WSU vs Louisville

[_kai_]

http://shockerhoops.net/index.php/2016/11/24/thanksgiving-ruined-bunch-birds/

Post game write up, Thanksgiving ruined by a bunch of birds.

[WuDrWu]

Louisville is great defensively, not good, GREAT.

8 blocks to 0 for us. Telling.

10-18 from the line BUT by my count also 3 front ends making us 10-21. 15-21 and it's a 2 possession game.

That being said, the better team won, and that's ok because I think we'll learn from it. I'd LOVE to play those guys again to go to the E8.

One game. Not anywhere our best, but everyone should know we can and will play with anyone. Looking forward to tomorrow.

[William]

Billy's postgame wrap up

Louivilles length, defense, and rebounding makes them a strong candidate for the final 4. They are a badass team BUT
We missed free throws, shot poorly from the field, got the worst of the officiating, have guys that got a rude awakening with the level of play, and yet were a AR wide open 3 from cutting it to 4 late. In other words we are fine. This tournament is great experience for us.

[William]

Billy's postgame wrap up

Louivilles length, defense, and rebounding makes them a strong candidate for the final 4. They are a badass team BUT
We missed free throws, shot poorly from the field, got the worst of the officiating, have guys that got a rude awakening with the level of play, and yet were a AR wide open 3 from cutting it to 4 late. In other words we are fine. This tournament is great experience for us.

Also wanted to add, that was two great defenses going at it today, they manhandled us on the boards and that really was the separator.

[bleednblackngold]

Also wanted to add, that was two great defenses going at it today, they manhandled us on the boards and that really was the separator.

Agreed with both posts wild Bill. Lets get sparty tomorrow!

[wusphlash]

Not my best Thanksgiving. 25 relatives in the house and my wife comes down with the flu. While I attempted to play host she's talking to Earl. The good part was that everyone wanted to watch the Shocks. Unfortunately I could only catch parts of the game. It's on the DVR so I'll find somewhere quiet to watch it later.

From my limited observations, we shot poorly, we handled the ball poorly, we made some bad decisions, we needed to rebound stronger and I would not be afraid to play Louisville again, any time, anywhere.

[1972Shocker]

So it wasn't there for the Shocks today. Should find out a lot about the character of this team tomorrow. They still have a chance to make this a good tournament with a strong showing against Michigan State. 3G's psychology expertise will be put to the test for sure.

[William]

So it wasn't there for the Shocks today. Should find out a lot about the character of this team tomorrow. They still have a chance to make this a good tournament with a strong showing against Michigan State. 3G's psychology expertise will be put to the test for sure.

Look for the shocks to defend and rebound like banshees tomorrow

[AZ Shocker]

Wondering how many giraffs Michigan St. has. I've never been to Africa before but have seen enough Discovery Channel in my years to have nightmares tonight invisioning that Louisville team.

[Kel Varnsen]

I'm not as worried about the offensive rebounds as some are. They missed 17 three pointers, 33 shots in all, and grabbed 12 of those 33 rebounds for a 36% rebounding percentage, which is very bad. Some of those were three pointers where our guys just couldn't prevent offensive rebounds because they clanged so hard off the iron.

Overall, I'm not too discouraged. Landry uncharacteristically has a bad game, misses some close shots, and we shoot 27% from 3. Not going to happen too often, hopefully. One thing we definitely need to work on is not getting too sped up and taking bad shots in transition. A number of guys (Shaq, Darral, Landry) did that today.

I'm encouraged with what I saw from Austin. He looked very comfortable out there. Obviously, his body has a ways to go, but he does things that very few guys do.

Looking forward to tomorrow. Go Shocks!

[asiseeit]

Have not read through everything but here are my thoughts. Our
forwards are fine against average competition but not against top
25 type teams. Would like to see MM start at the 4 and LS at the 3
and AR at the two along with SM and CF ( zero turnovers the last
two games ). RN should be first off the bench and then maybe DW.
Also, SM needs to stop shooting more than 15 feet out. RK should
not shoot anything except put backs and lay ups. He should be
screening for our shooters and rebounding - he just is not a very
polished offensive player.

[ShockerFever]

We lost for a lot of reasons, FTs are definitely one

Not officiating.

[SHOCKvalue]

You'd have to be a nearly irrational optimist to have thought going 3-0 in the B4A was a thing in the weeks leading up to this. Via a thread poll, the vast majority of us thought we'd go 2-1. So beating UL would have been nice - very nice in a multitude of contexts - but losing this game was simply a statistical expectation. Sometimes you exceed those, sometimes you don't. The Shocks losing today says basically nothing at all about the season moving forward. We simply lost to a better team on paper and in person. Besides, if you remove the UL bum rush midway through the first half, the game was otherwise a complete wash in many regards.

Tomorrow we play a slightly inferior team, statistically-speaking, so I'm personally not even annoyed about the outcome of the B4A until we potentially lose tomorrow and go 1-2. I'll be a little pissed then. Today I'm fine, and the realist in all of you should be too.

[Keyser Soze]

I have read through the whole thread and this is the first jaw dropping post. I don't think you understand the game as well as you ref it.

This game was lost by a number of guys playing outside of their ability. Starting with Shaq's travel, his dropped defensive rebound, and a step back corner three that was all in a sequence. Zach than had a horrid defensive game followed up with a number of bad shots and missed free throws. RK didn't get anything done. I could go on and on, but at the last person on the list is CF.

There is no way he is referring to CF in that post. He was virtually the only player who didn't shrink in the moment today. The rest will get better, but he was solid at both ends. It would be nice if we could get a little better at hedging ball screens, but defense was certainly the least of our problems today.

[Keyser Soze]

Louisville is great defensively, not good, GREAT.

8 blocks to 0 for us. Telling.

10-18 from the line BUT by my count also 3 front ends making us 10-21. 15-21 and it's a 2 possession game.

That being said, the better team won, and that's ok because I think we'll learn from it. I'd LOVE to play those guys again to go to the E8.

One game. Not anywhere our best, but everyone should know we can and will play with anyone. Looking forward to tomorrow.

You are correct that as always Louisville is a great defensive team, but I suspect this will prove out to be one of (probably THE) their worst offensive teams under Pitino. There is just very little dynamic offensive talent out there. I do like our chances if we get them again later in the season. We were woefully unprepared from our first 5 games to play a team that actually forces you to run your offense and use good shot selection.