Musings from the 1st Row

[proshox]

I'm with @kochHead:. I have no idea why they quit going inside in the second half. You know what else all of our losses have in common? We try and win by chucking threes. There is no dribble drive. There is no back to the basket pass penetration. Just bombs from deep. We lose every game that we abandon Shaq in the post.
Shaq needs to put the tissues away in the offseason and TRAIN. Fred will not be here to hold his hand. This BS of only being able to play hard for 2 min at a time is ridiculous. JT wasn't even that big of a little b!tch. He needs to sling his nuts on his shoulder and RUN this summer.
Conner is coming along but he really needs to find his stroke. He had 2(?) blocks in the tourney. Hard to ask more on D than that.
I would trade Evan in a heartbeat for Graham Hatch.
Duff, Shaq, and Kelly need to find another gear.

Those are symptoms. The cause of not going inside is that the ball sticks to the hands of Fred and sometimes Ron. They don't move and don't swing the ball until it is too late to expect good things.

In the first half the ball moved quickly. Our shooting percentage was poor, but we got plenty of open looks.

[Dan]

One time Markis got ball on the corner and drove it in. He was fouled on the attempt and made both free throws. I said at the time, we need every guy to drive it in and take the fouls, they can't guard us (except for the double teams). Our guys just wouldn't be aggressive.

[ShockingButTrue]

FYI, during the last four seasons of The Flagship's 12-year reign of terror over the Big 12-2, they've won the conference tournament once, lost in the finals once, and were out before the finals the other two times (including 2012, when they subsequently rallied all the way to the NCAA championship game before losing to Kentucky). Does that mean the Jayhawk has fallen from its perch?

Or does it mean the regular season is more significant than the outcome of the tournament? But, hey -- carry on with that opinion of yours.

Truthfully speaking though, most chickun fans I know (those who aren't on this board) invoke nothing but post season success...

[Slalomshocker]

Damn. Guess WSU should take their Final Four and Sweet Sixteen banners down.

Please let me know when you call Gregg to let him know. I would love to listen in.

SIU has a sweet sixteen banner hanging....are they too good for the MVC? Look. I'm not saying WSU isn't the best program in the MVC right now. I'm not saying WSU shouldn't be trying to get out of the MVC. But in reality, its been a 4 year run. That is 1 recruiting class cycle. (not saying 1 recruiting class is responsible). Staying power will be tested next year, which I fully believe will be better than this one has turned out. I just don't feel like WSU isn't quite ready to claim they are ABOVE this league until they can consistently (you know, more than 1 time in 30 years) win the conference tournament. I agree, 18-0, 17-1, 16-2 is dang impressive and signifies that nobody was really close to WSU. But even KU wins the B12 tournament once in a while. WSU can't even make the Finals most years. And that is with the 1 or 2 seed rather frequently lately.

[Slalomshocker]

We are going to disagree no matter what, differing opinions. The one thing I know we all have in common is that we all would love to see WSU in a new league where 3 losses to league opponents doesn't result in a nervous selection show. Here's to hoping any one of the multiple rumors are true.

[ShockerPrez]

SIU has a sweet sixteen banner hanging....are they too good for the MVC? Look. I'm not saying WSU isn't the best program in the MVC right now. I'm not saying WSU shouldn't be trying to get out of the MVC. But in reality, its been a 4 year run. That is 1 recruiting class cycle. (not saying 1 recruiting class is responsible). Staying power will be tested next year, which I fully believe will be better than this one has turned out. I just don't feel like WSU isn't quite ready to claim they are ABOVE this league until they can consistently (you know, more than 1 time in 30 years) win the conference tournament. I agree, 18-0, 17-1, 16-2 is dang impressive and signifies that nobody was really close to WSU. But even KU wins the B12 tournament once in a while. WSU can't even make the Finals most years. And that is with the 1 or 2 seed rather frequently lately.

I dont think its just records and the past 4 years that gives a lot of us the feeling of outgrowing the MVC.

Its what we believe and want our program to be in relation to the other schools. Its resorces devoted, fan support, everything. We dont align, at this point, with many and are practically polar opposites with a few.

[Slalomshocker]

I dont think its just records and the past 4 years that gives a lot of us the feeling of outgrowing the MVC.

Its what we believe and want our program to be in relation to the other schools. Its resorces devoted, fan support, everything. We dont align, at this point, with many and are practically polar opposites with a few.

THIS I 100% agree with. But that is not the sentiment the majority of the time when WSU be above the MVC is discussed. I will acknowledge it has been discussed, but is generally not the primary point. Its usually "we destroyed the league by 20+ every night". To your point, yes, WSU does not fit. For whatever reason the other schools cannot come close to keeping up financially.

[pinstripers]

We got outcoached. It has happened before and will happen again. Jans would probably made the difference.

[im4wsu]

We got outcoached. It has happened before and will happen again. Jans would probably made the difference.

Does anybody know if CJ is still assisting the Shocker coaches? Was his 45-day contract renewed?

[Ol skool]

Those are symptoms. The cause of not going inside is that the ball sticks to the hands of Fred and sometimes Ron. They don't move and don't swing the ball until it is too late to expect good things.

In the first half the ball moved quickly. Our shooting percentage was poor, but we got plenty of open looks.

Is it just me or did the game flow better these last two games with Ron at the point? Just something I thought I noticed.

[Gary Gorilla]

One time Markis got ball on the corner and drove it in. He was fouled on the attempt and made both free throws. I said at the time, we need every guy to drive it in and take the fouls, they can't guard us (except for the double teams). Our guys just wouldn't be aggressive.

That assumes the fouls get called which selectively doesn't seem to happen this year

[shoxlax]

Is it just me or did the game flow better these last two games with Ron at the point? Just something I thought I noticed.

It did. Playing the same team three times to me warrants some adjustments. If you move people around against UNI from the positions they regularly play you can really mess them up. They want certain people to take certain shots on the floor. Turg told me that way back when. You beat them by those people making shots or putting your scorers in different positions than they are on video. Not unfamiliar positions just different.

That being said had we shot 15% from three we still would've won

[proshox]

Is it just me or did the game flow better these last two games with Ron at the point? Just something I thought I noticed.

The best flow came in the first half against Loyola where CF became the default point guard against their press. That allowed Ron to shift the defense off the ball. With that said, the first half against UNI was fine.

When this team senses the offense isn't clicking they tend to over complicate the game. Pass, pass, pass, and dribble with purpose needs to become our default security blanket when things go rough.

[asiseeit]

too many times, especially in the second half, we gave up on ball movement which could have
produced a good shot in favor of Fred dribbling out the clock up top and waiting ( often too long )
to get anything decent. at least try moving the ball to see if we can get a good shot and then,
if we can't, we can still give it to Fred with 8 seconds left and let him do his thing, BUT why waste
20 seconds or more moving the ball that could get us a bunny or a wide open fifteen footer?

[WSUwatcher]

Conner is coming along but he really needs to find his stroke. He had 2(?) blocks in the tourney.

According to Goshockers, Frankamp has three blocks in 425 minutes. That's more than Doug McDermott had his entire junior season, and as many as McD had as a sophomore while playing a full season instead of just the second semester. So he has the shot-blocking aspect of being a big scorer down already.

Now if he can just recover his stroke AND start taking shots when he gets them, maybe he can start to work on the scoring part.