#12 WSU @ #18 UNI - Game Thread

[Turd Furgeson]

Some good stuff in this thread shocker fans. Some of my favorites were: "that was UNI's super bowl," "not an attractive person in the crowd," "its Elgins' fault," "Tuttle only had 8 or 9 real points," and my personal favorite "that was an ass lickin."

Guys, that was UNI's superbowl, our fans superbowl too, someone should have told Wichita it was theirs too. We play in the Valley, we had ESPN broadcasting coast to coast two top 25 teams for the first time 30 years in the Valley. If you guys can't get up for that I don't know what your going to get up for. I know you went to the final four two years ago, thats awesome. What a run, you guys are an amazing program, but yesterday should have been your superbowl too. It was a butt "lickin." I don't anticipate UNI doing the same thing in Wichita and i'm really looking forward to a much better game in Wichita.

All wichita fans I met yesterday were great fans and great people. I hope they had a good experience in cedar falls other than the outcome. Weather did get really bad afer game. Our trip back to Des Moines was not a fun one. Hopefully all made it home safe. I will bid you farewell for a few weeks and see you on the 28th! Please don't lose again until then!

if you think that WSU fans thought of yesterday as a "super bowl" type game then you are dilusional. Enjoy the win and know that you still have to play us at least once and perhaps twice before its all said and done.

[shoxlax]

I have four comments about the game/weekend and this should sum up my feeling regarding the same perfectly:
1. The highlight of my day yesterday was watching the WSU track team at the UNI DOME;
2. We had one bad recruiting evaluation last year and it is really hurting us now as we are having to piecemeal an interior defense;
3. If we don't play more zone the rest of the season, I will be stunned. I think/hope reality set in with the coaching staff.
4. I am still stuck in Des Moines and will be until tomorrow but at least I get to go watch the Lady Shockers maybe salvage the weekend.

[forevershockerfan]

We had to wonder how the Shocks would do with 8 new players and losing all of our bigs, including Cle (ouch) except Carter. So here we are tied now tied for first in the Valley at 9-1 and 19-3 overall after playing a tougher Non-Con schedule. Looking at the big picture, that's not chopped liver unless you expect eggs in your beer. Now we can build on this solid start as we continue to develop these 8 new players as we march to March. Marshall is a blessing to have here as our Coach and he will continue to develop this very young team to the best we can be. 1 Valley loss is not something for us to expect to crumble and fall apart like a stale cookie but rather understanding it is part of this crazy unpredictable game of basketball. We can expect every team we face to do their very best to beat us. That is part of the excitement of playing the game. Relax, take a deep breath, and understand that the Shocks are still alive and well here on Planet Earth, 3rd rock from the Sun and our Shocks will give it their all.

Yesterday's loss did not appear to me as one that we did not play hard and I do think we were prepared. However, our execution was way off. We can credit some of that to UNI's defense which was indeed impressive. However, we missed wide open shots, easy shots, and just had a bad game. Better to get that out of our system now than later on when winning games is at a premium in terms of importance. I just can't wait to play UNI back here at 21st and Hillside on Feb. 28th. However, we have several more games to win, one at a time, before that rematch occurs.

[SHOCKvalue]

Last Monday when the AP poll came out, UNI's #18 ranking was their highest mark in program history, and only their 13th appearance ever. Tomorrow when the polls come out that ranking will again be their highest AP poll watermark ever. It will be our lowest since 2013-2013, and we may still be ranked in front of them (we still are this morning in RPI and kenpom).

And this is one of the best programs the MVC has to offer in the modern era as a compliment to WSU's performance. I mean I'm glad SOMEONE in the MVC got their ish together to the point of national relevance, but it paints the ridiculous disparity there is in this conference.

And yes, we still got our rears handed to us last night by a legit team.

[ShockRef]

I have four comments about the game/weekend and this should sum up my feeling regarding the same perfectly:
1. The highlight of my day yesterday was watching the WSU track team at the UNI DOME;
2. We had one bad recruiting evaluation last year and it is really hurting us now as we are having to piecemeal an interior defense;
3. If we don't play more zone the rest of the season, I will be stunned. I think/hope reality set in with the coaching staff.
4. I am still stuck in Des Moines and will be until tomorrow but at least I get to go watch the Lady Shockers maybe salvage the weekend.

Already looking forward to the Lax roadie report. It will be more enjoyable versus what I had to watch on DVR last night.

UNI played really well. Washpun blew by every WSU player who tried to guard him and Tuttle absolutely abused any and everybody in the paint.
Couple of points:
1) HCGM just standing and watching Cotton get pinned on the sideline and not call a time out was bad, really bad.
2) Janssen missing the hook on Tuttle's curl into the lane was inexcusable. He was center and in perfect position to make that call. I have no explanation why he didn't.
3) The previous post (by Aargh, I think) about this years JuCo recruiting misses is spot on. I've already touched upon how nice of a guy BW is. But if he is on the roster next year, WSU has issues. He just isn't a WSU D-1 level player. Glass is still learning and needs to get serious Rosenboomed. He has more possibilities than BW.
4) Nurger is the perfect example of a RS candidate. He should have never seen the court this year. But with SM's earlier issues, they didn't have a choice but to try him in the paint. Hind sight is always 20/20.
5) HCGM getting SM headed in the right direction is his best coaching move of the year. If no SM presence in the paint, this season would get very pedestrian, especially as Valley teams scout and adjust as the season moves on.
6) Reading some of the crap posted on here during the game thread was embarrassing. It defined just how spoiled Shocker fans have become. The monster HCGM has created is bigger than the media snow storm hype for NY last week.

That is all.

[ShockerFever]

For the record, I didn't see the game today, I was out of town, so no comments on the officials from me.. but I do gotta say I love the constant meltdowns and petty arguments on these boards. What's sad is they are generally started by 1 or 2 people. Ah well, such is life

But you have those people on ignore so it's all good.

[Royalno5]

Does anyone else think there is a relationship between the bench performance and the fact we are two over our on scholarships and still recruiting. Outside of Shaq I don't see a lot there. I hope I am wrong.

[CBB_Fan]

The year we went to the final 4 we got SWEPT by EVANSVILLE. We'll be fine. 3G is one of the best coaches in the country and will fix whatever issues we had yesterday.

We also had more ranked wins that season than we have the past two, combined (1 vs 0, but still). And no Baker in either Evansville game; a lot of the losses that season can be straight up attributed to injury. That season had lower lows (getting swept by Evansville), but also higher highs (beating a ranked Creighton, beating VCU on the road in the second game of the season). You knew going to into games that we could lose to almost anyone, but you also knew we could beat anyone.

This season is different. We aren't losing games because two of our best players are injured and the rest of the team is banged up, and we aren't going to magically get better when those players come back. We are a lot more consistent, and this team would almost certainly win more than 26 games against that schedule. But I think 2012-2013 had the ability to take it up a notch occasionally when it mattered, something I have not seen from this team. Part of that is that they weren't as reliant on three players for the offense, part is that they didn't have the holes on defense, part is just player personality.

[DUShock]

[JEE]

My take on the game was that we found our offense by drive penetration in the second half and not the 3-ball. When they come to town next time lets put Baker on Tuttle and see how that goes. What I read was that Ron did a great job in the
NBA camps this summer guarding bigs. The other point is that we need to bring Carter and Wessel off the bench to have
experience coming off the bench and let Shaq and Kelly start. Right now Carter is obviously hurt because he has not
been the same since the Drake game.

[Ricardo del Rio]

Hurt is averaging 4.8 pointds and 3.2 rebounds at KSU.

6-11 / 265 / 13.5 mpg

Not a world beater, but better than others we have. Permits Darius to play the 4.

[Dave Stalwart]

Coach needs to hire EO, Garrett, Carl and JT to come back and run a clinic for our bigs this summer on how to run this system perfectly. Let them bang with Rauno, Bush, Shaq, Rashard and Eric Hamilton for a couple months from May to July.

I think Bush could learn how to weight train and be a rim protector with EO, Rauno could learn from Stutz, and all of them could learn a little bit about rebounding from Carl. Shaq and JT could be best friends :)

How much would that cost. Maybe I'll start saving up :)

[SHOXAAC]

Does anyone else think there is a relationship between the bench performance and the fact we are two over our on scholarships and still recruiting. Outside of Shaq I don't see a lot there. I hope I am wrong.

Kelly will be fine, along with Shaq of course. Nurger is not ready for prime time this year. Hopefully he will progress, but the jury is out. Glass was clueless, more than a juco should, earlier in the season. He has shown glimpses of offensive ability as of late, but IDK. I agree with ShockRef on BW. He is not a Division I player. The coaches swung and missed on him.

[forevershockerfan]

Speaking of us having some 2nd half success with dribble penetration, I am ready to see us look more to Cotton for that asset. Here is another thing that Cotton did for us yesterday. He lead us with 8 rebounds and tied FVV with 3 assists. Somehow we have to establish our inside game more in each and every game. Not with forced passes but maybe some more penetrating in for either closer shots and passes from our 3-headed monster to our bigs, and then establish our 3 point game after that is first clicking. Yesterday we were way off on shooting field goals at a .354 clip while our foes were 24-40 at a .600 clip. Now for the killer stat. UNI was 5-7 form three-point land and we were 5-24 which is .208. Ouch!!!!!!! Yesterday was just not our day at all.

Here is what I did like. We were 15-17 on throws for an awesome .882 on the cold and lonely road. However, UNI shot 17-23 for .739 and made 2 more throws total than we did. We still have much daylight ahead of us to become more consistent in various areas and I feel positive that we will do just that. Shaq could still be our needed X factor. I am ready for him to play twice the minutes. However, when you get 4 fouls in 13 minutes, only Shaq can fix that. I hope Carter gets his back healed. We really need him for more minutes too but he had 4-fouls in just 17 minutes. Ouch!!!!!!!

[SHOXAAC]

Does anyone else think there is a relationship between the bench performance and the fact we are two over our on scholarships and still recruiting. Outside of Shaq I don't see a lot there. I hope I am wrong.

Kelly will be fine, along with Shaq of course. Nurger is not ready for prime time this year. Hopefully he will progress, but the jury is out. Glass was clueless, more than a juco should, earlier in the season. He has shown glimpses of offensive ability as of late, but IDK. I agree with ShockRef on BW. He is not a Division I player. The coaches swung and missed on him.