O-Rebounding-Max and prosper

[DoctorV]

Jop's a contributor. He gets rebounds and is an underrated defender. My only gripe with him is that if he misses his first three 3s, he's most likely not going to make any. But he'll still chuck it 3+ more times anyway.

Id hope so, he plays 31 mpg.

Agreed on him being as streaky as streaky shooter gets...

I've learned that one of Shaka's biggest strengths, and in turn sometimes biggest weaknesses, is that he will never discourage shooters from shooting.

Shooters gone shoot.

Another one is upperclassmen gone play, especially in crunch time.

We saw both of those Shaka tendencies in Jops game last season v NCSt, we've seen a repetition several times this season.

I've come to terms with it, I just hope it falls when it matters.

There is definitely some regression to the mean coming with Jop this conference season, since he's now shooting under 30% from 3 on the season.

All Marquettes do reach equilibrium, afterall

[MuggsyB]

Chase has displayed incredible athleticism this season multiple times with dunks and blocks.

Do we know his ve

Jop's progression with defense and rebounding has been awesome to watch.

His lack of progression with offensive decision making, dribbling, driving and hitting consistently from anywhere on the court hasn't been awesome to watch.

And that's especially harmful this year when we need a consistent 2nd/3rd scorer this season.

This synopsis couldn't be more accurate.  Mitchell, Ross, and Ben are all capable scorers. I'm not saying we should have a specific shot distribution, but rather take the highest percentage shots.  Remember vs Purdue Kam dominated the  game while taking very few shots.  We are at our best in the h-court when we move the ball, using both sides of the floor, and create off of the pass. 

[1SE]

Chase has displayed incredible athleticism this season multiple times with dunks and blocks.

He will play association ball

[DoctorV]

Do we know his ve
This synopsis couldn't be more accurate.  Mitchell, Ross, and Ben are all capable scorers. I'm not saying we should have a specific shot distribution, but rather take the highest percentage shots.  Remember vs Purdue Kam dominated the  game while taking very few shots.  We are at our best in the h-court when we move the ball, using both sides of the floor, and create off of the pass.

Maybe.

It could be that Mitchell, Ross, and Benny are much better offensively on smaller volume thought...

I much prefer the Ben of the past 3 games since Wisconsin over the version I saw previously, and he was pretty bad in the 2H versus Dayton.
He attempted 5,7,4 shots in those games, and 8,10,10,11 shots in 4 of the previous 7

Taking better shots, playing more within himself, being more aggressive when he gets the chance, and playing much better defense because he's concentrating more on that end IMO. Beforehand he would just shoot any 3 he could get an open wink at, and miss a lot more.

I'm not sure Tevie and Chase would lose effectiveness with more volume, but to force it could drastically change the offense.
I will agree that when Mitchell and Ross are on Shaka should encourage them to be more aggressive thought

[CountryRoads]

Interesting comments from Shaka's press conference regarding Sean. It sure sounds like the staff thinks he is healthy enough and looks good, but Sean isn't quite mentally ready to come back. I am thinking he may redshirt this year.

[MountainCreekHouse]

My non-Kam observations:

1) Chase has the highest offensive ceiling.
2) Mitchell is without a doubt the biggest hustler on the floor. 110% every possession.
3) Gold's defense is bad. I love Gold, but he got burned a lot tonight.

MU has a great team this year, but mark my words - the main reason we lose in March will be due to our lack of interior D. Extremely similar to the big man we ran into last year at NC ST.

[Vander Blue Man Group]

My non-Kam observations:

1) Chase has the highest offensive ceiling.
2) Mitchell is without a doubt the biggest hustler on the floor. 110% every possession.
3) Gold's defense is bad. I love Gold, but he got burned a lot tonight.

MU has a great team this year, but mark my words - the main reason we lose in March will be due to our lack of interior D. Extremely similar to the big man we ran into last year at NC ST.

Disagree on Gold.

[Herman Cain]

Was a solid win against a well coached Bulldog squad.

MU has room for improvement.

[K1 Lover]

Disagree on Gold.

Agreed, hard disagree on Gold. This is the kind of take I'd expect from someone who started watching MU last week.

[The Thing]

My non-Kam observations:

1) Chase has the highest offensive ceiling.
2) Mitchell is without a doubt the biggest hustler on the floor. 110% every possession.
3) Gold's defense is bad. I love Gold, but he got burned a lot tonight.

MU has a great team this year, but mark my words - the main reason we lose in March will be due to our lack of interior D. Extremely similar to the big man we ran into last year at NC ST.

I think our season will end due to a terrible shooting night like tonight. It is so frustrating seeing this team just absolutely brick open 3 pointers. Our defense is fine but 3 point shooting could be our downfall.

[GoldenEagles03]

I think our season will end due to a terrible shooting night like tonight. It is so frustrating seeing this team just absolutely brick open 3 pointers. Our defense is fine but 3 point shooting could be our downfall.

I truly don't think this team is as bad at shooting as they are showing, but the data points are starting to add up.

[MuggsyB]

Ben has been defending quite well.  He certainly could be a better rebounder but he's actually been fine on switches and rotating back after hard hedges. 

[MountainCreekHouse]

I think our season will end due to a terrible shooting night like tonight. It is so frustrating seeing this team just absolutely brick open 3 pointers. Our defense is fine but 3 point shooting could be our downfall.

This is an interesting take considering we still won handily tonight.

[MuggsyB]

I think our season will end due to a terrible shooting night like tonight. It is so frustrating seeing this team just absolutely brick open 3 pointers. Our defense is fine but 3 point shooting could be our downfall.

It's a fair concern. 

[MuggsyB]

This is an interesting take considering we still won handily tonight.

Tonight was unusual in how we completely dominated to offensive glass.  We have to find a way to be more accurate on wide open threes. 

[MountainCreekHouse]

Disagree on Gold.

You know what - you are correct. Bad is terrible word choice. He is a good defender.

I'll rephrase by saying our interior "big man" D is a weakness. Not trying to single-out Gold by any means.

[The Thing]

It may be

This is an interesting take considering we still won handily tonight.

a bit of a hot take but if you'll recall how we were bounced out of the NCAA tourney last year....

[Zog from Margo]

Crowd just seemed flat as ever. I guess I'll just be happy with the win against a team that's lost a crooked number of buy games. Time to go win at X.

Lots of threes attempts with almost all of them bricks, no fast breaks, and shaky D will do that to a crowd. The crowd reflected the team in the first half. Teamed turned it up on D to start the 2nd half and the crowd reacted.

[DoctorV]

Ben's been good defensively- tough enough, mobile, agile, not getting beat, good on switches.

However, he failed his one test against a few beasts inside and got bullied by Dayton (of all teams) and isn't rebounding great or blocking shots.

As a matter of fact, Kam, Stevie and Chase are out-rebounding him...

I know Shaka's bigs have a lot of responsibility away from the hoop, but Ben doesn't have nearly as much as Oso did, so time to clean some glass young man

[MountainCreekHouse]

Ben's been good defensively- tough enough, mobile, agile, not getting beat, good on switches.

However, he failed his one test against a few beasts inside and got bullied by Dayton (of all teams) and isn't rebounding great or blocking shots.

As a matter of fact, Kam, Stevie and Chase are out-rebounding him...

I know Shaka's bigs have a lot of responsibility away from the hoop, but Ben doesn't have nearly as much as Oso did, so time to clean some glass young man

Couldn't have articulated it better

[TAMU, Knower of Ball]

You seem upset that I have an opinion.

If jop wasn't on this team, this year, the team would be better on the court

This is an insane opinion. There's more to the game than shooting percentage.

[TAMU, Knower of Ball]

I truly don't think this team is as bad at shooting as they are showing, but the data points are starting to add up.

At this point last season we were shooting 32.8% from three. We finished 35.2%.

This season we are shooting 32.5% from three. We will see where we finish.

[TAMU, Knower of Ball]

and isn't rebounding great or blocking shots.

As a matter of fact, Kam, Stevie and Chase are out-rebounding him...

Ben has a block rate of 4.1% which is 290th best in the country. He's not a shot blocking specialist by any means but he is blocking shots.

Kam is slightly outrebounding Ben. Chase and Stevie have more total rebounds but that's because they play more minutes than Ben. Ben has a higher rebounding rate than both of them. It's an area he can improve on but considering his role he is fine.

[TAMU, Knower of Ball]

Telfort only attempted two shots in the second half and went 1/2. Also got to the free throw line in garbage time.

Brooks only attempted three shots in the second half and went 1/3, though the 1 was an and 1. One of the missed shots came with 47 seconds left.

Excellent erasure of Butler's two best players who were killing us in the first half. Making players miss is impressive, but not even letting them get shots is on another level.

[K1 Lover]

Telfort only attempted two shots in the second half and went 1/2. Also got to the free throw line in garbage time.

Brooks only attempted three shots in the second half and went 1/3, though the 1 was an and 1. One of the missed shots came with 47 seconds left.

Excellent erasure of Butler's two best players who were killing us in the first half. Making players miss is impressive, but not even letting them get shots is on another level.

Shaka's halftime adjustments are simply the best.