WSU vs. ISU Trees Game Thread

[60Shock]

1.) Besides the win, I can't imagine too many fans being overjoyed with this one. We played some ugly basketball. Thank god Indiana State sucks a little more.
2.) Indiana State didn't impress me. They made their free throws and one of their inside guys (forgot who) was decent. Other than that, they were real herky-jerky with the ball. If we play just a decent game, we win going away.
3.) The coaching was terrible and it seems like it has progressively gotten worse in crunchtime situations since the MSU game.
4.)Where was David Kyles after regulation?
5.)Why didn't we utilize our depth more in OT?
6.)Why were we continually giving the same players a shot at being hero when they clearly have not been on?
7.)What's up with our great free throw shooting?
8.)Why did we abandon our post and just jack up 3's? That's a sign of a very undisciplined team. At some point, you have to just go for what's been working for ya, and that was either driving to the basket or getting it inside.
9.) The officiating was very bad on both sides.
10.) I'm happy for the win, but I seriously thought we were trying to lose late. I'm really upset with the coaching and the lack of acknowledgment for it.

I agree, SF.

This was a win we needed badly and yet, due to horrendous shooting, we nearly lost it several times. Sure, in the end we won, but it was about as ugly a win as they get. Certainly not one that makes you feel that the boys are back on track, have overcome their temporary slump, and are both physically and mentally ready to make their run.

At the present time, there are very few departments, especially offensively, in which this team is fundamentally sound.

[ShockRef]

I will apologize Balla for what I said about Hatch earlier. I too like the kid, but he's struggling mightily. He's a hard worker and can be inserted as a role player for situations, but I personally think his starting role should be replaced at this time.

Thank you for a reasonable comment and retraction of the earlier verbal assault.

At least you made the effort. BOBB is too much of a J.O. to even offer a half-hearted retraction.

Posters don't know the whole story.

When the real deal finally comes out, there will be enough crow eating on here to make the annual Thanksgiving Day Free dinners look like a snack.

That is all. 8)

[ShockRef]

wow, what a game. Both teams had several chances to win, and couldn't get the job done. I'm impressed with Indiana State in the fact that they kept clawing their way back into the game, time after time. Some of my thought and observations

1. We shoot way, way too many three pointers. I can't imagine this is all on HCGM, because he doesn't always tell the guys when to shoot and when not to shoot. This falls on our guards. Just because the shot is open, does not mean we have to take it.
2. Same point, but this team is still stupid on offense. Way too many bad decisions again tonight.
3. Rebounding was atrocious tonight. Other than Stutz and Blair, it seemed like nobody wanted to grab a rebound.
4. If Indiana St. hits their free throws late in the game, then we lose. Thank goodness ISU is a horrible free throw shooting team.
5. What the heck is up with John Moore? How many times did he have to be overruled on calls tonight? I know he's done a lot of region VI tournament games at WSU in the past, and I'd always thought he was a pretty decent official. But he made several calls tonight that were mind boggling. The call I'm most peeved about is the backcourt call (that wasn't even his call to make to begin with) to start the second overtime. Horrible call. And how the heck was that not an intentional foul when Durley got mugged, I believe it was at the end of the first OT. I've been pretty happy with the officiating up to this point, but tonights crew was not the best, at all.

Overall, I'm glad we got the win, but I think we were very lucky to win. Indy St. outplayed us for most of the game. The fact is that we won, and that was a huge, huge win

I concur that Moore did not have a good game.
However, the over & back call at the start of OT was spot on.

Murry clearly possessed the ball in the front court and momentum carried him into the back court.

Simple call.

As far as it being "his call" you should know we are paid to get the call right.
Whether or not it was in his primary can be discussed after the game.

That is all. 8)

[pinstripers]

I thought they had changed the rule about calling timeout while jumping/falling out of bounds. It seemed to me that a player could no longer call time while doing that. No? Yes?

[ShockRef]

I thought they had changed the rule about calling timeout while jumping/falling out of bounds. It seemed to me that a player could no longer call time while doing that. No? Yes?

A player can not call TO when in the air. This was changed 3 years ago.

The officials ruled the InSU player called for TO while having established position on the floor.

I could not determine through the 'quality Shocker Vision feed' if he was in the air.

They had a good look at it so I go with the officials. 8)

[pinstripers]

OK, thanks. Probably did have a foot, maybe both feet, still on the floor.

[1972Shocker]

I do not know how "established position on the floor" is defined. If it means simply being in contact with the floor then he would have met the definition., If it means being in contact with the floor in a controlled manner he would not meet that definition as he was clearly falling out of bounds and no where close to being in a controlled position.

[DPruett2333]

A player can not call TO when in the air. This was changed 3 years ago.

The officials ruled the InSU player called for TO while having established position on the floor.

So apperently we're using football rules now... If he has the ball, and both feet are on the floor, and he's falling out of bounds, isn't that traveling?!

:yes:

[shockerfanmas]

shockref, I agree with you, that the call was correct. It just looked horribly bad that #1. it was made so late, and #2. it came from the wrong official. I understand getting the call correct, and he was on top of it. I guess maybe the other 2 officials could be to blame for not understanding what happened. I recall at least 1 of the officials went up to him after the call was made. I am sure they had some discussion about it after the game. The fact is that we won, the over and back call did not make a difference

John is a good official, I've seen him work many times. Last night was not his best game, but everybody has an off game. I'm sure we'll see him again.

As for the time out call, it was absolutely the right call. Odum grabbed the ball and had both feet established on the ground, in-bounds when he called time out.

[ShockTalk]

A win is a win.

If you don't have something good to say about the Shockers, don't say it. In keeping with that spirit , let me just say, I'm not impressed with Indiana State.

Does this mean a loss is a loss and if you don't have something critical to say, don't say anything? Balderdash!

I do think the team is trying very hard and is hustling. I have concern for Graham as something doesn't look right. Maybe he's just getting worn down. Also was concerned about Toure's confidence as he had only scored 3, 4, and 5 points in 3 of his last 4 games, however, the 3 OTs seemed to turn that around.

As for the team's future, in case you haven't been paying attention, we had lost 2 home games in a row and went 3 OTs to win the 3rd. We still have all 3 of these teams to play on the road. This is a veteran group who should be very familiar with HCGM's system, yet they appear to have to be making a lot up as they go. Teams that are good, but less talented/experienced, seem to be having a better, organized plan of attack against us than we do against them. We also do not appear to be adjusting or countering those attacks timely or efficiently. Maybe it's just a team funk, maybe not. We'll see.

As things have gone, I have no concern for the post-season, but for the here and now. Our leadership needs to have some urgency, if not soul searching, to help these young men have the kind of season they are capable of having.

:wsu_posters:

[forevershockerfan]

So often when we witness a game like last night, we wonder how we won. Obviously the outcome of the game could have went either way more than thrice. It seemed like the trees were getting more than their fair share of loose balls and outrebounded us 51-46 which is bothersome.

Even so, let's look at the RDR stats of fouls totaled with turnovers. They had 20 TO's and 30 fouls for a total of 50 and our Shocks totaled 23 fouls and 14 TO's for a total of 37. We made 9 more throws than the trees even though we missed some key ones. They had 17 assists to our 13 which is not very many for a game of 3 overtimes.

It goes down as 1-0 for us and we stay in the Valley hunt. However, some of the stats listed above serve as red-flags of things to repeat and eventually haunt us if we don't shore these areas up.

Who will start the next game for the Shoxs? Will it be the players whom finished up most of the minutes last night at the end? Who will be our point-guard and our go-to player at crunch time? Hatch, Kyles and Ellis seemed off some last night. Will all 3 of them play solid at S. Illinois? I can remember plenty of Shocker teams that did not go 10 deep. Thus we had to rely on around 7 or 8 players, even if they were in a funk. Therefore, I like the idea of us have 10 players that have all had their moments for us on various nights.

In conclusion, I liked the passing skills of Stutz last night along with his 16 points, 7 bounds and 3 assists. Blair seemed to hunt down loose balls along with his 12 points and 12 boards. How about Ben who played some D. and made 2 very much needed 3 balls which were like searching for hens teeth last night? Rags and Durley also had some nice stats as well.

Now we take this Shocker show on the road, knowing that S. Illinois will be grabbing, holding, butchering and banging us for 40 minutes. At this point, we can't be picky and expect pretty wins. Our Shocks just need to take a game at a time and find a way to win. Look for Mo State to stub their toe a few times before it is over. What are we going to do to control our own destiny? Stay tuned because after last night, we know anything can and will happen.

[ShockerFever]

1. We shoot way, way too many three pointers. I can't imagine this is all on HCGM, because he doesn't always tell the guys when to shoot and when not to shoot. This falls on our guards. Just because the shot is open, does not mean we have to take it.

Uh, it's the coach's job to discipline the team and realize when the outside shots aren't falling to tell the team to stop shooting them and when the inside play is working to continually go there. This was made even more evident by the plays drawn up after timeouts in regulation and in OT that were outside jump shots. That's all on the coach and this isn't the only close game it's happened with.

4. If Indiana St. hits their free throws late in the game, then we lose. Thank goodness ISU is a horrible free throw shooting team.

Uh, if we hit our free throws late, we win going away. Not to mention if we hit our normal 3pt% or didn't jack up 23 shots, we win going away as well.

And how the heck was that not an intentional foul when Durley got mugged, I believe it was at the end of the first OT. I've been pretty happy with the officiating up to this point, but tonights crew was not the best, at all.

I'm glad you were able to step off the officiating-is-never-wrong pedestal for once. I agree that the Durley non-intentional foul call was horrible. That was intentional in every facet of the definition and yet the officials swallowed their whistles. Freaking unbelievable.

[ShockerFever]

A win is a win.

If you don't have something good to say about the Shockers, don't say it. In keeping with that spirit , let me just say, I'm not impressed with Indiana State.

Awesome. The Sugarcoat Police with their "we won so we have no issues" mantra are out in full force.

[pinstripers]

We sucked, most of the time.

We got badly out-boarded by a bunch of 6-4 white guys.

They are not a bad team, but far from a good one. We needed to spread them at home.

We played maybe 15 minutes (out of 55) of good basketball; mostly in 3-minute stretches.

Toure' was horrible until OT. Ditto Hatch.

I actually thought Ellis played pretty well.

The officiating was bad, IMO. No, that's not a strong enough term. At least it was even-handed.

Stutz and Durley both had their moments. ISU was in foul trouble inside, also. Not sure why we did not pound it down low more than we did.

Everybody seems to scout our stuff and prepare for it. That seems like a good idea that we should try. Or maybe not, we can probably just assume that everybody we play is going to penetrate all the way to the hoop.

They choked more than we choked. That's a helluva way to win a ballgame.

[notquiteBWing]

I don't disagree with the continued use of 3's. or that gregg called a few plays for threes.

I didn't see anyone complain when ben inbounded the ball to toure, then toure passed to the post to stutz, then stutz quickly passed it back to ben for corner three.

everyone enjoyed that.
Everyone would have enjoyed just about any of the threes we took had they gone it. except maybe any three by toure who is practically hitting 25% from beyond the arc.

I didn't think we played bad. in fact i thought we played well.
in regulation after a few early misses at the FT line, we made like 12 straight.
after making them look silly in the first OT, we gave it all away becasue we started shooting like a$$ from the line. THAT was awful i must admit.


We obviously did shoot terrible from 3. but i couldn't complain on shot selection, except the 0-3 from stutz that seemedill-advised and the 0-3 from toure who shouldn't dream of shooting from there.
All other players get an A for effort in this department.

But missing free throws and 3's and an unusual rate, doesn't constitute "playing awful", to me at least.

Ben's shots were huge. That second OT... down four i think, then he made us down 1. that was HUGE. then the perfect pass to stutz the next play.

Odom and Kelly were slick.
I thought ISU was a quality team. I liked their offense. Stutz and durley never seemed to understand any concept of help D.

I thought we played pretty solid D overall, maybe this is why so many weren't impressed with them. I don't know.

exciting game overall!
had we lost... ohhh my the depression i'd be in right now.

After each game when I read these threads, i read about how poorly we played. This and That. I don't know what a good effort looks like.
we had 14 turnovers in 55 minutes. You're right that's awful!...
We played a team that (just like most well-coached team in the valley) knew our plays well.
there are 3 plays that work almost always for us, and ISU destroyed any chance of us putting up a decent shot. i think two of those possessions ended in "we can't get much ball movement so i'm gonna shoot a relatively open three" shots.

Every team misses shots. every team makes turnovers. i don't think we play any more poorly than the next team.