I'm fine with easing Mag back into things, but after tonights less-than-stellar performance, we really need his defensive intensity and athleticism, as well as his rebounding - and oh yeah, probably even his ability to make a layup. We'll be a bottom 1/3 of the B1G team without him and a middle of the pack/bubble team with him, IMO. The only reasons I'm not jumping off the ledge yet are that it's early and Princeton is a very good, disciplined, experienced team that shoots and passes well and plays sound defense, and hopefully we'll get Mag back soon.
Tonight was possibly the worst defensive and rebounding performance I've ever seen from a Pike team, including a noticeable lack of hustle at times. Pike has some work to do. Here are a few random comments/observations from the game.
Tonight was possibly the worst defensive and rebounding performance I've ever seen from a Pike team, including a noticeable lack of hustle at times. Pike has some work to do. Here are a few random comments/observations from the game.
- Cliff could've eaten this team alive, but our guards didn't do a good job of getting him the ball in position. He missed a couple, but he also had some very nice shots from inside 10 feet including a couple of nice baby hooks (which are unstoppable given his size). 12/7/4 is decent - he's not the reason we lost.
- In fact, I'd say our guards didn't do that much well. Simpson played poorly with no hoops til the last bucket, Fernandes did ok with 10/3, but was 3-10 and didn't play great defense, Davis was 2-10, but I did like his intensity as he had 7 boards, and Williams had 7 points, but often played ole defense. While these guys are mostly faster than out guards last year, they're generally smaller and didn't play great half court defense.
- Hyatt looked like the same old Hyatt, missing layups and getting beat off the dribble. He needs to score for us to be better and 0-5 isn't going to cut it.
- Gaving simply isn't ready yet, looking completely lost on defense at times, but he also showed off his shot as his two buckets were very nice. He'll get better, I'm sure.
- Woolfolk and Oskar probably had the best games for the squad, as Woolfolk had 10/4 with 2 steals and Oskar had 8/2 with 3 steals.
- I did like that we made several runs, making things close, but every time we did so, we seemed to have terrible defensive mental lapses, giving up easy layups or putbacks. It also hurts to only go 4-14 from deep, while giving up 9-20 - all else being equal (which it's not), that was the difference in the game.
- No issues with Cure Arena, itself (had good seats), although I heard parking was a mess after about 6 pm (we got there by 5 pm); Trenton Social seems like a decent place, but had no staff, so we couldn't get drinks in 10 minutes and left and ate at Taco Bell, since the arena didn't open until 5:50 pm. The pork roll sandwich in the arena was quite good.
- Good turnout of RU fans: was 90+% RU there, which is surprising given how good PU was last year.