Semi-Official MSU ESPN2 Game Thread

[shockar25]

Ramon could have played better, and he HAS to become more of a scoring threat.....

I like his effort. He's going to have better nights than others, but if he continues to give the effort that he does, he's going to have more good nights than bad ones. All of this and he's only a little over a week from having surgery on his pinkie.

Add him to the new recruits next year and who knows?

I wish his attitude was contagious. The rest of the players could use a dose of it.

[jocoshock]

Ramon could have played better, and he HAS to become more of a scoring threat.....

I like his effort. He's going to have better nights than others, but if he continues to give the effort that he does, he's going to have more good nights than bad ones. All of this and he's only a little over a week from having surgery on his pinkie.

Add him to the new recruits next year and who knows?

I wish his attitude was contagious. The rest of the players could use a dose of it.

I agree with you, but the broken finger hasn't seen to affect his scoring one way or the other... he just needs to score more...

:posterwu:

[mulligan]

Coach has lost this team. To many holdovers from Turg and his last second effort to build a quick roster in April is not panning out. We are two years away from seeing Coach Marshall's style of basketball. I would expect wholesale roster changes next year. Gottlieb even mentioned in the first half that Marshall is used to coaching much more athletic kids.

[jocoshock]

Coach has lost this team. To many holdovers from Turg and his last second effort to build a quick roster in April is not panning out. We are two years away from seeing Coach Marshall's style of basketball. I would expect wholesale roster changes next year. Gottlieb even mentioned in the first half that Marshall is used to coaching much more athletic kids.

I think some of these guys were lost before GM ever got here....and you're right about the two years thing.... can't wait for the 08 recruits to show up.. and I have a feeling they can't either.... 8)

:goshocks: :goshocks:

[rrshock]

Coach has lost this team. To many holdovers from Turg and his last second effort to build a quick roster in April is not panning out. We are two years away from seeing Coach Marshall's style of basketball. I would expect wholesale roster changes next year. Gottlieb even mentioned in the first half that Marshall is used to coaching much more athletic kids.

It's really starting to look like there will only be a handful stay after the season. Did Butler play tonight? I don't recall seeing Preadom either.

[shockar25]

Coach has lost this team.

As much as I hate to admit it, it's looking like you might be right. I hope not--we've got quite a bit of season left. I'm confident that HCGM probably hates to lose more than anyone, and this has got to be his worst nightmare right now.

However, as a head coach in his first year and given the circumstances I'm sure knows how to have perspective too. He'll need it to get through this up and down season.

Wu will rise again... I hope sooner, rather than alter, but he WILL rise!

[BA2929]

Coach has lost this team. To many holdovers from Turg and his last second effort to build a quick roster in April is not panning out. We are two years away from seeing Coach Marshall's style of basketball. I would expect wholesale roster changes next year. Gottlieb even mentioned in the first half that Marshall is used to coaching much more athletic kids.

It's really starting to look like there will only be a handful stay after the season. Did Butler play tonight? I don't recall seeing Preadom either.

Preadom did play. He was 0-2 from the field with 1 board. I don't believe Butler played at all, if he did he didn't record a stat.

[pinstripers]

No, Butler didn't play. I do not think you will see him on the floor, period. Wendel missed a shot in close and clanged one off from 25 at the buzzer. In that instance, he had no choice but to throw it up since he got the ball dumped on him with about 2 seconds left on the shot clock.

[moshock]

Ok guys, this was my first opportunity to see the Shocks play live this year. There were only about 10 Shocker fans at the game. I had great seats and could see facial expressions and body language. Most of the MSU fans around me were respectfull and were very high on our potential with CGM at the helm.

Here are a few observations.

Gal is definitly playing out of position and because we have no depth at the PG position, CGM had to leave him in way to long and he was out of gas early.

PJ: The two charges that he tried to draw in the first half were not smart. He took two flops when he should have just played solid D. He came out in the second half and played well for the first few minutes but like Gal, ran out of gas shortly after that.

Ramon is a good player and has the quickness and gives the effort but took alot of off balance close shots and that is why they didn't fall. Probably still adjusting to the D1 defensive speed.

JT and AE looked like freshmen. They got lost on D easily. All of their shortcomings are fixable.

Phil played hard.

GH got lost alot on D. The man that was guarding him had him covered like a blanket. IMO, he is too slow to play at a high level at the 2 guard.

BM is probably a great kid, but he's a walk on and we are forced to expect way more than he is physically able to perform. (I said that as nice as I could). I like his and LH's effort.

MSU is not the fastest team in the Valley but their offense ran like a sewing machine tonight. The majority of their 3's were unguarded and MSU's guards had plenty of time to square up and get off an uncontested clean shot. Our guards were way to slow.

When we were on O, they were contesting everything and denying passes. Our shots weren't falling because we were off balance and not squared up on most of our shots. We just were alot slower all the way around and it was throwing us off.

One other thing that may have hindered us that SNers may not know. We had 37 Tornado sightings last night in the SPFLD area and the sirens went off from 6 pm last nite until 4:45 AM this morning. I asked GC if the team got any sleep last nite and he said that they had to go to a shelter in the middle of the night for a while. Could have had something to do with our lack of effort.

Bottom Line is we have a few middle of the road D1 players. The rest just don't have it. The cupboard is not empty but is pretty bare. If we don't play good D, we won't be successful.

GOOD NEWS: Help is on the way next year!!!!

:wsu_posters:

[shockar25]

Thanks for the insightful critique. I agree... the best is definately yet to come, and there's only so much HCGM can do with what we have.

When we outrebound the other teams we play, and when (not tonight) we play decent defense--those are the snapshots of what we're going to see a lot more of in the future.

Hopefully with some better shooting (that actually goes without saying).

[1972Shocker]

Due to unforeseen circumstances I was unable to eiher watch or listen to the game tonight.

After reading the game thread tonight I guess I should consider myself somewhat fortunate for the turn of events that saved me from what would not doubt have been considerable pain and suffering.

This team will face a big challenge to hold things somewhat together for the rest of the year and Shocker fans will be equally challenged to keep our support at least moderately enthusiastic while we wait for reinforcments to arrive in the future.

Unfortunately, I doubt that this will be our last stinker of a game this year, although we will probably have the occassional "where did that come from" game as well.

Very difficult to get a read on this team. A team that does not appear close to finding its identity and probably will be searching all year. Frustrating for the team and the fans. Exasperating for HCGM and staff.