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Whew! Didn't Play Well, But Won. Let's Move On.

RU848789

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Jul 27, 2001
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Ugly game. Think we had 7 TOs in the first 6 minutes (and 15 for the game) - terrible ball security/passing, but fortunately, SHU wasn't making that many shots, so we stayed within shouting distance, only down 33-27 at the half and then had a better 2nd half on both O and D, but still not great - and especially not great at the FT line. 13-28. WTF was that and Ace 1-8? He should be hitting 80%, but he wasn't alone on the misses.

But thankfully we went on a nice run from down 45-40 to up 51-47 and it felt like maybe we'd put it away, but we missed a bunch of shots and FTs and could never pull away and SHU even had a chance to win, only down 2 with the ball and eventually tied it up with 6 seconds left and we all know what happened then. Dyl-an Harp-er!!! What a clutch 3 to win from NBA range!

Other than the FTs, Ace had a great game with 21/7 (but 4 TOs) and Harper, who started slow, finished strong with 24/2/2, but also 4 TOs. Derkack played decently with 9/5, but the rest of the supporting cast struggled (didn't play nearly as well as they did against PSU), although JMike did come in and play some terrific defense and JWill also played some good D, as did Sommerville, but these guys only had a combined 5 points. Not much from Hayes (one trey), Acuff or Martini. Ogbole had 4/2 and I sometimes wonder why he doesn't get a few more minutes (only 10).

I'm sure some will whine about the refs, but I'll take 22-15 and 28-13 advantages in fouls/FTs every day of the week - thought we got a good whistle overall. So, we escaped with a win, which is the most important thing, but we're going to need to play better than that to win half or more of our B1G games.

Also, great fun having @AreYouNUTS and @Scangg right in front of us and I got to bring another great fan who used to post here, plus my wife and son, who had a blast at the game. Crowd was better than the team, IMO - got loud very often, despite the often lackluster play. Not Pike's best job getting a team ready, as SHU played with greater intensity much of the game, but he did get us through it with a W.

And last, but not least, I had to push aside a bunch of 9-year olds to catch another t-shirt; that's sarcasm - actually it whistled right past NUTS's ear and into my hands. I let him keep the t-shirt though.
 
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I notice so many threads/posts excoriating Pikiell for this game. A few comments on that. I don't think Pike had the team as ready to go as they should have been, as evidenced by the higher intensity SHU squad, which played out in many ways including our terrible rash of bad turnovers. But once we were down 14-6 midway through the first half, the rest of the half was even, as we played better basketball, with Ace carrying the load.

Also, SHU has a bunch of 4-star talent, but they've underperformed, so far this year - as I said before the game, I expected them to come out with high energy and to give us a game, as this is still a rivalry game, and they did. And if Pike gets the blame for the poor start, certainly he should get some credit for motivating the team to play with higher energy in the 2nd half, when we turned a 45-40 deficit into a 51-47 lead.

The rest of the way, I can't fault Pike for much as we played well and would've won by if we had hit our friggin' FTs, but that's not on the coach. The guys were playing good defense and drawing fouls and in a position to close this out, but our 70+% FT shooters went 5-13 after that point, including a missed front end, so almost like 5-14, instead of an expected 10-14, so 5 missed points, meaning we easily could've won this by 7-9 instead of in dramatic fashion at the end on a trey by Harper.

And in the big picture for this season, we're 1 game behind schedule (the Kinnesaw loss was terrible and probably Pike's worst coaching job), but did play two top 15 teams down to the wire and there's a long way to go. Not sure where we'll end up, though, as this team is certainly inconsistent and challenged, but also is capable of being very good. We'll see.

And in the very big picture, Pike has taken one of the perennially worst hoops programs and turned it into a successful program we can be proud of, featuring 3 NCAA tourney teams (yes, I still count 2020) and we should've had a 4th two years ago and that's light years ahead of every coach we've had since Young. While I'd love to see even more success than that, I'm not going to whine and cry at the results to date.
 
Now can we say JMike doesn’t do enough to warrant his minutes without you calling us low IQ know nothings?
Tweeder drinks beer, I complain 😊
 
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Holloway said last year he didn't have his squad ready for the intensity of this matchup, and I'm sure put much greater emphasis this year. The returning players also had some more energy in this one after losing at home last year.

We played poorly, but this game ended pretty much as I expected going in. No matter the respective level of talent on either side of the ball, Rutgers v SHU has traditionally been a closer game than the spread would indicate. I told my son before the tip that we were 11 point favorites, but this game would likely come down to one or two possessions.

Holloway had his team prepared to ugly up the game, and they did a great job at that. Thankfully Pike got a message through at half time to our guys that got them back in it.

Hoping this late game close out will help to mature this team, and pay dividends later this season.
 
Yesterday ended with a win so that is great But the inconsistently is baffling. We played arguably our best first half of the year against Penn State exactly 1 game ago , and we do not do one thing to duplicate that blueprint. Combination of coaching and players. We must have an offense that gets PJ and Acuff at least 3 three point shots per half. It is a must. I would also think it is easy as Dylan drives gets double teamed and kicks out. I am not even asking for a double screen , a flair screen , a pin down , which for some reason is absent from our offense. There is apparently an attempt by Lathan to screen for PJ when he is in the corner but defenders are not coming off of him.
 
Yesterday ended with a win so that is great But the inconsistently is baffling. We played arguably our best first half of the year against Penn State exactly 1 game ago , and we do not do one thing to duplicate that blueprint. Combination of coaching and players. We must have an offense that gets PJ and Acuff at least 3 three point shots per half. It is a must. I would also think it is easy as Dylan drives gets double teamed and kicks out. I am not even asking for a double screen , a flair screen , a pin down , which for some reason is absent from our offense. There is apparently an attempt by Lathan to screen for PJ when he is in the corner but defenders are not coming off of him.

There's a lot of film on us - when PJ is in the game, his defender is going to stay home, and the guy he's defending is going to try to take him off the dribble. Sommerville can get exposed defensively with a lot of movement/screens by bigs, and Martini struggles to guard in the post against bigger bodies. You can switch off of Davis defensively without getting burned. Etc.

We need to clean some things up and be less predictable - going against what the tape shows. Right now Harper/Bailey are carrying a big load - we need the rest of the team to contribute more.
 
There's a lot of film on us - when PJ is in the game, his defender is going to stay home, and the guy he's defending is going to try to take him off the dribble. Sommerville can get exposed defensively with a lot of movement/screens by bigs, and Martini struggles to guard in the post against bigger bodies. You can switch off of Davis defensively without getting burned. Etc.

We need to clean some things up and be less predictable - going against what the tape shows. Right now Harper/Bailey are carrying a big load - we need the rest of the team to contribute more.
All the more reason Pike has to ramp up the offense with pin downs , pick and pop with Dylan and PJ, flair screens , throw to the post then to the wings. It is essential we get more offense out of our bench and more 3 point attempts from the guys who should be shooting them besides Dylan and ACE.
 
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All the more reason Pike has to ramp up the offense with pin downs , pick and pop with Dylan and PJ, flair screens , throw to the post then to the wings. It is essential we get more offense out of our bench and more 3 point attempts from the guys who should be shooting them besides Dylan and ACE.
We need more three-point attempts in general (310th in 3PA nationally, and 301st in 3P attempt rate).. definitely need to work on some new wrinkles over the next couple of weeks with some additional days between games.
 
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Now can we say JMike doesn’t do enough to warrant his minutes without you calling us low IQ know nothings?
Tweeder drinks beer, I complain 😊
To be fair, I said, "Some low-IQ hoops fans only look at the boxscore and not the actual game." "Some" would not include you - you provide some of the best insights on how sports are played on this board. Not sure who Tweeder is though...
 
To be fair, I said, "Some low-IQ hoops fans only look at the boxscore and not the actual game." "Some" would not include you - you provide some of the best insights on how sports are played on this board. Not sure who Tweeder is though...
Varsity Blues character.
 
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