Forgive us our Cintas.

[tower912]

1.   Xavier was a 10 pt favorite and is ranked #22 in the country.   
2.   MU never stops fighting.   
3.   Nice to see Kolek and Morsell be productive.    Not perfect.    But productive.    Hated TK's shot with 2 to go.
4.   Fouls!     Xavier was rewarded for being the aggressive team attacking the basket at home.   
5.   MU was too passive against X's zone.    And I don't mind Lewis turning and shooting, but he has to square up when he turns to shoot.   3x today he twisted when he shot from 17 instead of squaring.    Missed all 3.
6.   I would play zone every single game against MU going forward.   
7.   That Greg guy has had two solid games in a row.
8.   Osa >Kuath.     Kuath was not prepared for about 3 lobs today that turned into turnovers.
9.  Veterans against young guys.    Just like UCLA.   
10.   First conference road game against a top 25 team.    Exciting, but fairly inevitable result.     

[fjm]

I'm not a blame the refs guy, but do you think the players used lube when they gave the refs HJ's before the game?



— side note sloppy sloppy possessions. We win this game if we finish at the hoop. Kuath and Lewis both had multiple close misses.

— played well but can't blame this on youth either. Our seniors really made some big mistakes.

[Mu8891]

So ... it's Moral " victory " time ??

[dgies9156]

We will learn.

[tower912]

So ... it's Moral " victory " time ??

Process.

[IrwinFletcher]

4.   Fouls!     Xavier was rewarded for being the aggressive team attacking the basket at home.   
   

Lewis gets called for a foul on a dunk and a few minutes he goes baseline for a dunk and you don't get the call.  Never saw a replay but it looks like there could have been contact.  They got the call.  We didn't.

[NolongerWarriors]

Process.

Nonsense.

Morsell is a bust.  A Senior that doesn't show Senior leadership.  No "process" is going to help him.

And Shaka, for whatever reason, brought in a team full of guys that can't shoot.  That won't magically improve as the year goes on.

[rocky_warrior]

If you ask me (get ready for entertainment according to Goose), our most complete game of the year.  Not the result we wanted, but that's because of the 7 minutes that we didn't play well (last 5 first half, last 2 second half).

I was generally encouraged.  Not a moral victory, but I don't expect much from this years team, and that game gave me more encouragement.

[PGsHeroes32]

Keep giving Greg minutes.

[mileskishnish72]

It was a game effort by our lads, but very poor strategy/ball movement/shot selection in the last few moments of both halves. Agree, Tower, that the heave/brick by Kolek was egregiously stupid. Oso
needs to learn to get better position. Morsell brought a real bad game by him up to acceptable. It has to be time to put some analytics on the so-called press. We would double the ball-handler but 100% of the time left the lazy cross-court pass get made without ever even an attempt to  grab it for a pick-six. From there the ball would be advanced to open shooters.

[nyg]

More like "We need a cleanup in aisle three"

If only:

Prosper missed a dunk and a one foot tap in.
Lob attempts to Kuath were four, not three, all misses.
Three 30 second shot clock violations in first half.
Kolek and Morsell both gave up a pick six layup. 
Kuath on two straight possessions did not handle defensive rebounds and Nunge and Freemantle scored.

Just sloppy, but it adds up.

MU down one and then jack up threes by Elliott and Kolek, then Lewis miss dunk, ballgame.
MU scored two points in final three minutes..

[rocky_warrior]

I'll add, we're lucky they sucked from the FT line today...

[MuggsyB]

Process.

It's interesting that in your comprehensive list you did not mention the points XU got in transition or versus our press.  Wide open bunnies and corner threes time and time again. That along with the free throw discrepancy gave us no margin for error despite a great stretch offensively for TK and GE.

[IrwinFletcher]

I'll add, we're lucky they sucked from the FT line today...

And X was lucky we were subpar on our 2's.  Works both ways.

[rocky_warrior]

And X was lucky we were subpar on our 2's.  Works both ways.

Haven't looked at the stats, were we far worse than our average?  It didn't appear so, our average isn't good.

edit:  looks like we shot 46% from 2, vs 52% on average .  They shot 60% on FTs, vs 70% avg.

[The Sultan]

Really did great down the stretch until Kolek's quick three. Kinda lost momentum there. But he had a solid game. Good effort.

[Elonsmusk]

Down 70-69 with 2 minutes left against a solid #22 team on the road...I think most here would have taken that before tip off.   

Some dumb/careless turnovers by our guys.  Kolek being in foul trouble hurt the team substantially.  All in all I'm pleased with this team, the effort, the upside, the potential.

[CountryRoads]

Really did great down the stretch until Kolek's quick three. Kinda lost momentum there. But he had a solid game. Good effort.

Losing sucks especially when you make a comeback late on the road and have a chance to win, but I was pleased with the effort. I didn't really mind Kolek's three. If I recall, he was pretty open and it was a good look. It easily could have gone in.

[fjm]

Down 70-69 with 2 minutes left against a solid #22 team on the road...I think most here would have taken that before tip off.   

Some dumb/careless turnovers by our guys.

I agree with both of those statements.

[Mu8891]

" Process " is fine
But Shaka brought in guys that can't shoot ... which he knew.

The BE is BIG TIME ... they cut it to
One Point w / 3 mins to go.  Did not
finish

And ... sorry ... in 2021 w / " free agency " and NIL and transfers galore ..

Shaka does not get 3 or 4 years to build. 

I still hope 9/11 is possible, but they need a few good " resume " wins. 

[IrwinFletcher]

Haven't looked at the stats, were we far worse than our average?  It didn't appear so, our average isn't good.

edit:  looks like we shot 46% from 2, vs 52% on average .  They shot 60% on FTs, vs 70% avg.

If X shoots 70% from the FT line, they get 4.5 more points.

If we shoot 52% for our 2's, we make 2 more shots (I will let you pick any of the missed dunks/layups) and we get 4 more points.

Advantage, no one.

[Viper]

More like "We need a cleanup in aisle three"

If only:

Prosper missed a dunk and a one foot tap in.
Lob attempts to Kuath were four, not three, all misses.
Three 30 second shot clock violations in first half.
Kolek and Morsell both gave up a pick six layup. 
Kuath on two straight possessions did not handle defensive rebounds and Nunge and Freemantle scored.

Just sloppy, but it adds up.

MU down one and then jack up threes by Elliott and Kolek, then Lewis miss dunk, ballgame.
MU scored two points in final three minutes..

aspects of this game certainly had a a Wojo feel to it. PG is so critical. Can't jack shots.

[TheyWereCones]

With everything that went wrong, I'm shocked we had the ball down 1 late.  We had a chance to steal one despite allowing way more free throw attempts, lots of missed opportunities at the basket, foul trouble, and multiple brutal turnovers.  So there is hope because if they would have even cleaned up ONE of those things were probably up 3 to 5 at the end instead of down 1.  But the question is if/when they will put it all together?  It is the first conference game and they are still exceeding my expectations at this point.  So I'm not overly concerned at this point.  But would have liked to steal this one.

To me, the most brutal plays of the game were in the second half.  First when we got a steal and then Lewis tried to lead the break, jumped in the air, and threw it to X for a dunk.  Then later when Elliott threw a careless outlet pass that they picked for 2 more.  Those are just the kinds of turnovers you cannot have.  That's at LEAST a 4-point swing in a game that was nearly tied at the end.  There were other brutal plays too.  Gotta cut those out and we're fine.

[Elonsmusk]

" Process " is fine
But Shaka brought in guys that can't shoot ... which he knew.

The BE is BIG TIME ... they cut it to
One Point w / 3 mins to go.  Did not
finish

And ... sorry ... in 2021 w / " free agency " and NIL and transfers galore ..

Shaka does not get 3 or 4 years to build. 

I still hope 9/11 is possible, but they need a few good " resume " wins.

The second dumbest thing I've read on Scoop today.


Xavier got to the line 35 times today.  The whistle was in their favor as it usually is for a ranked home team.  Did you really expect MU to beat Xavier today?

[Elonsmusk]

With everything that went wrong, I'm shocked we had the ball down 1 late.  We had a chance to steal one despite allowing way more free throw attempts, lots of missed opportunities at the basket, foul trouble, and multiple brutal turnovers.  So there is hope because if they would have even cleaned up ONE of those things were probably up 3 to 5 at the end instead of down 1.  But the question is if/when they will put it all together?  It is the first conference game and they are still exceeding my expectations at this point.  So I'm not overly concerned at this point.  But would have liked to steal this one.

To me, the most brutal plays of the game were in the second half.  First when we got a steal and then Lewis tried to lead the break, jumped in the air, and threw it to X for a dunk.  Then later when Elliott threw a careless outlet pass that they picked for 2 more.  Those are just the kinds of turnovers you cannot have.  That's at LEAST a 4-point swing in a game that was nearly tied at the end.  There were other brutal plays too.  Gotta cut those out and we're fine.

100% right on.  Morsell also had a lazy cross court pass that got taken the other way for a layup.  Brutal play from a vet.