#15 Wichita State vs. Indiana State GAME THREAD

[jrschh]

In all of our losses, Armstead and Williams have been lackluster (they are more main culprits because they play the most minutes with the ball in their hands).

All of our "losses" consist of 3 in 22 games. This isn't a shot at you CBB, I just wanted to make a simple point that some on here act like we are now a .500 team. Yes, I was yelling at the TV (well computer screen) last night. Yes, I was very dissappointed in the lackluster way we played.

However, other teams have tried to zone us this year and we did the things we needed to do to break their zone...move w/out the ball, penetrate and get it to the guys who are open for the jumper. Obviously, none of that (except for maybe Fred) happened last night.

Overall, we aren't a great shooting team, but in several of our 19 wins, we've found some other way to win. We didn't do that at all last night. Indiana State was the more disciplined team last night and beat us at our own game. They out "toughed" us. That's probably the first game this year that's happened to us. If that becomes a trend over the next couple of games, that is when I'll start getting worried. One game being out "toughed" is not a trend.

[DPruett2333]

I'll never understand why we don't overload the zone on one side every time down the dang court.

If you put three(or even four) shooters on one(or 1 1/2) side of the court, it creates a major problem for a 2-3 zone because it only has two players guarding the perimeter on each side. At some point that will create an open shot for somebody.

We don't need all of this screening going on when playing against the zone. Just overload one dang side and you can keep a big man(or two) down low.

[shockerfan95]

the valley is turning into a three team race.

http://thecatchandshoot.wordpress.com/2013/01/29/indiana-state-upsets-wichita-state-proves-missouri-valley-is-a-3-team-race/

[DUShock]

JO > MA

[SubGod22]

JO > MA

Last night for sure. And JO didn't do much.

[CBB_Fan]

All of our "losses" consist of 3 in 22 games. This isn't a shot at you CBB, I just wanted to make a simple point that some on here act like we are now a .500 team. Yes, I was yelling at the TV (well computer screen) last night. Yes, I was very dissappointed in the lackluster way we played.

However, other teams have tried to zone us this year and we did the things we needed to do to break their zone...move w/out the ball, penetrate and get it to the guys who are open for the jumper. Obviously, none of that (except for maybe Fred) happened last night.

You are right. We have beaten teams that tried to zone us before, and I didn't do a good job explaining my point. In a different thread, I spoke about consistency, and that is part of the problem I have with our guards in those three losses. It isn't like Armstead and Williams are always making the same mistakes or are bad players, because they have both given us exceptional games when we needed them.

However, they do need to figure out how to lead the team with consistency. Right now, we are playing for seeding and a conference title, so a few bad games aren't really the end of the world, but in just a few games we will be playing for much higher stakes. We need to find a way to do the same things in every game, not just games against VCU and Creighton.

This is where Marshall makes the big bucks. The players need to step it up, but he is the one that needs to find out what it takes to fix our problems. I have confidence in him.

[pie n eye]

We have got to find some sort of half court offense. Dribbling and passing around 5 feet behind the 3 point line until there is 10 seconds on the shot clock then firing up a contested three pointer is not good offense.

I am still so disgusted by the game last night, I'm having a hard time not being overly negative but I thought the days of laying eggs like that at home were behind us.

That said, Indiana State deserves a lot of credit. They came into the roundhouse and gave us a pretty good beating.

[CBB_Fan]

I'll never understand why we don't overload the zone on one side every time down the dang court.

If you put three(or even four) shooters on one(or 1 1/2) side of the court, it creates a major problem for a 2-3 zone because it only has two players guarding the perimeter on each side. At some point that will create an open shot for somebody.

We don't need all of this screening going on when playing against the zone. Just overload one dang side and you can keep a big man(or two) down low.

It looked like that was our gameplan to me. Our strategy seemed to be using the same type of overload that we used against Southern Miss (they ran a 1-3-1, instead of a 2-3 if I remember correctly, but same concept), but Indiana State had obviously gameplanned for it. We tried the same play many times last night without success: overload, ball-screen at the perimeter, try and reverse the ball, repeat. But we did it so slowly that it really did not force Indiana State to work.

Of course, I might be wrong, but I think that was what we were trying to do.

[ShockBand]

I would think in an overload you really need to make quick passes on the reverse flow, skip passing when it comes open. Our passes seemed very slow in happening last night, I thought.

[Shockeriffic]

I'll never understand why we don't overload the zone on one side every time down the dang court.

If you put three(or even four) shooters on one(or 1 1/2) side of the court, it creates a major problem for a 2-3 zone because it only has two players guarding the perimeter on each side. At some point that will create an open shot for somebody.

We don't need all of this screening going on when playing against the zone. Just overload one dang side and you can keep a big man(or two) down low.

That's all we did in the first half. Everyone but Orupke and Armstead would go to one side of the court and Orupke would set a screen so Armstead would drive towards the overloaded side. The problem was that last night the guard on the other side (usually Williams) would hold the ball too long once Armstead got him the ball and the holes in the zone would close up. Also ISU was very good about deciding which shooters to leave open if they got overloaded. No open looks for Wiggins but plenty for Williams and Cotton.

[DPruett2333]

Well just using simple math, an overload has no other option but working IF(and only if) the ball rotation and passes are crisp, which a lot of time they are not.

[DPruett2333]

That's all we did in the first half. Everyone but Orupke and Armstead would go to one side of the court and Orupke would set a screen so Armstead would drive towards the overloaded side. The problem was that last night the guard on the other side (usually Williams) would hold the ball too long once Armstead got him the ball and the holes in the zone would close up. Also ISU was very good about deciding which shooters to leave open if they got overloaded. No open looks for Wiggins but plenty for Williams and Cotton.

Maybe Cotton or Williams could have switched places with Armstead in the half court to allow one of our best three point shooters to get good open shots. Instead, Armstrong is the one trying to find good shots in the 2/3 zone for Cotton and Williams. That doesn't seem like a good plan.

[ShockerPrez]

I think we can all agree that whatever we did last night was NOT the correct approach.

[ShockerFever]

I think Hall touched the ball 8 times, and 6 of those were on rebounds.

I like how DWill was quoted as saying ISUb made them shoot from the outside when DWill has a history of ignoring post players no matter how good their positioning is.

I know they were trying to take away the post play, but you still have to give it to them when they get position. The passing the ball back and forth at the top of the key does nothing. We looked like a bunch of 4th graders out there last night that had never seen a zone defense.

Fred had a nice game. Cotton was OK. Everyone else had major issues. I take that back. Hall did OK. It's not his fault nobody but Fred wanted to pass him the ball.

I've noticed it a lot lately and it becomes even more obvious in a loss. I really like DWill but his flat-out refusal to feed the post or sometimes not even bat an eyelash at it is really starting to piss me off. I dunno how many times post players like would establish amazing position, especially on a break, and watch DWill just simply ignore it. Very old and tiresome. It's not a very great formula to win basketball games against good teams. MA is guilty of this too, but it's really prevalent with DWill. The **** needs to change. Quick. I'm not a coach but one must hope Marshall sees this when they go over hours of game tape.

[CBB_Fan]

Well just using simple math, an overload has no other option but working IF(and only if) the ball rotation and passes are crisp, which a lot of time they are not.

Definitely. Also, we need to find a way to get Cotton involved (maybe he could find his shooting touch from last year?), because teams are definitely exploiting him to cheat on defense. Indiana State did an excellent job scouting us. From what I saw they emphasized:

1. Minimizing interior passing and offensive rebounds
2. Keeping a body close to Early and Wiggins at all times on perimeter, so that they cannot get open shots
3. Playing off of Williams to prevent the drive
4. Cheating on Cotton to give more time for the zone to recover
5. Doubling up on ball to prevent a quick pass and stop the overload

And to be honest, that is a really good strategy. It stops our catch-and-shoot players from getting open shots (Early and Wiggins need space to work), and forces us to beat them with Armstead's decision making and Williams'/Cotton's outside shooting. This should be the gameplan for every opponent going forward. It is especially effective if we have Cotton and Orukpe in at the same time because neither is a real offensive threat, giving the defense a lot of breathing space.

It will be very interesting to see what we do against UNI. Will Marshall throw in a line-up change to throw defenses for a loop (the fabled "all of our big men" line-up perhaps)? Will we run the same plays and just try to execute better? How will we get Early and Wiggins open? Will Cotton find his niche on offense?

I don't have the answers to any of those questions. I do think that this emphasizes our reliance on our defense to create offense though. I feel we are absolutely at our best when our defenses gives us transition opportunities, and this only becomes more important when teams have a good strategy for our half-court offense.

Maybe Cotton or Williams could have switched places with Armstead in the half court to allow one of our best three point shooters to get good open shots. Instead, Armstrong is the one trying to find good shots in the 2/3 zone for Cotton and Williams. That doesn't seem like a good plan.

I noticed that Marshall was using Van Vleet as more of a primary PG and Armstead as an off-ball shooter in the second half. I think we need to see more of that, and probably more of Williams doing the same thing. Williams needs to get better at the passing game though, especially in regards to getting our big men the ball.