WSU vs Evansville Game Thread

[pinstripers]

We have more depth than anyone in the conference. We need to use that depth to our advantages and press the entire game.

Can't press if you don't make shots.

[ShockerPrez]

We have more depth than anyone in the conference. We need to use that depth to our advantages and press the entire game.

Not in total disagreement, but our press aint what it used to be.

[Play Angry]

Our help defense remains a, ahem, work in progress.

It took a few years but Rashard has finally figured it out. LS and DW need to accelerate their learning curves quickly.

Shaq and Rauno will always have their limitations on help D and may be close to their ceilings already.

[shockmonster]

The one concern that I see is that both of our PGs have similar offensive games. Neither Daishon or Conner put pressure on the defense (or relieve pressure for our offense), by driving to the rim and laying it in, drawing a foul, or dishing it to a team mate for a basket. Now It doesn't surprise me that Conner doesn't do it because (while I thought he could do it some) his shooting was always going to be his strength, but with Daishon's extreme athletic abilities, I thought it probably would be a strength of his. I hope he can develop it because he and Conner are more similar than I hoped. We need someone who is more than a 3 point shooter and Conner is better at it than DS. Sometimes DS has better defense, but not enough. He disappears from too many games.

[Play Angry]

Daishon's hot shooting out of the gate this season was probably a bit of a curse for his development IMO - his JUCO and high school stats indicate he is not a deadeye from the perimeter, and his bread and butter is dribble penetration. Then he came out and hit almost 50% of his bombs during the first half of the season, and he's sort of settled into depending on that working consistently even though his percentages have been reverting to the mean. He needs to go for a little more Armstead and a little less Ragland to play to his strengths.

His A:TO ratio has also been steeply declining despite his relative lack of risk taking on offense (it's now less than 2:1), which is concerning. Hoping he snaps out of his funk soon.

[shockmonster]

Daishon's hot shooting out of the gate this season was probably a bit of a curse for his development IMO - his JUCO and high school stats indicate he is not a deadeye from the perimeter, and his bread and butter is dribble penetration. Then he came out and hit almost 50% of his bombs during the first half of the season, and he's sort of settled into depending on that working consistently even though his percentages have been reverting to the mean. He needs to go for a little more Armstead and a little less Ragland to play to his strengths.

His A:TO ratio has also been steeply declining despite his relative lack of risk taking on offense (it's now less than 2:1), which is concerning. Hoping he snaps out of his funk soon.

Yes he was a hot shooter for a while. But I've seen DS drive it to the rim and he was a little stiff and seemed to be unable to be a creative driver. He may need to work hard to develop this skill set. I hope he can/does. I may just wish Fred back and that will be a losing battle. Armstead and Toure were both creative drivers but they had their own weaknesses.

[Cdizzle]

To be fair, I believe 2 of the timeouts were on jump balls.

Austin Reaves is so pissed.

[Cdizzle]

I'm not a big fan of putting basketball courts on top of ice rinks. I'm not sure why this hasn't been figured out yet, but it leads to a lot of turnovers every year, and I'm sure no small number of injuries.

Glad that an un-athletic 6-man rotation got 10 minutes of free timeouts in the first half. Sometimes part of a gameplan is to have more guys that are in shape and can play basketball than the other team. It's unfortunate to see that advantage taken away because this conference can't find competent clock crews. WSU was doing a lot of things wrong in that first half, but it's also not that big of a coincidence that when the stoppage-fest ended Evansville's shooting percentage plummeted, their defense caved, and they lost by 30.

[kcshocker11]

A true tail of two halves, I perfer the 2nd half. Nice road win !

[Wild Heiny]

We have more depth than anyone in the conference. We need to use that depth to our advantages and press the entire game.

Disagree. While it looks like we should have the athletes and depth needed to apply a press to our opponents, when we have pressed this year we have for the most part been shredded and rarely turn people over as a result. Our transition defense whether from offense to defense or from the press to the half court and has been atrocious this season.

[Kel Varnsen]

Disagree. While it looks like we should have the athletes and depth needed to apply a press to our opponents, when we have pressed this year we have for the most part been shredded and rarely turn people over as a result. Our transition defense whether from offense to defense or from the press to the half court and has been atrocious this season.

I very much agree with this. We are very athletic, but our transition defense against good teams has been destroyed and we can get away with it against the likes of Bradley and Drake. Watch next time we play them...the opposing team may not make a ton of shots, but they'll get plenty of uncontested shots when we go to the 2-2-1 zone press.

[SHOCKvalue]

The one concern that I see is that both of our PGs have similar offensive games. Neither Daishon or Conner put pressure on the defense (or relieve pressure for our offense), by driving to the rim and laying it in, drawing a foul, or dishing it to a team mate for a basket. Now It doesn't surprise me that Conner doesn't do it because (while I thought he could do it some) his shooting was always going to be his strength, but with Daishon's extreme athletic abilities, I thought it probably would be a strength of his. I hope he can develop it because he and Conner are more similar than I hoped. We need someone who is more than a 3 point shooter and Conner is better at it than DS. Sometimes DS has better defense, but not enough. He disappears from too many games.

The problem with our PGs is that they are both just guards, not floor generals in the traditional context of the PG position. They both have their strengths, but neither is remotely close to being a leader on the court. Square peg; round hole and all, personality wise.

[LoneStar48]

Saw my new avatar this morning when someone posted it in the Shocker Faithful thread on FB. Glad I wasn't in the laser zone! Didn't get to see the game last night but I love the results at the end of the first half and the entire second half!

[proshox]

The problem with our PGs is that they are both just guards, not floor generals in the traditional context of the PG position. They both have their strengths, but neither is remotely close to being a leader on the court. Square peg; round hole and all, personality wise.

The problem for CF is he number of terrible shots we take in the first few seconds of a shot clock. Every bad shot we take by not working through the offense hurts.

We went through five minute stretches (twice) without taking a good shot. In the second stretch we got lucky and made a high percentage, but it is odd that this team hasn't identified the issue amongst themselves.

[shockmonster]

The problem with our PGs is that they are both just guards, not floor generals in the traditional context of the PG position. They both have their strengths, but neither is remotely close to being a leader on the court. Square peg; round hole and all, personality wise.

Ok. No disagreement here. A floor general is a leader in the court. Define what"leader on the court" is. We all would agree that Fred was a consimate floor general/leader on the court. Was Ron a leader on the court? Was he a floor general?