Ousmane says ......

[SoCalEagle]

SHUT UP!!!!

   

[MUCam]

Barro DOES NOT deserve a D-I scholarship. 19 points? 6 rebounds? Double-Doubles in the past. What a joke he is.

[turn off sarcasm]

Perhaps people will soon realize that extremist opinions rarely, if ever, make for intelligent conversations. Barro is not an All-Big East center, but he is serviceable and he has given us numerous good games in the past. Please remember to think before you post.

[Thomas' Danish Delight]

Great game...19 pts, 10 rebs...9/10 FG!

He's best when he's active, as the commentators said a million times.  It's when he tries to post up is when he gets butterfingers.

[jtate15]

Great game...19 pts, 10 rebs...9/10 FG!

He's best when he's active, as the commentators said a million times.  It's when he tries to post up is when he gets butterfingers.

I agree. When he's mving he can catch just about any pass. But when still he can get control of an easy feed. I'm sure Crean is takng note.

[mviale]

Crean was waiting to release his terror from dakar!

[77ncaachamps]

There's only one thing Barro knows about basketball: "See ball. Put ball in hole."

We have to get him more active around the basket.

[Big Papi]

Barro played a whale of a game.  Moving and being in the right place.  Very controlled and actually held on to the ball.  But more importantly, I thought we did a great job of other players flashing and posting up and scoring down low.  Need to keep doing that.

[mviale]

Did you hear Barro on that last layup - I heard him scream BIYattttttchhhh

[MUSF]

Is it even worth responding to the knee-jerk extremist posters?

They won't sack up and admit that they were wrong, let alone appologize for calling out an apparantly great kid who works his butt off to contribute to his team.  My bet is you won't even hear from any of them until our next loss or poor performance, at which point they will be out en masse to let us know that Tom Crean is the fourth best college coach in Wisconsin or Dominic James isn't even one of the 10 best point guards in the Big East, and of course MU should never lose to X team or to a team from X conference.

Seriously, it is a joke at this point and no matter how many times they are proved wrong, they will still return with emphatic superlatives and extreme over reactions.

[mviale]

some are living FOREVER in the 70's

cant move on

[Eye]

And I liked the fact that they ran some post-up stuff today not through Ooze, but through Hayward. Nice to see MU get some post-up buckets, and a decent amount of them

[MileHigh]

we actually had a big man!

[muPARTY]

...
Perhaps people will soon realize that extremist opinions rarely, if ever, make for intelligent conversations. Barro is not an All-Big East center, but he is serviceable and he has given us numerous good games in the past. Please remember to think before you post.

i didn't want to rain on this great performance but now i have to defend some of the posters (including myself) that have been critical of Ous.  first let me state, i was not the one saying he didn't deserve a scholarship.

i remember John Madden saying something (can't remember the exact quote) in the area of "first time is luck, second time is pattern, third time is skill".
the gist of it is, one something happens like 4-5 times in a row, it's not a fluke or luck.
Points - Rebounds
6 - 7
2 - 4
4 - 2
0 - 3
0 - 1
4 - 6
2 - 4

that's Ous's line the last 7 games (prior to today) = 2.57pts/game - 3.85 reb/game

one good game does not a season make for a player.  i'm just here to simply say, don't go leaping back on the bandwagon and start questioning and critizing everyone that called him out on these boards.  he had one showing.  now lets see the 2nd good showing, then a 3rd good showing.  19-10?  no, but a 8-5/6 game, yes.  he's a 6'10 center, and the only one, on a top Big East team, it's required.  he still needs to prove he can be consistent in these important games down the stretch.  and he also HAS to be able to create some kinda shot for himself, becauset the rest of the Big East isn't going to do what cinci did today, keep pressuring a 3 that we weren't hitting and abandoning the post.

I don't mean to rain on this parade, and I'm sorry to Ous if it appears that i'm demeaning his performance, i'm not.  but i'm not about to annoint a guy who scored more than 4pts for the first time in 6 games.

... i THOUGHT before i posted and i backed it up with #s

[Big Papi]

Ahhhh yes stats don't lie but they also don't tell you the entire truth.  I believe that Barro has turned the corner this year as this is his third straight good game.  So does that make a trend or is it skill? 

Problem is that he has only played sparingly for much of the season but his presence has been felt in the DePaul and South Florida and today he finally had his breakout game of the year.  I don't expect him to put these type of numbers again but if he does start to get some consistent minutes of 22-25 minutes a game you will see him get 6-8 points a game and 6-10 boards a game. 

[Final Four or Bust]

Ditto muParty's post -- not all of those who have been critical don't show up.  He had a great game, no doubt.  He also has had a few other very good games early in the season.  Generally, however, he has disappeared in the Big East games this year.  One game doesn't make him a star.  Burke had a couple of very good games early as well.

Point is, we need consistency.  When we aren't hitting outside shots or struggling to score we need a player we can dump it to to get us points.  We've had that in a game or two this season, but not often -- and certainly not when it has been critical in some of our poorest shooting games.

I hope Barro continues this throughout the rest of the season, we will be a better team becasue of it as we need him, or another big, to step up.  Don't sit and blast those who have been critical as a whole.

[Big Papi]

Is it just me or has anyone else noticed that in the last couple of games our offense is trying to dump the ball down low in the post a lot more than we have in a long long time.  i don't recall if any went to Barro but Matthews, Hayward and McNeal all flashed down low and posted their men and actually received the ball and made something happen. 

[Doctor V]

Is it just me or has anyone else noticed that in the last couple of games our offense is trying to dump the ball down low in the post a lot more than we have in a long long time.  i don't recall if any went to Barro but Matthews, Hayward and McNeal all flashed down low and posted their men and actually received the ball and made something happen. 

most impressive thing about todays performance. barro has games like this in him, they just need to utilize him the way they did today. i would be shocked and upset if ous doesnt start getting significantly more time, not because he scored alot, but because he is a terrific rebounder and has great offensive positioning, always giving the guards an extra option.

wes was terrific today. he has turned the corner. a few weeks ago when i said he was the biggest disappointment it was because i knew this was who he is and what is expected of him. hes finally hitting the freethrow jumper and not missing layups left and right. great defensively, great rebounding, fantastic toughness.

jerel is playing better also, dj having the low point of his season needs to turn it around on monday.

hayward is our most consistant player. what a pleasant surprise he should get consideration for first team all conference

[chapman]

Even though he's clumsy (I have to disagree with the announcer saying he has "good hands"), and will look terrible at times, getting Barro involved in the offense is still more beneficial than getting a goose egg from the 5 spot for an entire game.  If he stays out of foul trouble, Ooze should be working his way up to playing close to 30 minutes consistently-have you ever seen anything from Burke or Blackledge that makes you think they could put up 19 and 10?  But we know that's a big if, especially against quality bigs where he can look terrible and not be able to stay on the floor.  We'll see how he does in the rematch against Louisville's front line.

[muPARTY]

Ahhhh yes stats don't lie but they also don't tell you the entire truth.  I believe that Barro has turned the corner this year as this is his third straight good game.  So does that make a trend or is it skill? 

Problem is that he has only played sparingly for much of the season but his presence has been felt in the DePaul and South Florida and today he finally had his breakout game of the year.  I don't expect him to put these type of numbers again but if he does start to get some consistent minutes of 22-25 minutes a game you will see him get 6-8 points a game and 6-10 boards a game. 

that is a valid point.  stats aren't the end-all in determining a performance.  but i'm curious to hear how DePaul and South Florida were good games for him?

he only played 13min, had 19pts and 12 boards happen against him by their big man Koshwal (yes i know he's not responsible for ALL those pts/reb).  and USF, their big guy went to town in the low post again (15p-15r).  Ous had 15min there and wasn't credited with even a FG attempt (2-3 FT though).

34pts and 27reb by those 2 big men against Ous (and Burke) and his 28min total, and those were good games from him?  so to answer your question, i'm going with luck, because it's one good game, and let's see what happens against Padgent on monday.

while i also agree consistent mintes is valuable to any player, the question is why doesn't he get those minutes anymore?  Crean obviously doesn't feel at those times he's helping the team.  can he get those minutes without hurting the Golden Eagles on defense against the strong post players or when the outside game is in shambles?


... again, not piling on Ous after a good game from him, just engaging in constructive dialouge.

[ecompt]

He is a much better player when he's moving around down low and getting open. When he's standing still he's very easy to defend. Here's hoping today is the start of a stretch of good games from Ooze. If he's active the next two games he has a chance to tire out Padgett and Goat Boy.

[MUSF]

There's a big difference between being "critical" and some of the over the top negative posts we sometimes see here, i.e. Ooze doesn't deserve a D-1 schollie, a road loss to Cincy would be Crean's worst loss, and great teams don't struggle with small/mid major teams.

Rational and articulate criticism is fair and encourages interesting debate.  Those types of posts are ridiculous.