Official Shox vs Red Birds thread

[wusphlash]

Why did we not have our 5's lay back to the basket? I don't remember any of their 5's taking a shot from the line. All they did is draw ours away from the basket so the guards could dribble drive. We need to figure this out by the time we returun this game.

[ShockBand]

Here is a screengrab from the online video at ESPN. Can you say ELEVATE?

[AndShock]

http://i.imgur.com/ZKQup7f.png

http://m.espn.go.com/general/video?vid=12120450&src=desktop&ex_cid=espnFB

[Cdizzle]

Before i forget someone please explain to me how cotton only had 5 seconds for his monster jam? They called palming on the red birds. How do you have possession to turn over and not reset the shot clock?!

They did not call palming. They called the Illinois St. player who touched the ball for not having legally established himself back inbounds. It works the same as if he was standing on the end line when he touched the ball. As such, he never gained possession and the shot clock should not have reset.

If only they had ever ACTUALLY called palming on the redbirds. There game plan was 1. Set an occasionally legal screen. 2. Palm the ball to gain an advantage in change of direction around said screen. 3. Take 3-5 steps from the 3pt line toward the basket. 4. Jump into nearest defender. 5. Throw ball in the air and flail hands wildly. 6. Look around for a ref.

It wasn't a terrible plan. It mostly worked. Unfortunately for them, they did not have Kemba Walker on their team.

[Jeffrey Korchek]

There game plan was 1. Set an occasionally legal screen. 2. Palm the ball to gain an advantage in change of direction around said screen. 3. Take 3-5 steps from the 3pt line toward the basket. 4. Jump into nearest defender. 5. Throw ball in the air and flail hands wildly. 6. Look around for a ref.

It wasn't a terrible plan. It mostly worked. Unfortunately for them, they did not have Kemba Walker on their team.

This is pretty accurate.

[CBB_Fan]

Evan Wessel got a standing ovation from a lot of the crowd tonight, with a typical Wessel box score of 3 points, 4 rebounds. And he deserved every second of it. More than any other player on our team, he defines Shocker basketball and the concept of "play angry". I honestly believe that when he is in the entire team plays on his wavelength and does the little things right, and when he is out our rebounding and toughness suffer. Not to say that we don't have tough men on our team, or that Evan Wessel is our best player because neither of those are true. But he's very important just in his ability to establish our play style in his own way, in much the same way we need Fred's calm leadership or Baker's scoring or Cotton's defense.

In other news, I liked the effort from Shaq tonight but the question is always going to be his consistency. He needs give that effort every game, even if it doesn't seem to give the same results. I think Marshall is being deliberate with our young posts and giving them a lot of time to prove themselves over a course of a game. Nurger for instance didn't play this game, largely because Marshall wanted to test Shaq (IMO). I think we'll see that Shaq, Nurger, and Kelly will all have games they sit out or play very little but might play 15+ the next game. Hopefully we find some consistency by March though.

The game was ugly, but it seemed that was a conscious decision by Illinois State. They saw that the refs were calling a lot of fouls, and tried to turn the game into a FT shooting contest. It worked relatively well, but I can hardly say that the redbirds played good basketball. We got better shots, worked harder for loose balls, and generally played better. The only real area of concern is rebounding, but a lot of that seemed just to be nature of the bounces tonight more than a lack of effort. It was annoying how stop-go the action was, but I felt relatively comfortable throughout the game because the foul calling ensured that neither team made any runs.

[Downtown Shocker Brown]

For those worried about Nurger, realize a couple games he has been the main big, a couple games it has been Wamukota, and a couple games Morris that was called first off the bench. Wamukota I think did a pretty good job against Lynch, but Morris was better against thier 6'8 guys.

Last year Carter was limited or didnt play some games due to matchups.

[wsushox1]

After watching the RB block. They need to move the stanchion further back.

[mjbaker84]

glad to get a win!
redturd's are a decent team too.
Shaq played well in most of his 10 minutes and def helped win the game.

Baker... do i need to say anything else?
Cotton... another dunk, another highlight!

[Mr. Pickle]

One of these games, we are going to finally bust out. Not sure when that will happen, but we will.

Seemed like we played a lot harder tonight than the last few games, and I really enjoyed the effort.

I think we go as far as Shaq develops and stays on the floor this season. If he "gets it", I think some really good things could happen. If not, then I think it will just be a solid year. Either way, glad to get the W with a chance to move to 3-0 on Wednesday.

[shocks771]

Glad we got the win tonight. The strangest part of this game is that I've watched Illinois State play 5-6 games this year and they played zone defense at least 80% of the time and they virtually played none tonight. Very curious move by Muller considering the troubles we have had against the zone this season.

[vancedave56]

He probably figured we had been practicing against a zone the last few days entirely, so why not take us by surprise with man to man?

[Downtown Shocker Brown]

The downside to playing out best 5 right now is that we go 6'7, 6'4, 6'4, 6'3, 6'0.

That is not gong to win very many rebounding fights.

The good news is that we dont need the rebounding as much as our best 5 is quite a bit better than their beat 5.

[Hurley]

Congrats to the Birds - on the moral victory

[SHOXAAC]

Not sure if it's been mentioned, but Nurger was under the weather today according to Marshall.