Maturity

[dgies9156]

This board is tough today.

I think many of us, myself included, saw today's game as the defining moment in this season. Talent, yes. Opportunity, yes. Execution, no. We saw up close and personal that we're going to miss the NCAAs for yet another year. That's hard for many of us to swallow.

What I saw today (and I was in Milwaukee for the game) was a very talented Marquette team. We need a few horses yet, but the talent is there. The team is young and even the sophomores and dare I say the juniors lack the maturity one looks for is a seasoned college basketball team. The fact that we were even still in this game late in the second half after that disastrous first half was a testament to our talent level.

Our guys have to learn there is a reason why Xavier gives us open three point looks. We DO NOT hit them. They know we are a much bigger threat to kill them inside than we are outside. Oh, and we seem to be so out of place for offensive rebounds that it almost is embarrassing.

Add that to a Coach who is in his second year and also feeling his way through. There were times when I looked at our bench today and thought Wojo was going to go out of his gord at what he was seeing on the floor. I suspect Wojo is going to be great but he's like our team -- talented but at times lost. He's learning and his biggest need is time.

Our maturity is lacking. I hope that a year from now, we're mowing the Big East down and that our coach and our team is tough and focused. In the meantime, this will be a tough rest of the year.

[bilsu]

The close win over a bad St. John's team was a good indiction that this team was not going to finish in the upper half of the Big East. The Providence win was a great win, but Providence is not near as good as Villanova or Xavier. I still think we finished 8th ahead of DePaul and St. John's, but I will feel more confident when we actually beat DePaul on Wednesday. I do like how we continued to compete against Villanova and Xavier. However, the team is young and we are not as talented as we think we are. We are bigger than most teams, but are often slower and less athletic than the Big East team we are playing.

[wadesworld]

The close win over a bad St. John's team was a good indiction that this team was not going to finish in the upper half of the Big East. The Providence win was a great win, but Providence is not near as good as Villanova or Xavier. I still think we finished 8th ahead of DePaul and St. John's, but I will feel more confident when we actually beat DePaul on Wednesday. I do like how we continued to compete against Villanova and Xavier. However, the team is young and we are not as talented as we think we are. We are bigger than most teams, but are often slower and less athletic than the Big East team we are playing.

Did the close win over a bad St. John's team in which Xavier got a gift foul call while up by 1 point with 1:30 left in the game that then led to a technical foul (so 4 made free throws to go from 1 up to 5 up with 1:30 left, again, against the same bad St. John's team we had a close win against) also give you "a good indiction that [Xavier] was not going to finish in the upper half of the Big East?"

[Dawson Rental]

Our guys have to learn there is a reason why Xavier gives us open three point looks. We DO NOT hit them. They know we are a much bigger threat to kill them inside than we are outside.

Oh, I think that everyone has learned why the open three point looks are there.  It doesn't mean that the ability to hit the threes is going to appear from the ether.

Wojo certainly knows and knew.  There's a reason that our recruits for next year are Andrew Rowsey and Sam Hauser.

[D'Lo Brown]

Our guys have to learn there is a reason why Xavier gives us open three point looks. We DO NOT hit them. They know we are a much bigger threat to kill them inside than we are outside.

We've seen what happens this season if we basically forego outside attempts and just try to force the ball to the hoop all game. If we can't even threaten the 3, teams can clog it up down low. It does "make sense" for us to only go to the hoop, because that is what we are most skilled at overall. However, the only way to open those shots up is by making the other team respect the 3 and increasing their spacing.

The actual reason that "we do not hit them" is because the majority of players taking the 3's are not good 3-point shooters. I'm sorry, I know that Coach wants to keep Henry happy in hopes of him staying, but he takes so many early/bad 3-point attempts that cripple our ability to stay in the flow. Let's be realistic... He is a 25% shooter from 3. And Traci is even worse, but it's seemingly more expected from him because his overall decision-making has been poor. If we could cut down the amount of 3's that Henry, JJJ, and Traci take by 75% (by having them take only the choicest of attempts), we would perform much better. This team has been pretty impressive when they play within the offense and share the ball. If we could have traded the ten 3 attempts from the overconfident trio of Henry/JJJ/Traci for intelligent plays, IMO we win the X game or at least make it interesting.