Late game gave me a shot to watch the whole thing after getting back from watching one of my freshmen girls go for 17 and 12 in a Rockford win over East Kentwood.
+3
1. Big, big, win. Thank God for the 15-0 start. Beat a very good and red-hot Maryland team. Stacking key wins to get into the tourney and for seeding purposes matter a lot. Because of how well we can defend and how much we can struggle on offense, no game is a lock and no game is out of reach. This was a monster win in terms of resume.
2. There are stretches of games where we absolutely defend the life out of the other team in the half-court. They end up throwing up a "3" as the shot clock expires or taking some desperation shot because we make life so hard on them for 30 seconds. In the stretch from 4:20 to 2:30, when we again couldn't score, we forced tough 2-pointers on back to back possessions as we extended the lead to 7. Half-court defense is and will continue to be the bread and butter of this team.
3. Shot 44% from the floor, 45% from 3, and 77% at the line. 20 for Joey and 17 for Tyson. Needed to make shots just to get to 63 points but made some big ones tonight.
*** An extra + tonight, this team plays hard. They play with energy. They play for each other. They are limited on the high-end talent scale and very limited at what they can do on the offensive end, but I never doubt their effort. Coach demands it and they bring it. That's what you get with one of the best coaches ever and a great staff. They demand effort each and every day and this team brings it. Don't take that for granted, it's not like that everywhere. You don't miss jumpers on purpose. You aren't a top 30ish defensive team in the nation, without elite athletes, unless you really play hard. Lots of love and respect for this team along those lines.
-3
1. It's not a good offensive team. Healthy, not healthy. Rested or not rested. The "we aren't scoring" because we played so many games in so many days was a funny narrative. I don't buy that "if we could just be consistent." It's going to be almost impossible to be consistent when your offense revolves around jumpers and you don't have elite/all-conference talent. That's not consistency, that's just math and Jimmy's and Joe's. Mini-rant incoming...The kind of narrative where a basketball resume should be attached along with the person sharing that opinion. Speaking of that, I've been reminded of one of my favorite quotes a few times lately, "don't take criticism from someone you wouldn't take advice from." There are a lot of people who know more about the game than me. That's why I don't speak down to them or talk in absolutes. I've been blessed to be in meetings and around quite a few of those people, which has made me understand how much more they really know than me. Some out there simply don't know what they don't know. Be careful who you take "analysis" from on Twitter. MSU, like other fan bases, has people breaking games down on there that wouldn't last 30 seconds in a meeting with our coaching staff. Anyone can have a podcast with no basketball playing, coaching, or analyzing resume. They're just fans with a social media handle. Their word carries weight for some odd reason. Just tread lightly and listen for at least minimally-educated takes.
We are 70th in offensive efficiency heading into the game and this won't help. We haven't scored 71 or more points in 10 straight games. Winning this way and with this offense is so hard. The other team is scoring on drives to the rim, post-ups, and free throws. It's not really that we are inconsistent, that's just a tough model to sustain, systematically. Even as good of a shooting team as we can be, that's a tough formula. It actually makes 15-9, 7-6 more impressive to me.
2. There's a handful of guys we simply need more from. On both ends.
3. We entered the game with a free throw rate of 25.2% which is 332nd out of 363 teams. While we are shooting 74% at the line, we simply don't get there enough.
MISC
* A ton of credit to Willard. That zone gave us fits. Had us out of rhythm on the offensive end. Morphed it into different looks/coverages and had us out of sync. Sometimes it looked like we wanted to run our zone stuff, other times some man stuff (especially late shot clock), but their defense vs. our offense was definitely won by Willard and that zone tonight.
* With the game on the line on 4 straight possessions from 2:30-:33, we didn't hit the rim on 3 consecutive trips (AJ blocked, Tyson backboard only layup, Tyson blocked) and missed a jumper on the 4th. That type of offensive execution has cost us games and almost did again. We were running down the clock and running late ball-screen offense or iso's and it didn't produce anything.
* AJ with another up and down game but ended with 8 points, 8 assists, and 10 rebounds.
* Played the percentages to foul Reese late and it worked out. Wish we would follow the math when Walker got his 3rd foul early in the 2nd half, but I know that's another story. That's when the 12-0 run began.
* I would continue to play less and less possessions with a true 5-man. I'm just wanting to play my best 5 players for as often as possible.
* Because we can guard and because jump-shooting teams get hot, I wouldn't want to play us in the B1G or NCAA tourney, despite how rough we look at times. You might beat us in a 7 game series as jump shot percentages find their water, but in a 1 game format....
* Amazing play/pass by AJ on the late throw downcourt to Hall. Have no idea how he saw him and then executed such a great pass. That was right after he knocked down 2 huge FT
+3
1. Big, big, win. Thank God for the 15-0 start. Beat a very good and red-hot Maryland team. Stacking key wins to get into the tourney and for seeding purposes matter a lot. Because of how well we can defend and how much we can struggle on offense, no game is a lock and no game is out of reach. This was a monster win in terms of resume.
2. There are stretches of games where we absolutely defend the life out of the other team in the half-court. They end up throwing up a "3" as the shot clock expires or taking some desperation shot because we make life so hard on them for 30 seconds. In the stretch from 4:20 to 2:30, when we again couldn't score, we forced tough 2-pointers on back to back possessions as we extended the lead to 7. Half-court defense is and will continue to be the bread and butter of this team.
3. Shot 44% from the floor, 45% from 3, and 77% at the line. 20 for Joey and 17 for Tyson. Needed to make shots just to get to 63 points but made some big ones tonight.
*** An extra + tonight, this team plays hard. They play with energy. They play for each other. They are limited on the high-end talent scale and very limited at what they can do on the offensive end, but I never doubt their effort. Coach demands it and they bring it. That's what you get with one of the best coaches ever and a great staff. They demand effort each and every day and this team brings it. Don't take that for granted, it's not like that everywhere. You don't miss jumpers on purpose. You aren't a top 30ish defensive team in the nation, without elite athletes, unless you really play hard. Lots of love and respect for this team along those lines.
-3
1. It's not a good offensive team. Healthy, not healthy. Rested or not rested. The "we aren't scoring" because we played so many games in so many days was a funny narrative. I don't buy that "if we could just be consistent." It's going to be almost impossible to be consistent when your offense revolves around jumpers and you don't have elite/all-conference talent. That's not consistency, that's just math and Jimmy's and Joe's. Mini-rant incoming...The kind of narrative where a basketball resume should be attached along with the person sharing that opinion. Speaking of that, I've been reminded of one of my favorite quotes a few times lately, "don't take criticism from someone you wouldn't take advice from." There are a lot of people who know more about the game than me. That's why I don't speak down to them or talk in absolutes. I've been blessed to be in meetings and around quite a few of those people, which has made me understand how much more they really know than me. Some out there simply don't know what they don't know. Be careful who you take "analysis" from on Twitter. MSU, like other fan bases, has people breaking games down on there that wouldn't last 30 seconds in a meeting with our coaching staff. Anyone can have a podcast with no basketball playing, coaching, or analyzing resume. They're just fans with a social media handle. Their word carries weight for some odd reason. Just tread lightly and listen for at least minimally-educated takes.
We are 70th in offensive efficiency heading into the game and this won't help. We haven't scored 71 or more points in 10 straight games. Winning this way and with this offense is so hard. The other team is scoring on drives to the rim, post-ups, and free throws. It's not really that we are inconsistent, that's just a tough model to sustain, systematically. Even as good of a shooting team as we can be, that's a tough formula. It actually makes 15-9, 7-6 more impressive to me.
2. There's a handful of guys we simply need more from. On both ends.
3. We entered the game with a free throw rate of 25.2% which is 332nd out of 363 teams. While we are shooting 74% at the line, we simply don't get there enough.
MISC
* A ton of credit to Willard. That zone gave us fits. Had us out of rhythm on the offensive end. Morphed it into different looks/coverages and had us out of sync. Sometimes it looked like we wanted to run our zone stuff, other times some man stuff (especially late shot clock), but their defense vs. our offense was definitely won by Willard and that zone tonight.
* With the game on the line on 4 straight possessions from 2:30-:33, we didn't hit the rim on 3 consecutive trips (AJ blocked, Tyson backboard only layup, Tyson blocked) and missed a jumper on the 4th. That type of offensive execution has cost us games and almost did again. We were running down the clock and running late ball-screen offense or iso's and it didn't produce anything.
* AJ with another up and down game but ended with 8 points, 8 assists, and 10 rebounds.
* Played the percentages to foul Reese late and it worked out. Wish we would follow the math when Walker got his 3rd foul early in the 2nd half, but I know that's another story. That's when the 12-0 run began.
* I would continue to play less and less possessions with a true 5-man. I'm just wanting to play my best 5 players for as often as possible.
* Because we can guard and because jump-shooting teams get hot, I wouldn't want to play us in the B1G or NCAA tourney, despite how rough we look at times. You might beat us in a 7 game series as jump shot percentages find their water, but in a 1 game format....
* Amazing play/pass by AJ on the late throw downcourt to Hall. Have no idea how he saw him and then executed such a great pass. That was right after he knocked down 2 huge FT
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