UNH (expression of pain)

[MuggsyB]

Hate to say it, but Kur & OMax are not BE-ready interior players. They will get eaten.

Morsell and Lewis (our unquestioned leaders) took over when they needed to.

Strangely quiet night from Kolek (0-5 from 3). Sat for long periods. More hurt than we thought?

It's going to be tougher than I thought/hoped/wished to get this group playing together well.
So far, this does not look like an over .500 BE-season team. I can accept that as a transition year with almost everyone new. I'm hanging on to the thought that others have voiced, that (for once in recent history) we can play better later in the year. It does make sense, with all the transfers and frosh. We can only hope.

Your first sentence is my biggest concern.  And frankly I'm a little surprised they have struggled to this degree.

[rocky_warrior]

Arkansas St. has one win over a liberal arts school in Arkansas. No one is properly ranked in this season yet.

They're not rankings, they're estimates of how good teams are based on their statistical efficiency and expected possessions.  But you're right, they're not great this early in the season.  However, they're generally closer than fan wild ass speculation.

[TAMU, Knower of Ball]

How much pain are we talking about?   How should we prepare?

Pain is good.  Speeds up the learning process.

This is the year we take pain so we can learn to dish it out

[BM1090]

Thought we played a lot better tonight than we did on Tuesday. Baby steps.

[JakeBarnes]

Thought we played a lot better tonight than we did on Tuesday. Baby steps.

Agreed. Baby steps, but showed a lot of promise

[MU82]

Each team took 27 3-pointers; UNH got 15 more points from their attempts. I am concerned this will be a theme this season ... and we will play many, many teams that are a lot better than UNH. Opposing coaches will dare us to shoot until we show we can hit 'em with any consistency.

Either Morsell has improved significantly, or he has way more offensive game than we were led to believe. (Or way more than he was allowed to show at Md?) Mostly lets game come to him, nice looking form, confident FT shooter. So far, a great get by Shaka; we'd be doomed without him.

JL came through when we needed him but needs to be dialed in from the start. Great that he stepped up and hitting those FTs at the end after bricking some earlier ones.

Loved Oso's activity out there. Excellent hustle on several occasions, including a floor burn to set up a huge 3 by Morsell.

Based on what we've seen so far, Kuath < Theo.

Just about every time Kolek was on the court, UNH immediately went to the guy he was trying to defend ... and Shaka had to get him out of there. And offensively, Tyler never looked comfortable tonight.

I'm really looking forward to watching Kam and Stevie get better and better.

After a poor rebounding effort against SIUE and a poor start on the boards tonight, it was nice to see that part of our game improve a lot as the night went on. Shaka read them the riot act, perhaps?

In the end, I was relieved to get the win over a well-coached team. We are not good enough or experienced enough to look down our noses at any opponent. Any win is a good win.

[Dr. Blackheart]

Tyler has a banged up knee.

[MU82]

Tyler has a banged up knee.

He struggled well before he banged knees.

[TSmith34, Inc.]

Strangely quiet night from Kolek (0-5 from 3). Sat for long periods. More hurt than we thought?

I thought people were overrating Kolek based on one half against a sub-300 team. Going to be a good player but, well, people were rushing to judgement. Going to be a good player, but folks, he isn't the 2md coming of T. Diener.

[MU82]

I thought people were overrating Kolek based on one half against a sub-300 team. Going to be a good player but, well, people were rushing to judgement. Going to be a good player, but folks, he isn't the 2md coming of T. Diener.

This.

I am not down on Kolek at all. Frankly, I don't know enough about him to have much of an opinion about him yet. But we had Scoopers comparing him to Diener and Nash after one game against a horrible team. Is he a starting Big East PG? Hopefully. We'll see soon enough. But that wasn't a good one for him tonight.

[MUfan12]

-15 from three and single digit TOs forced.

That's gonna be a loss most nights for them. Glad they found a way.

[MuggsyB]

I thought people were overrating Kolek based on one half against a sub-300 team. Going to be a good player but, well, people were rushing to judgement. Going to be a good player, but folks, he isn't the 2md coming of T. Diener.

Dickie may have overshot when he said "Kolek will be #1 in the BEast in assists and top 3 in the nation.:

[Jockey]

12. Morsell is really, really good
13. We commit way too many silly fouls (lots of unnecessary reaches and grabs)
14. Stevie Mitchell will be good but see #13.

4 out of Stevie's 5 fouls were 100% apparent 2 seconds before he committed them. You can see it coming.

[Silkk the Shaka]

I thought Butch was really good. And, yes, reminds me/sounds like Dakich.

Yeah he was quality, much to my chagrin. Gotta hand it to him

[Lennys Tap]

4 out of Stevie's 5 fouls were 100% apparent 2 seconds before he committed them. You can see it coming.

Yep

[rocky_warrior]

Either Morsell has improved significantly, or he has way more offensive game than we were led to believe. (Or way more than he was allowed to show at Md?)

Well he is being given more minutes, but also don't forget we're playing cupcakes.  I recall past MU players from past MU coaches that looked good offensively against cupcakes too, and not so much the rest of the year.

Not saying that's Morsell, but I'll reserve the "improved significantly" talk until we have a more complete picture.  We've certainly needed that output the past couple games.

[MU82]

Dickie may have overshot when he said "Kolek will be #1 in the BEast in assists and top 3 in the nation.:

Dickey seriously is the worst game analyst I've heard in 50 years of listening/watching basketball. I nearly choked on my iced tea when he said that. Beyond ridiculous.

I agree with several others about Brian Butch. Very solid tonight.

Well he is being given more minutes, but also don't forget we're playing cupcakes.  I recall past MU players from past MU coaches that looked good offensively against cupcakes too, and not so much the rest of the year.

Not saying that's Morsell, but I'll reserve the "improved significantly" talk until we have a more complete picture.  We've certainly needed that output the past couple games.

Very fair take, rocky.

Based on what I had heard about him and on his very pedestrian offensive stats at Md, I for some reason expected a slightly better version of Derrick Wilson on offense. He obviously is far superior to that ... or at least he has been so far.

But yes, as is the case with every player on our team this season, Morsell merits a big "we'll see" at this point.

[ski44]

Please someone tell the team, the WHITE line is the college 3. To many NBA 3s attempted.

[Dr. Blackheart]

Either Morsell has improved significantly, or he has way more offensive game than we were led to believe. (Or way more than he was allowed to show at Md?) Mostly lets game come to him, nice looking form, confident FT shooter. So far, a great get by Shaka; we'd be doomed without him.

Just note Morsell had surgery during last season to repair a facial fracture and he also played the entire season with a torn labrum which he had surgically repaired this off-season. Dude's a baller. Probably at 80%.

[The Lens]

When Tyler announced his transfer to Marquette, Shaka tweeted out a photo of Travis.

Let's stop this BS of "Scoop is comparing him to Travis"

FFS, Shaka is comparing him to Travis.

[TAMU, Knower of Ball]

Rebounding was attrocious...but...after giving up 8 offensive boards in the first 9 minutes. They only gave up 1 the rest of the game, including 0 in the second half. Rough start but Shaka cleaned it up.

My biggest concern is 3P shooting on both ends of the court. We held them to 10/30 on 2P shots which is excellent even factoring the lower level of competition. Giving them 27 mostly open 3P opportunities and them making 12 of them is the only thing besides fouls that kept them in the game.

[CountryRoads]

Your first sentence is my biggest concern.  And frankly I'm a little surprised they have struggled to this degree.

I thought Kuath was going to be a little better, but it's looking like he's going to end up a 10-15 minute guy this year like he was at Oklahoma.

Omax is a young guy with some good size. I'm hoping Shaka and the staff can develop him into a solid contributor eventually. He's rawer than freshman Cain though at this point. So, I'm not expecting anything consistent from him this year.

[CTWarrior]

Strangely quiet night from Kolek (0-5 from 3). Sat for long periods. More hurt than we thought?

It wasn't so much the 0-5, it was that all 5 were good looks and none of them were remotely close to going in.  Absolute bricks.

[Viper]

Yeah he was quality, much to my chagrin. Gotta hand it to him

[tower912]

Kolek wasn't the same after banging his knee.

Listening to Butch last night describe what MU's young guys were doing wrong defensively gave me insight into Bo's, and therefore Gard's, defensive philosophy.   The talk about not reaching and the angle of the hips  defensively in relation to the driving offensive player was quite insightful.   We are always frustrated about Wiscy getting away with so much contact defensively.  But they don't reach and their chest and hips are almost always square, so they are basically playing defense with their angles and their chest.