WSU vs SMU Game Thread

[vancedave56]

I really think we 'grind it out" too much on offense; our personnel has change - we actually still need to get good shots, but more possessions and not so tentative. Defense still needs to be the staple.

[vancedave56]

I really think we 'grind it out" too much on offense; our personnel has changed - we actually still need to get good shots, but more possessions and not so tentative. Defense still needs to be the staple.

[Walker]

Last year, one of the best things that happened to us was the the loss to ISUr. Hopefully this is the wake up call this team needs and has a similar effect it did last year. I thought we were starting to fix the breakdowns in our perimeter defense, but it was exposed once again today. SMU was calm and composed and was in full control of the tempo. Big difference from their game in Cincy. I suppose 3 game losing streak and a week to prepare helps with that.

Drink water, drive on. On to the next one!

[Singeril]

One guy always going off. I think we have reached the point we can quit calling it coincidence.

Would agree with this. And also, I’m tired of hearing we have a “target on our back”. We’ve had that for YEARS. You have to be able to deal with it. No more excuses. No more cliches.

There is no excuse for coming out flat and falling behind so many times. If you are the #4 or #7 team in the nation, you have to expect more out of yourself. Get Mental tough.

[Zubcut]

What's very concerning about this game is their second best player played 5 minutes because of injury. Their third and fourth best players sat on the bench a majority of the second half with 4 fouls. And this is a team that basically plays only seven players because of a very thin bench. Usually we wear teams like this down. Milton played 40 minutes. Yet we looked like we had no answers. SMU looked comfortable the entire game. We look extremely passive against zone teams. Against this zone press we are so tentative that we start our offense with 20 seconds on the shot clock. We don't ever make teams pay for pressing us.

[wusphlash]

Jank pulled from the ISUR Saint Louis playbook, dribble drive and kick. They shot well and Shake was the difference.

Our offensive movement the first half was poor.

We don't have a real stopper.

We could easily lose again. Doesn't mean we won't take the hardware. This is what we signed up for.

Oh, and by the way, Chris Jans has moved on. Get over it. The program is bigger than that.

[1979Shocker]

Can we please put to bed that Zach is a defensive stopper.

They need to get rid of the defensive player of the game segment on the post game radio show. It's always 1 of 2 or 3 players. It was Kelly tonight.

[jdshock]

Yeah, we need to work on our perimeter defense, but Trae Young and (apparently) Milton are about the only two dudes we're going to face in college basketball who are capable of draining them from the logo shot after shot after shot.

I'm not convinced we need to drastically change our game plan based on two games where someone got really hot. Brown is still an excellent defender. We still have stuff to work on, but the ou loss and smu loss both took incredible offensive efforts and we were still in the games at the end.

But please, HCGM, watch the game tape and see how effective it was for SMU to call a timeout when we started on a run and got it within one.

[forevershockerfan]

Shake played all 40 minutes. From various spots, he shot the rock 26 times and missed only 4 and scores a career high 33.

Here is what I thought happened on our frigid 3-point shooting night LS was 5-10 and CF 3-8 even though he made his first couple of 3's. From 3-point land, the rest of the Shocks were 3-13 on three points. The coldest of all was Z. Brown with 1-5. SMU also made 5 more throws than us.

SMU executed a solid game plan and shot the ball very well tonight and scored more points than the Shocks usually allow in a home game.

[CBB_Fan]

We are a bad defensive team for the first time in a long time. Losing to hot shooting teams is part of the game for teams without stoppers.

Back in the day teams used to just say they had their worst game of the year against us, night after night, and we we would say "it's not coincidence, it's our defense." Now they have their best game against us, night and after night, and we have to say "it's not coincidence, it's our defense."

The only way to go far in March is to improve.

[Play Angry]

SMU played their best game of the season, hands down. They earned it.

We made critical mistakes at key times around the 18 minute mark and the 12 minute mark. The Mustangs made us pay and then some. It was painful since it felt like the tide was turning in each instance.

We better be up for Saturday's game - it would be wonderful if we could play like it is our Super Bowl instead of vice versa.

Overall, I am bummed but not overly concerned. They simply had our number tonight - we played okay, they played phenomenal.

[Shox The Revenant]

Someone school me, SHJ is the quickest dude on the team right? When we face top tier guards like Milton, would it make sense to match up our quickest with theirs? Lack of offense would make up for defensive stops. I don't know much about SHJ, so that's why I'm asking.

[ShockerDropOut]

Shake Milton goes 6'6", SHJ goes 6'0". It is a bad matchup for SHJ.

[Zubcut]

But please, HCGM, watch the game tape and see how effective it was for SMU to call a timeout when we started on a run and got it within one.

I agree. I get the impression that Marshall got burned a couple of times having no time outs at the end of the game, and he swore to himself he would never let that happen again. But sometimes you have to stop the momentum. Jankovich did it twice and it worked both times. However, ít is more important to have TOs at the end of the game when you're behind than when you're ahead.

[mjbaker84]

The bigger worry for me, I know its a ways away... but next year the shockers will be losing a ton of scoring, experience, size, defense, poise.
Do we expect better scorers and defense without : Landry, Shaq, Willis, Brown, Kelly, Conner, and Nurger.

[WuDrWu]

Milton is an excellent player that gave us an A++ performance tonight. You're just not going to win many games when the opponent shoots 64+% 50% from 3 and is perfect from the line until the end.

1.38 PPP for the Mustangs. Give them credit. Milk the clock, go one on one and hope you make shots. You look like a genius when it works.

1.38 PPP

Shocks outrebounded a team that missed on 17 FGA. That's astounding to me. I don't fault our effort one bit. We're just a bit under-athetic for the talent in this league. We have the size, just not quite the athletes.

SMU needed to be perfect or close to win. Congrats.

Kind of funny to hear Gregg gripe about wasting time taking the ball out of bounds when we went to the Final Four using the exact same principle.

Lots of confidence in Austin letting him guard Shake at the end. I was surprised.

Hindsight is 20/20 but we should have fouled starting at the under 8. That's how desperate the situation was. Congrats SMU. See you in Dallas.

On to Houston.