Evansville game thread

[swiltar71]

If I remember right it took FVV till well into the MVC last year to find his stride. It's like he doesn't trust his teammates yet and he's trying to do waaay too much himself. He finished strong last year and carried us against Indiana. I hope it's not his leg but he wasn't right tonight.
I just want Ron to be Buddy Hield. He's too much of a team player for that, but he passed on several open shots/ driving opportunities. Hopefully it was just something minor with his wrist.
EW gave up ALOT of offensive rebounds. I know, I know he made a shot. So did MM, ZB, and CF. more of them less of him please.
Where is this teams' fire? We need a Cle-type who gets insulted when someone tries to guard him. Our leaders seem a little too laid back. It's a fine line I guess.

[WSUwatcher]

Maybe I shouldn't be too concerned, because the Shocks did win, but they just don't seem to finish as strongly this year as in the recent past. In Orlando, I figured it was because LeFred wasn't there -- and that no doubt played a large part in the losses to USC and Alabama, either of which his presence would surely have averted -- but what's going on now that he's back? First Seton Hall, now tonight. And no, it isn't just the refs; the Shocks dissipated their lead in each case before the calls really turned against them.

Still lots of season to go, still time for Shamet to recover and ride to the rescue; and the Final Four team looked far worse than this at times in mid-year. But it sure would be nice to see an all-out display of real Shocker basketball on Saturday. A performance like tonight's may not do the job.

[Cdizzle]

It is insane that a starting PG at WSU can post 16 points, 9 assists, 5 rebounds and 3 steals and most of us feel like he actually had a pretty sub-par game. I'm not disagreeing with anyone feeling that way, as I think I agree. But that is crazy-town. Enjoy the ride.

Markis McDuffie just guarded DJ Balentine, and did a great job. I have posted on this site more than once, that he is more likely to play the 2 than the 4. I think he is proving me right. In time, probably the only guys he won't match up with well will be little 5'11" jitterbugs. The fact that he is 6'8" and could play the 2 in college, with his skillset, is crazy exciting.

Whatever floorburn drill they did this week worked. Good job.

Evansville is much closer to the team they should be than the crap team they have been the last couple of seasons. Good for them.

WSU won the last 3 minutes of that game so hard 5 on 8 it isn't even funny. 4 years ago we would have let the striped jerseys take that game from us in the closing minute. That doesn't happen much any more.

38-1. Enjoying the ride.

[CBB_Fan]

Positives -

We played extremely well on defense. Completely frustrated both Balentine and Mozzarella Sticks.
Despite a close game where the refs were calling things against us in the last 5 minutes (Evansville didn't make a FG in the last 3:21 and scored 7 points), we kept making plays
Anton Grady and Shaq combined for 25 points, 10 rebounds shooting 11-17. Egidijus went 9 points, 16 rebounds, shooting 2-4 (5-10 from line).
3-0 in conference play
RPI boost

Negatives -

We outplayed ourselves. Instead of finding easy shots, we looked for NBA-level turnaround jumpers. Instead of making easy assists, we tried lobbing it over a taller Evansville team. Almost all our TOs were unforced.
Ron was flat-out bad. Of all the players, he outplayed himself the most. It felt like he needed to start the game with some easier shots to get the juice flowing, but then he just dug a hole and lost confidence/energy.
At times, we let Evansville Evansville and gave up too much on defense. Not in general, but I remember Marshall angrily subbing back in the starters as a mass block, even calling a TO to do so.

Neutral -

Reffing was awful tonight. We all remember how the last 5 or so minutes went, but even before that calls were inconsistent from possession to possession. This did not just benefit us. I remember many times where I felt we got away with one, whether it be a possession we hacked a lot on defense, or got away with a travel, or got a charge while completely not set. But then the next possession we'd get whistled for an extremely minor touch. Reffing almost let Evansville come back without letting them attempt a FG, but it also led to a sloppy and uncoordinated first 35 minutes of the game.

Some callers complained about the crowd. Might want to let Anton Grady know, since he credited the crowd in his post-game interview and said he'd never seen an arena so energetic. Even said that the crowd was a big help on defense. I agree that when Evansville made a run to cut the lead down, the crowd could have been louder, but I think the arena was great from that point till the end. If anything, I disliked the media timeout during one of our runs that completely killed all energy more than I disliked anything from the crowd.

Man let out behind the band was supposedly on drugs or acting psychotic. IDK anything more.

Final Thoughts -

We could have one this game by 10+ if Baker had better game and we set ourselves up to take good shots and make good passes. But I'll take a quality win in a game where we had to fight the officials and the other team in the final minutes, instead of another Seton Hall. Ultimately I think we need to focus on what we are good at and stop trying to force plays. We don't need to be an NBA team or make NBA plays to be a great college basketball team, we need to make quality interior passes and shoot open jump shots.

As far as Fred goes, he's getting the anti-star treatment from the refs and it is hurting him. He gets at least 5 no-calls a game where he drives to the basket and gets hammered. Possibly the most in college basketball. He's shooting .7 less FTs a game and getting hit a lot more. That's why he is missing so many incredibly difficult layups. It isn't just that he is forced to shoot over 7 footers, it is that they get to foul him for free and he still has to make the shot. Watch the PGs on any top team and you'll see that for whatever reason they go to the line if they even get bumped on a drive. If Fred was allowed to shoot the 7-8FTs a game he deserves and defenders were forced to give him some space he'd be putting up crazy numbers.

[Cdizzle]

As far as Fred goes, he's getting the anti-star treatment from the refs and it is hurting him. He gets at least 5 no-calls a game where he drives to the basket and gets hammered. Possibly the most in college basketball. He's shooting .7 less FTs a game and getting hit a lot more. That's why he is missing so many incredibly difficult layups. It isn't just that he is forced to shoot over 7 footers, it is that they get to foul him for free and he still has to make the shot. Watch the PGs on any top team and you'll see that for whatever reason they go to the line if they even get bumped on a drive. If Fred was allowed to shoot the 7-8FTs a game he deserves and defenders were forced to give him some space he'd be putting up crazy numbers.

Bingo. Bango. Boingo.

Nailed.

[William]

Pretty weak crowd tonite, Ron and Fred at different times looked frustrated trying to wave the crowd off their butts in a close game.

[Play Angry]

Eh, Evansville is a KenPom top 50 team - not exactly Duke, but objectively pretty good. I thought both teams played okay tonight and, while there is certainly room for improvement, I'll take a win over teams of that caliber any day of the week without worrying too much about the margin of victory or style points. I didn't see anything troubling which couldn't be chalked up to a simple off night for that particular player.

We are certainly capable of going apeshit and demolishing really good teams (Utah), but we are also not so good that we aren't susceptible to the occasional ankle bite on the road vs. good teams (Seton Hall). Overall though, our nerd numbers are steadily improving as the offense is finally getting to play its "regular" rotations, while our defensive efficiency has remained very good and will hopefully continue to improve during MVC play.

I like the trendline at this point. Anytime we play a pretty good team (UE, SIU, UNI) and we manage to (i) win, and (ii) stay healthy, I am a satisfied Shocker fan. Tonight we nailed both of those and saw marked improvement from Mr. Grady. I'll be thrilled if we can duplicate this result on Saturday.

[The 'hut]

Statistics aside, I felt that this may have been Fred's roughest game. I really thought he had more than 3 turnovers, but I guess his 30% fg shooting reflects some were just missed shots on drives. His toughest stretch was the run time by the Aces. We all talk that he is not getting the calls he is expecting, but at what point do you then make your pass/shoot decision a couple of dribbles quicker, or do you continue to drive to contact, pressing to get a call? This is philosophical question probably, but I wondered what others thought. It is clearly the style he has brought, with great success, to WSU for almost 4 years now.

[WuDrWu]

Evansville is as good as their record and a lot better than their SOS. And by the way, eff you Marty etc for scheduling like you did. I had to miss the game searching for your balls.

Perfect points @Cdizzle: on Fred. I won't try to improve upon perfection.

The Aces are not going to be around .500 again this year (barring injury). If they will stop playing Blake, they might even have a UNI 15 type of season.

Fred had a hard time keeping Brown in front of him.....I don't think he's anywhere near 100% yet. But again, kudos to the Aces players.

They've lost 3 games....go look at the other 2. The Friars are really good and UE got Seton Halled there. I'm not saying they are top 20 but that's a quality team as long as they don't lose a player to injury.

Saturday's huge. We're going to play a really confident team on the road. AB is capable of beating a lot of teams by himself. Win and you keep the thought of invincibility.

Enjoy the ride.

[asiseeit]

I gave EU credit in an earlier post and believe it's worth repeating. Their perimeter players played
tough hard nosed in your face D and it's why FVV and RB looked off their games, but Ron's D also
made Ballentine less effective. When players look off on offense it's almost always because they
are being defended well so credit EU's D. In addition, CF only had one decent look all night. Their
perimeter defenders played tough and very well. BOTH teams played good D on the other teams
best players. Having said that, regarding RB, I am wondering if he just isn't a stronger more
durable player with the extra ten pounds.

[proshox]

And nothing like a good "find Wu" or musical chairs to get us going. I'm serious. There needs to be an uprising and protest about the programming. It's plain awful. I mean mix it up already. How bout a Rusty Eck game of checkers or something? I'm just really embarrassed for them.

This trend continues to get worse. Squeezing every dollar has impacted the atmosphere. Last night the crowd forced a EU time out in the first half. Should have been a moment for the band to keep the crowd rocking. Instead we get a lame promotion. Embarrassing.

[Kung Wu]

Thank goodness "off" Fred scores 16 with 9 assists. If he gets any more off track he will end up getting Melo Trimble praise from the national media.

Exactly. Fred's C game is better than most ballers' A game. Just incredible.

[proshox]

I'm sorry but FVV has regressed since his sophomore year. His sophomore year was by far his best year in a Shocker uniform. He is pressing way too much. He's also dribbling way too much. I dunno if word gets out that there are scouts here and him and Ron go to NBA mode, but it is not fun basketball to watch. I'm not sure why Fred keeps driving into the trees, throwing up junk, or getting the ball turned over. I'm not sure if the rule changes caused a strategy shift and he's being coached to do this or what. The calls aren't coming and the bad shots and turnovers have been steadily rising. It's really infuriating because we know how good Fred can be. He's at his best when he takes one of his silky jumpers in rhythm or when he's passing the ball. It almost costed us tonight and will sooner rather than later if adjustments aren't made. Same with Ron. 2 airballs from 3 in one game? Wow. He had some good moves late but he's a bit off.

The crowd did suck except for late. They were pretty sleepy at times but picked it up in the 2nd half. Refs and missed opportunities really prevented it from being REALLY good. Top of the student section and holes in it. I think they should just drop the student section to 800 and make those top 200 seats reserved for season ticketing. It's pathetic that you can't get every ticked used during the senior years of two players whose numbers will be hanging in the rafters some day.

The officiating was fair until the end. The non-call on Fred that would have given the European his 5th was unbelievably GARBAGE. How that didn't get called while every cheency touch or EU player bull rushing into the lane got called is beyond me. Absolutely horrible. Higgins sucks balls. I'm sorry. But he is overrated. Nearly blew the game to EU. I don't wanna see another EU fan ***** about the officiating. They shot twice as many free throws and got the whistle late. BIG TIME.

We missed a lot of bunnies (the norm). We had several opportunities to blow the thing open but didn't capitalize. Evansville played ok. Brown was a big difference for them but we shot ourselves in the foot a lot. Grady brought it. I was happy for him. Shaq is a factor in the first minute of every game. And then gets Jake White-picked on. ZB and EW struggled but came through late. What a clutch shot by Zach. Awesome!

Need to pick it up for Saturday. The ugly dogs are gonna be amped up for the first time in half a decade. Hopefully, we'll be ready to shut them the hell up.

You nailed this game. Fred is the "leader" of not recognizing a guy coming wide open off of a screen. Everyone else is trying to play like Fred. Frequently the shooters are receiving the ball two seconds after they had day light. This issue seems to be the single biggest hurdle to good offense.

CF was the only player in the first 35 minutes who drove to kick a pass out.

[jdshock]

Neutral -

Reffing was awful tonight. We all remember how the last 5 or so minutes went, but even before that calls were inconsistent from possession to possession. This did not just benefit us. I remember many times where I felt we got away with one, whether it be a possession we hacked a lot on defense, or got away with a travel, or got a charge while completely not set. But then the next possession we'd get whistled for an extremely minor touch. Reffing almost let Evansville come back without letting them attempt a FG, but it also led to a sloppy and uncoordinated first 35 minutes of the game.

I thought your whole post was right on.

I've been thinking about the inconsistent reffing we've seen this year, though. I wonder if it impacts us more than other teams. Ron and Fred are two of the most cerebral players in college basketball and they've got such high basketball IQs. As an example, Fred driving it at Mock to get Mock his fifth foul. Ron and Fred have always taken advantage of the way refs call games during the game. This year, we've seen some really inconsistent reffing, though, so when they take advantage of the patterns they are actually harmed. In those games, they'd be better of just playing the game without worrying about the reffing.

[molly jabali]

Exactly. Fred's C game is better than most ballers' A game. Just incredible.

This is one of those delicate moments where it is tough to critique the performance of someone(player or coach) who for the most part has been nothing short of sensational...AND the standard that WSU needs to keep being great.

But, yeah...I heard James Taylor in a concert several years ago where his performance was not up to previous shows. And I've had meals at various eateries that on rare occasions fell short of expected eliteness. It happens, AND you are allowed to voice it.

These Shocker icons have been amazing, but as incredible as they are, they are not perfect...it is ok to surmise why, without being disloyal.