Hamstrung

[tower912]

1.  Conference road games.  Oy.  Cannot take them for granted.  Especially at Providence.  What a hellhole.
2.  MU avoided injuries for 40 ish games.   Eventually, they catch up. 
3.  Chase stepped on the defender's foot on his plant step.  Nails for coming back.
4.  Ben needs to step up.   No other choice.
5.  Providence was the more aggressive team.  That usually leads to a win.   Punched MU in the mouth and they never recovered.
6. Experienced players flustered, frustrated,  and careless.  Not connected on either end.  No assists.
7.  Can't come back by missing lay ups and not getting stops.
8.  The freshmen in the second half played hard.   Playing quality minutes during a whoopin' will pay dividends.
9.  Providence had a defensive scheme to disrupt MU's offense.  It is safe to assume other teams will as well.  What will MU's countermove be?
10.  Thank goodness Georgetown is next.  Heal faster, Stevie.

[ChitownSpaceForRent]

Honestly it's starting to feel very similar to the volleyball team this year.

You return everybody except one player from an incredibly successful team. You have one of the best playmakers in the country (Kolek/Anchante) and have very good good supporting cast.

But, there's one glaring weakness (post presence/physical pin hitter) that the coach had the opportunity to go out at fix in the offseason through the portal and the respective coaches just don't do so for whatever reason.

Add to that the replacement player that takes over for said person who left just isn't up to the level, and you're left with a flawed roster.

Getting Stevie back will help, but I said all offseason. You have to take advantage of tournament runs when they're presented to you, just can't assume you'll be in the some position the following season.

[MuggsyB]

Beyond the obvious we're not winning games if Oso is a non factor and we have few assists and double digit turns.  It was an atrocious performance, there's no way to sugarcoat this fact.  I think we'll be fine but I'm concerned about wide open misses from distance. 

[The Sultan]

I'm very unimpressed with the bench right now.

[MUfan12]

I'm very unimpressed with the bench right now.

This is the issue. And when two starters aren't playing well it's an incredibly tall ask.

[warriorfred]

Soft!

[MUeng]

Cooley knows how to beat this Marq team, proved it last year. Georgetown is no gimme

[muhoops1]

Right now MU can't hit 3's.  That's a big issue. 

[JamilJaeJamailJrJuan]

That was a really hard game to watch. All facets. Need Stevie back real bad.

[21Jumpstreet]

Number 9 is what I think bothers me the most. I always thought Shaka made great adjustments, changed schemes, but recently it looks like we will do one thing and it's do or die. Maybe we just don't have the horses, which is crazy to think with the talent of our big three

[PGsHeroes32]

Yeah as great as Shaka is and as happy as I am to have him

His refusal to portal is officially bordering on negligent.

Jop as a 6th man and Chase the 7th? Great. Jop as a starter driving the hole and shooting like 35% on the year? That is MU fans everywhere being introduced to darkness.

[AlumKCof93]

This team misses the defensive presence, rebounding and energy of Omax.  While I hoped his loss would be offset by a stronger offensive team, that hasn't materialized. 
For this team to meet expectations, we need someone to step up.  The opportunity is there for Jop, Chase, Ben, and the freshman.  Who is it going to be?

[TFlegend]

This team is flawed.  Pining for Stevie Mitchell reminds me of the days people here thought a healthy Greg Elliott is all we needed to turn the season around...lol.   Stevie wasn't changing the result tonight.  The supporting cast continues to disappoint. 

Doing nothing with a 2 seed last year is going to haunt us. 

[Mu8891]

Chitown ... excellent post.

This team is flawed.  It was a serious mistake to not get help ( a big ... and a real 3 point shooter ) in the portal

Lots of problems w / this team right now

[mileskishnish72]

Re:
4. May never happen.
5. Just like a year ago, they were more physical and were allowed to get away with it.
9. So did Wisky, and there will be others.

I never thought I'd see a more frustrating game than the one here a year ago but I was wrong.
Shaka's got a lot of work to do. We bounced back pretty nicely from the opening PC loss a year  ago so all is not lost.


Like the Badgers, I'm getting sick of losing to these jerks.

[CountryRoads]

The "no mid range shots" rule really leads to a lot of terrible forced shots at the rim.

[Johnny B]

Cooley knows how to beat this Marq team, proved it last year. Georgetown is no gimme

Yeah coming off a garbage performance horrible Georgetown on a Friday night at home is about as gimme as it gets in this league. 2nd to only DePaul.

[MuggsyB]

Psychologically it's much different being the hunter than the hunted.  That said our bench certainly has had their struggles and if 2 of our top 3 guys play poorly it's a daunting task to beat good teams. 

I thought Kam really struggled tonight from a decision making standpoint.  Then, when Kolek was not getting fouls at the rim, he lost his composure which can't happen.  When our top 3 play well things are much easier for the auxiliary guys.  This evening wasn't their night. 

[ChitownSpaceForRent]

I'm very unimpressed with the bench right now.

I just don't see Sean being a high impact player at this level. Have personally never seen what other people do.

Like I get it, he's fast, but he's still 5'7" without a capable 3 point shot.

[Juan Anderson's Mixtape]

Really missed Stevie tonight.  Ross was not good, even before tweaking his ankle.

And really starting to miss O-Max.  One less athlete to get easy buckets in transition, get to the rim, or get to the FT line.  Joplin has a different game but he needs to step up.

[nyg]

Just a poor, poor game. Two in a row. Let's see a breakout against a terrible Georgetown team.  Anything less than a blowout at home will stir anxiety.

Not going to win if
-  4 for 20 from three
-  7 assists to 14 turnovers
-  Oso getting dominated in first half by portal transfer from George Mason
-  nothing, nothing from bench. Especially Gold, not good.
-  fouling three times on threes, Shaka gonna go nuts on them.

Any mention as of right now, of Joplin, Gold, Ross and yes, Lowery going to NBA is just insane. 

Good news, your probable starting point guard next year, Sean raised his three point percentage two points to 15%. Now 4 for 26 on year. 

Let's get back to playing smart and have to hit threes as usual.

[Vander Blue Man Group]

Home game in 3 days against Georgetown and another week off before Creighton at home. Get healthy, make some adjustments and we'll be fine.

[Jay Bee]

Dominated the "FT% Battle"!!!! 

[El Guerrero 2]

Shaka's stubbornness in the offseason coming home to roost. This team is an impact rebounder/rim protector away from being a true contender.

That being said, it's one game and hopefully the guys learn from it. We need to get mentally tougher and that starts with TyKo. We had it down to 4 early in the 2nd half and then Tyler lost his cool with Ayers and it changed the whole vibe of the game in a negative way.

[MUfan12]

They looked out of ideas offensively. That can happen when absolutely nothing goes in. Turnovers were more troubling.

Defensively... Hooo boy. So much overhelping. So much ball watching. So many soft switches that lead to mismatches.

The amount of open corner threes they give up is asking for trouble.