WSU @ Drake Game Thread

[WuDrWu]

Man, in the space of a couple weeks our bench has shortened, big league. Only 49 minutes from the bench last night.

Everyone has been talking about Smith not playing well, but Willis has all but disappeared.

[WuDrWu]

Channeling a few of the remarks above.....I hate to pick out kids for bad decisions on the court, but I wonder if we could be lucky enough to have found an unlikely leader in Rashard?

He seems to be extremely comfortable in his role, he's not overly quiet, and he has bought in on what he needs to do to win.

We need a few other guys to do the same.....and for crying out loud get Conner the ball when he's hot. Insist that he miss.

[shockmonster]

And that's a huge problem. We're winning these games because the opponents really suck and eventually break down to their sucky selves. It's not about how we force our will on the other team and beat them. I swear we would finish 13th in the Big 12.

I have some friends who thought much of this the year we beat Indiana and KU. Drake's guards are really good right now, their bigs are not as good as ours but good enough to make it difficult with McMurray, and you could see how motivated their whole team is.

[shocks02]

I thought Daishon took a step in the right direction. A small step, but he's going the right way. That was a tough, gritty win. Everyone has to do it several times during the season. No one just goes on the road and prances over all their opponents. And wow, Rashard Kelly, he's almost like an Evan Wessel now but with thunder-dunks instead of threes. Hope this continues.

[jdshock]

Timmer averages 16.6 ppg and ZB has held him to 7 with 40.9 to play

Ended up with 7 points on 2 of 11 shooting, and 1 of 5 from 3.

He is now 4 of 19 against us this year and 14 of 52 against us in his career.

[Dan]

It's funny how teams can play when they bring their A games against the Shox. If Drake played like that every game they'd win 20+ games. Drake does not suck, they're just inconsistent and not deep enough to compete for championships right now.

[pinstripers]

I spose it's just human nature, bit the idea that "I just made one, so now I can fire up a bad shot" just drives me crazy.

[WheatShock]

I'm proud of the way Mcduffie kept working hard even though he was struggling to score. Not letting his offence affect his defense is definitely a sign of maturity. I hope he'll take a lesson from Kelly's performance and attack the hoop more when he is in close instead of anticipating contact, that's the next step for him.

Brown found his shooting touch last night and did a nice job of taking shots within the flow of the offence, lets hope that was his springboard for the rest of the season. He also had his usual shutdown job against a good offensive player.

Morris was a rebounding machine in the second half. He rushed a lot of his shots resulting in a poor FG%, but he should be able to clean that up.

Shamet & Frankamp were good again last night except for the mental break Landry took during the second half. I like our offence when they are both taking 10 - 15 shots and creating for others. Connor is starting to look like he's wearing a red jersey with "North" written on it.

Nurger was efficient off the bench as usual. Good D and made more than half of his shots. He just does things to help the team win when he is on the floor. Hopefully he recovers quickly from the mugging last night and is at full strength for Saturday.

Willis has disappeared a bit lately. Hopefully he will find the mojo soon.

Daishon showed improved energy. We will need 20 or so minutes a night from him to give CF & LS a break if Reaves is unable to return this year.

I don't know what more can be said about Kelly. He was a force and my pick for player of the game. 3G will have to find more minutes for him if he keeps this up. Its a wonderful problem to have.

[shockmonster]

Ended up with 7 points on 2 of 11 shooting, and 1 of 5 from 3.

He is now 4 of 19 against us this year and 14 of 52 against us in his career.

He's good when he's open for a 3. One thing we did to him yesterday is we guarded him with Shamet, Brown, and even McDuffie sometimes. The length bothers shooters like Timmer. But we have to expend a lot of effort to guard players like him.

[proshox]

Random thoughts:

Teammmates have to see CF when he is open and calling for the ball

DS had a bad moment in the second half and I wanted him out, but then he made Drake absolutely miserable on all following possessions - that is a guy that makes this team much better

RK has been really good for a long stretch. He understands how he helps this team win and last night was a lot of fun

LS has been really good, but there are times where CF is more ready to initiate the offense

DW has been scouted. Time for him to adjust. Good news is that he will have success against non-conference foes in a tournament setting.

RN continues to help us win

HCGM called timeouts. He helped his team win. Thank you

Can't wait for Saturday

[pinstripers]

How could ANYBODY watch that game and not think Kelly was player of the game?

[shockmonster]

How could ANYBODY watch that game and not think Kelly was player of the game?

Who did?

[Cdizzle]

Channeling a few of the remarks above.....I hate to pick out kids for bad decisions on the court, but I wonder if we could be lucky enough to have found an unlikely leader in Rashard?

He seems to be extremely comfortable in his role, he's not overly quiet, and he has bought in on what he needs to do to win.

We need a few other guys to do the same.....and for crying out loud get Conner the ball when he's hot. Insist that he miss.

Going in to this season, I might have put Kelly like 12th on my list of guys most likely to take over the team. Now it almost looks as if he waited until January and finally said "F it, if nobody else is gonna do it."

IMO, Kelly needs to find more minutes. Not because he himself is a world-beater, but because he is playing Shocker basketball. He's barking out instructions on defense. He's diving out of bounds after loose balls. He's finally taking out 2.5 years of frustration with missing bunnies....on the rim. Heck, he's a horrific FT shooter, but when it was winning time last night, he made 3 straight. When he's on the court, the rest of the team follows suit. He needs to be on the court more not because of how great he is, but because of how much better the other 4 guys start playing when he's out there.

There was a great shot of Kelly as we were coming out of a timeout last night, maybe the under 4. As the players were going back on the court, including Kelly, it was very clear who was in charge. To me, he's the guy that appears to have picked up the "we ain't f***ing losing this game" that there has been a lot of around here for several years. He has less natural talent than some of those past guys, but not less than some others. Now that he has started displaying it more openly, I hope a month is enough time for that to rub off on a few teammates.

[shockmonster]

Going in to this season, I might have put Kelly like 12th on my list of guys most likely to take over the team. Now it almost looks as if he waited until January and finally said "F it, if nobody else is gonna do it."

IMO, Kelly needs to find more minutes. Not because he himself is a world-beater, but because he is playing Shocker basketball. He's barking out instructions on defense. He's diving out of bounds after loose balls. He's finally taking out 2.5 years of frustration with missing bunnies....on the rim. Heck, he's a horrific FT shooter, but when it was winning time last night, he made 3 straight. When he's on the court, the rest of the team follows suit. He needs to be on the court more not because of how great he is, but because of how much better the other 4 guys start playing when he's out there.

There was a great shot of Kelly as we were coming out of a timeout last night, maybe the under 4. As the players were going back on the court, including Kelly, it was very clear who was in charge. To me, he's the guy that appears to have picked up the "we ain't f***ing losing this game" that there has been a lot of around here for several years. He has less natural talent than some of those past guys, but not less than some others. Now that he has started displaying it more openly, I hope a month is enough time for that to rub off on a few teammates.

The best thing you point out is that Kelly needs to make himself a 70% free throw shooter. He shoots a lot of free throws.

[Cdizzle]

The best thing you point out is that Kelly needs to make himself a 70% free throw shooter. He shoots a lot of free throws.

Good to know. I really need to work on my messaging if that was the key takeaway from my post.

Also, no, he doesn't shoot a lot of FTs. His FT rate is one of the lowest on the team.