WICHITA STATE (4-0) vs. LIBERTY (3-0) Game Thread

[pinstripers]

I just wish we'd seen some semblance of coaching in the 2nd half of the Liberty game. The wheels started falling off and nothing changed.

that's legit

[Shockm]

Yes? We had a drastic height advantage and definitely an athletic advantage. They were better coached and got their players better shots than ours.

I already said that Liberty shot 14/40 from 3 against us. They only shot 18 3 pointers against Vermont. They effectively negated out height advantage by shooting and making a very good 3 point percentage, and limiting our offensive rebounding.

[Stickboy46]

They have played together as a unit for multiple years. Know each other and the system. Don’t really attribute it to “getting out coached “ but that seems to be a recurring issue with you

Its actually exactly what being outcoached is. Liberty had a better gameplan. They got better shots. We forced stuff and made no adjustments in game. Thankfully they DID make adjustments for the St Louis game.

As far as your "recurring issue" comment. It's also a recurring issue that many on this board with blame ANYTHING but the coach. It's ok to admit HCPM had a bad gameplan and didn't adjust for one game. Doesn't mean he's an awful coach. He just got outcoached for that game. He learned from it and we looked much better versus STL with a much better gameplan that leveraged our advantages.

[SubGod22]

Sometimes even well coached teams have bad games. The thing I like about this current coaching staff is even though we had a bad game our team came out against SL and played great. That to me is good coaching.

I just wish we'd seen some semblance of coaching in the 2nd half of the Liberty game. The wheels started falling off and nothing changed.

[Stickboy46]

Sometimes even well coached teams have bad games. The thing I like about this current coaching staff is even though we had a bad game our team came out against SL and played great. That to me is good coaching.

Agreed, the coaching in the St Louis game was much better. They took advantage of of the mismatch there. They did not in the Liberty game and made no adjustments in game

[Woodrow]

Yes? We had a drastic height advantage and definitely an athletic advantage. They were better coached and got their players better shots than ours.

Sometimes even well coached teams have bad games. The thing I like about this current coaching staff is even though we had a bad game our team came out against SL and played great. That to me is good coaching.

[pogo]

Yes? We had a drastic height advantage and definitely an athletic advantage. They were better coached and got their players better shots than ours.

They have played together as a unit for multiple years. Know each other and the system. Don’t really attribute it to “getting out coached “ but that seems to be a recurring issue with you

[Shockm]

Yes? We had a drastic height advantage and definitely an athletic advantage. They were better coached and got their players better shots than ours.

I'm not sure that Liberty got better shots (at least not wider open than our shots), but they were hitting their shots (several of them were 25 footers). If Liberty doesn't hit their 3 point shots (14/40 compared to our 2/14 = 36 points), we win, and they lose. They physically, and smartly contested (chested up, and borderline fouling) every shot, and were content with Bell (isolating 1 on 1) getting into the lane, taking contested shots, as long as we didn't get the rebound when he missed. They boxed out really well, and were content with rebounding. The spacing that Mills emphasizes so well, doesn't help as well against a smaller, quick, smart team who plays good defense.

Suffice it to say that Liberty is a larger teams Kryptonite if they hit their 3's. It happens all the time.

[Stickboy46]

not wanting to beat a dead horse, but "A LOT OF ADVANTAGES"?

Yes? We had a drastic height advantage and definitely an athletic advantage. They were better coached and got their players better shots than ours.

[molly jabali]

We weren't outmanned last night though. We had a LOT of advantages over them. They only played 7 players until they cleared the benches at the end, same as us. They were just playing cohesive offense. We weren't. If we were playing Houston .. then sure we would be outmanned.

not wanting to beat a dead horse, but "A LOT OF ADVANTAGES"?

[Stickboy46]

Overall KP ranking? Or specific stats? I’d like to know if I should lower my hopes for the future. It’s strange, when the hire was made people all over said we got a good one. But while I’m not particularly on or off the Mills bus, I am very nervous.

Overall KP is ok, not good not bad

2020: 135
2021: 125
2022: 165
2023: 72

The part that concerns me, is they got those numbers against schedules that look primarily like this

https://imgur.com/a/kRcEqi0

That's some horrendous scheduling even outside of how bad the summit league was and they lost basically every game against a team with a pulse.

They generally did have a Top 75ish offense, but the Defense ranged from at best 116 to as bad as 290. As stated by someone above, his teams generally don't turn the ball over and take a lot of 3s. Which so far is the opposite of us right now (we turn the ball over in the middle of d1 rankings, and right now have one of the lowest 3pt attempt %).

[MadDog]

It’s I guess a stretch to say KP is light-years ahead of anybody. He has the skills but his presence is lackluster. I would bench him until he showed some enthusiasm for the game. I'm all for KP getting better but he's got to start showing it. Dancing around to get a 5' shot off when you 6'11" will not get it done. Get aggressive for Goodness sake.

Well super soft KP did score 16 points in the first game of the tournament. But that was a long time ago. And yes, KP is light years ahead of Germany. I will honestly be surprised if Germany scores 16 points the rest of the season. He appears to me to be this years Joe Pleasant. Fortunately HCPM has the good sense not to play him.

[BAShocker]

#0, Porter, for Liberty makes my “All gym rat dbags I want to punch in the throat” Team.

With that, I’d take him on my team.

[pinstripers]

There was a good halftime adjustment ........... by Ritchie McKay

[TrackSuitAndTie]

Overall KP ranking? Or specific stats? I’d like to know if I should lower my hopes for the future. It’s strange, when the hire was made people all over said we got a good one. But while I’m not particularly on or off the Mills bus, I am very nervous.

I will say that it's hard to build a juggernaut in the Summit League. HCPM should be able to garner better results with better players/resources.