#12 WSU @ #18 UNI - Game Thread

[wusphlash]

Two things that bother me going forward, including March.

First, we are going to struggle with any teams that have good big men. I thought Shaq played well but keeping him out of foul trouble will be a test. No one else has the muscle to handle really strong big guys.

The, erratic substitution pattern utilized by HCGM tells me he is confused and searching for bench help. That kind of instability this late in the season is unusual for HCGM teams and unsettling to me.

I am not fearful about winning most, if not all, of our remaining MVC games. I am concerned about winning deep into March.

[Rlh04d]

Apparently ol' Conner wasn't the only one getting trashed all week. These guys played like they didn't give a ****. I'm sick of Ron and Fred not being leaders on the court. We couldn't make a shot to save our lives today. Instead of switching to zone on defense and driving to the bucket on offense we just kept doing what wasn't working. Marshall got outcoached and the boys got outplayed. Pretty sad.

Grow up.

[wusphlash]

go out and eat a steak and move on (that what I'm going to do). Just one game.

Makes you wonder if the Coaches lack of adjustments is more about not having Chris Jans?

Chris Jans wouldn't have made a difference today unless he was 6'11" and had eligibility remaining.

[SHOXAAC]

Look, UNI practices just as much as we do. There coach is solid, just like ours is. They played at home in front of the second best fan base in this conference, which was hyped to the max. On this day UNI responded to this big game more than we did. They had as much to do with our poor shooting, execution, etc...as we did. Today give them credit. I look forward to the return match. I'm going to eat steak tonight, go see American Sniper (again), and who knows what else. It's still a good day to be a Shocker!!!

[KSUUWSU]

I would prefer "Play Angry" over "Play Stoic" any day. Like I've mentioned before, I do not like losing at anything. Good attempt Shox, go get em next time!

[1972Shocker]

I'm not sure what else they could do... Majority of his points were hooks or he just rammed into them and drew a foul

gunny highway.jpg

[SHOCKvalue]

Makes you wonder if the Coaches lack of adjustments is more about not having Chris Jans?

Valid concern, and one I share as well.

The silver lining is that on the off chance 3G gets his blue blood job someday, we have the shoe-in replacement sitting over in BG, OH.

[jdshock]

And I know Marshall views timeouts as a "sign of weakness", but damn, they're given to you for a reason. That trap next to the bench where FVV lost a jump ball had "timeout" written all over it and.. nothing. Just a turnover.

I believe HCGM is the beststrategist in college basketball (at least his post-season games have made it look that way. People might not take it as seriously thirty minutes after this game ended). I believe HCGM is an elite in game coach too, but his timeout stuff is odd sometimes. Cotton (maybe?) got trapped earlier too and stepped on the out of bounds line. HCGM tried to call a time-out once Cotton started to lose the ball. I was very frustrated that it didn't come three seconds earlier.

[forevershockerfan]

I have witnessed some very, very good teams get beat by more this Season already than we did today. The sky is still blue, it will not fall, and our Shocks have more then enough grit to shake this loss off and move on in successful fashion. Take it to the bank. We are not happy and believe me when I say our Shocks are not digging on this even more so. The Shocks will come back angrier than ever and will make the needed adjustments from this moment forward into our still bright Season.

[newshock1234]

I will take 1 mvc loss out of every 27 games. Gonna be a different story in Wichita. I guarantee that

[newshock1234]

I do feel sorry for Bradley on Wednesday night. Its gonna be a blood bath

[wusphlash]

Look, UNI practices just as much as we do. There coach is solid, just like ours is. They played at home in front of the second best fan base in this conference, which was hyped to the max. On this day UNI responded to this big game more than we did. They had as much to do with our poor shooting, execution, etc...as we did. Today give them credit. I look forward to the return match. I'm going to eat steak tonight, go see American Sniper (again), and who knows what else. It's still a good day to be a Shocker!!!

I loved American Sniper. Great movie. Don't think it's going to cheer you up though.

[wu_shizzle]

go out and eat a steak and move on (that what I'm going to do). Just one game.

Makes you wonder if the Coaches lack of adjustments is more about not having Chris Jans?

We made Jans like adjustments by going zone and increasing pressure early in the second half.

It was their day, crown em.

[Rlh04d]

Two things that bother me going forward, including March.

First, we are going to struggle with any teams that have good big men. I thought Shaq played well but keeping him out of foul trouble will be a test. No one else has the muscle to handle really strong big guys.

The, erratic substitution pattern utilized by HCGM tells me he is confused and searching for bench help. That kind of instability this late in the season is unusual for HCGM teams and unsettling to me.

I am not fearful about winning most, if not all, of our remaining MVC games. I am concerned about winning deep into March.

I completely agree with this, and this is the most worried I've been about our ability to play postseason ball since the 2010 season.

Our bench is not good enough to play with high level teams. They're young, and they're going to get better ... but at this point in the season I really hoped to see more than one consistent player come out of that logjam. Guys like Brown, Kelly, Bush, Holland, etc. have had opportunities to take that next step and just haven't been able to do so. This is probably the weakest bench I can remember under Marshall. We have solid players 1-6, and that drops off to "good enough against most Valley competition" 7-10, and then just flat out unreliable against anyone past that.

Darius Carter is a solid offensive PF, but when he's asked to defend from the five spot, he becomes very average very fast. He's just not capable of it. Shaq IS capable of it, but he's still struggling with keeping himself out of foul trouble, particularly with fouls away from the basket.

I don't buy into the sky-is-falling! nonsense of some people here, and I still think we have an excellent chance to beat UNI at home, and excellent chances to win both the regular season and Arch Madness. However, I have a hard time seeing where success in the NCAA tournament is going to come from, barring favorable matchups, a significant change from some of our lesser players, or a major hot streak from one of the big three from the perimeter.

This isn't our ceiling by any means, but I'm pessimistic about our chances in the tournament without some changes. We have to be able to handle good post players to have a chance at a solid run in March.

[SHOCKvalue]

That would be great for starters.

Good grief dude.

Here, let me help you out with teams to cheer for where you might be less disappointed than as a WSU fan:

College Football - Alabama
College Basketball - Kentucky
NFL - Patriots
NBA - Heat
MLB - Yankees

HTH...