 for 7 or something ridiculous, or Novak going for 41 pts vs UCONN in the BE opener).  Sometimes a player will be on a heater and we have no answer. 

Gonzaga.... well that had me singing a different tune.  We have some work to do, bottom line.  I do agree w/ everyone about us showing a good deal of promise.  Obviously Otule (did anyone else catch the commentators when they called him "O-duh-lay" originally??) & Smoove/Gardner aren't fully developed yet (well who is??), and i think, again, echoing another of my posts, that we are just so darn hungry to finally have a productive big that we are frustrated that our bigs right now haven't actualized their roles yet . . .  but dang does Gardner have some nice O-fence post moves.  Once Crowder perfects his hook & gets his 3-point shot down, we may just get real dangerous for some other teams.

My other thought on the CBE was, "wow, these might as well have been road games for the newbies to the team." Obviously it wasn't a "hostile" environment per se, but after 4 games of warm fandom-encouragement @ the BC, the near ghost-town esque Sprint Center was likely a whole new ballgame to our new guys (and when i say ghost town, it wasn't *empty* there, but it may as well been because there was almost NO cheering as compared to when K-State was playing . . . well aside from me shouting from the rafters, of course.)

Alright, closing statement -- for anyone @ the Sprint Center, how'd ya like our hip, top 40 chart-topping single playin' souzaphone-totin' "MU Pep Band"???  loved the marching drums !!! hah!

[SaintPaulWarrior]

Alright, closing statement -- for anyone @ the Sprint Center, how'd ya like our hip, top 40 chart-topping single playin' souzaphone-totin' "MU Pep Band"???  loved the marching drums !!! hah!

Our "band" was not bad at all....I was sitting about 10 rows behind the "Gonzaga" band and they were awful.