WSU vs. ISU Trees Game Thread

[ShockerFever]

TMH, were you impressed with how everything went down last night? Is it impossible for any of our coaching to make mistakes? Is there ever any responsibility on anything?

There were too many times when we went inside that we were successful. Even with the stupid, forced turnovers, we scored at a more efficient rate than we did with the wide open, settling three pointers. It wasn't even close. We converted 13% of our shots from behind the arc, while we were close to 60% (I don't know the exact numbers) inside of 10 feet. At some point, somebody's just gonna have to accept the fact that those shots were left open for a reason.

I'm not saying we should just abandon our outside game permanently. But for this game, it just wasn't happening and somebody HAS to adjust.

It would have been interesting to see if you felt the same away if we didn't luck our way into a victory.

[proshox]

I am a big fan of the three point shot so i am less likely to be bothered by the ill advised three. I wasn't bothered by the overall number of attempts in last night's game (there have been games where I thought there were to many three attempts such as the first half at ). Players needed to make the shots... I was really bothered by the missed free throws and the second half drought without a timeout.

I witnessed an exchange between Marshall and DK as well. It was at the beginining of the third OT and it looked as if Marshall asked DK if he could go and DK just kept shaking his head no. I could be way off, but I didn't see anything in the body language or facial expressions to suggest a heated conversation. A friend told me DK RAN to the tunnel when he came out after his turnover - I wonder if he was sick or something? Something had to explain his shooting.

[pinstripers]

didn't see the exchange, but did see the trip to the tunnel. Getting outrebounded by those guys is crazy, and we closed the gap in the OT.

[WstateU]

I am a big fan of the three point shot so i am less likely to be bothered by the ill advised three. I wasn't bothered by the overall number of attempts in last night's game (there have been games where I thought there were to many three attempts such as the first half at ). Players needed to make the shots... I was really bothered by the missed free throws and the second half drought without a timeout.

I witnessed an exchange between Marshall and DK as well. It was at the beginining of the third OT and it looked as if Marshall asked DK if he could go and DK just kept shaking his head no. I could be way off, but I didn't see anything in the body language or facial expressions to suggest a heated conversation. A friend told me DK RAN to the tunnel when he came out after his turnover - I wonder if he was sick or something? Something had to explain his shooting.

Maybe the pre-game meal was Mexican food... DK could have been suffering from the Green-Apple-Quick-Steps? Yikes!

[The Mad Hatter]

TMH, were you impressed with how everything went down last night? Is it impossible for any of our coaching to make mistakes? Is there ever any responsibility on anything?

There were too many times when we went inside that we were successful. Even with the stupid, forced turnovers, we scored at a more efficient rate than we did with the wide open, settling three pointers. It wasn't even close. We converted 13% of our shots from behind the arc, while we were close to 60% (I don't know the exact numbers) inside of 10 feet. At some point, somebody's just gonna have to accept the fact that those shots were left open for a reason.

I'm not saying we should just abandon our outside game permanently. But for this game, it just wasn't happening and somebody HAS to adjust.

It would have been interesting to see if you felt the same away if we didn't luck our way into a victory.

No, I'm not happy with everything, I just think that they criticism has gotten out of hand. Not every shot from 3 was a good look, but more of them were than you would think reading this board. All told, I thought there was a lot more to complain about against both MSU and UNI. In those games, I thought we coached and played poorly. For the most part against ISU, I thought we shot poorly, but played the rest of the game better than in those other two contests.

As for the percentage issue, can you know how those percentages would have gone if we stopped shooting the 3? Once you stop taking the outside shot, it increases the ability of the defense to double down with a guard. In addition, the shooting percentage is not the whole story. We committed turnover trying to force the ball into the post. Those don't count as misses in the shooting percentage, but they might as well.

Plus, do you really want the team to believe that since they missed the last one, they probably will miss the next one, so they shouldn't take it? In my mind, the offense has to be allowed to run the way it is designed and players should take open shots.

As I said in my previous post, we shot a lower percentage of 3s than we usually do on the year. The criticism has made it sound like we took more 3s than usual while shooting poorly.

In regulation, no one other than David attempted more than 2 three-pointers. Even after 3 overtimes, no one other than David had more than 3 three-point attempts. David's 0-6 was certainly a problem, but there is a difference between saying a single player made poor shooting decisions (although not all of those were) and the whole team did. And guess how the coaches (who have been criticized) handled the one player who shot an excessive number of shots without success? They gave him fewer minutes than 7 other players on the team and kept him out of the overtimes.

Let me put it in these terms, other than David, every single player on the team could have shot at least 33% from three if they had made their final three-pointer. That doesn't sound like a situation to me where anyone but David was jacking up threes wildly.

[JaminShock]

And for all the talk of stupid turnovers, we had 14 TO in 55 minutes, which is pretty good. Complain about the poor management of the game, complain about the poor FT shooting, but the TO's didn't hurt us.

[ShockerFever]

Gonna have to agree to disagree on things TMH. I thought we were severely outcoached again this game and I think the outlook on things would have been vastly different if we lost the game. The 3's were wide open for a reason. We had 29% and 31% 3-point shooters that were already cold still throwing up bricks. When you're hitting them, sure go for it. When you have been consistently bricking wide open 3's, you have to somehow get a better percentage shot, even if it's harder to earn and achieve.

Usually after a victory over a team ahead of you in the standings, leads to a lot of posting activity on here. Ironically, it seems a bit subdued and there just doesn't seem to be a lot of sunshine out.

[The Mad Hatter]

Gonna have to agree to disagree on things TMH. I thought we were severely outcoached again this game and I think the outlook on things would have been vastly different if we lost the game. The 3's were wide open for a reason. We had 29% and 31% 3-point shooters that were already cold still throwing up bricks. When you're hitting them, sure go for it. When you have been consistently bricking wide open 3's, you have to somehow get a better percentage shot, even if it's harder to earn and achieve.

Usually after a victory over a team ahead of you in the standings, leads to a lot of posting activity on here. Ironically, it seems a bit subdued and there just doesn't seem to be a lot of sunshine out.

As I said in my previous post, no one other than David had more than 2 attempts from 3 point range in regulation and no more than 3 including overtime.

For each of those guys, you can't complain about taking their first shot.

Do you want guys to not attempt a second three pointer if they miss their first one? If they make the second one, they are shooting 50% from three.

Do you want guys to not attempt a third three pointer if they miss their first two? If they make the third one, they are shooting 33% from three.

Criticize David all you want, but for the rest of the guys is that really the standard you want to use? Miss your first one and you shouldn't shoot again?

[Kung Wu]

TMH, were you impressed with how everything went down last night? Is it impossible for any of our coaching to make mistakes? Is there ever any responsibility on anything?

There were too many times when we went inside that we were successful. Even with the stupid, forced turnovers, we scored at a more efficient rate than we did with the wide open, settling three pointers. It wasn't even close. We converted 13% of our shots from behind the arc, while we were close to 60% (I don't know the exact numbers) inside of 10 feet. At some point, somebody's just gonna have to accept the fact that those shots were left open for a reason.

I'm not saying we should just abandon our outside game permanently. But for this game, it just wasn't happening and somebody HAS to adjust.

It would have been interesting to see if you felt the same away if we didn't luck our way into a victory.

No, I'm not happy with everything, I just think that they criticism has gotten out of hand. Not every shot from 3 was a good look, but more of them were than you would think reading this board. All told, I thought there was a lot more to complain about against both MSU and UNI. In those games, I thought we coached and played poorly. For the most part against ISU, I thought we shot poorly, but played the rest of the game better than in those other two contests.

As for the percentage issue, can you know how those percentages would have gone if we stopped shooting the 3? Once you stop taking the outside shot, it increases the ability of the defense to double down with a guard. In addition, the shooting percentage is not the whole story. We committed turnover trying to force the ball into the post. Those don't count as misses in the shooting percentage, but they might as well.

Plus, do you really want the team to believe that since they missed the last one, they probably will miss the next one, so they shouldn't take it? In my mind, the offense has to be allowed to run the way it is designed and players should take open shots.

As I said in my previous post, we shot a lower percentage of 3s than we usually do on the year. The criticism has made it sound like we took more 3s than usual while shooting poorly.

In regulation, no one other than David attempted more than 2 three-pointers. Even after 3 overtimes, no one other than David had more than 3 three-point attempts. David's 0-6 was certainly a problem, but there is a difference between saying a single player made poor shooting decisions (although not all of those were) and the whole team did. And guess how the coaches (who have been criticized) handled the one player who shot an excessive number of shots without success? They gave him fewer minutes than 7 other players on the team and kept him out of the overtimes.

Let me put it in these terms, other than David, every single player on the team could have shot at least 33% from three if they had made their final three-pointer. That doesn't sound like a situation to me where anyone but David was jacking up threes wildly.

Sanity restored.

Also saying that ISU isn't good is silly. They came into our house with a 6 game win streak, a win over MSU, a win over UNI, and were tied for first in the league. They were hot, very confident and played quite well.

[Ricardo del Rio]

And for all the talk of stupid turnovers, we had 14 TO in 55 minutes, which is pretty good. Complain about the poor management of the game, complain about the poor FT shooting, but the TO's didn't hurt us.

Normalized for 40 minutes, we had the following:

1. Turnovers - 10.2 Say 10

2. Fouls - 16.7 Say 17

3. Combo - 27 Say pretty damn good.

Probable root cause of closeness:

1. Rebounds

2. Three ball percentage

Everytime, I watch Syracuse, I wonder why we cannot play more zone. Not a lot, just more to change up and confuse.

[ShockerFever]

Gonna have to agree to disagree on things TMH. I thought we were severely outcoached again this game and I think the outlook on things would have been vastly different if we lost the game. The 3's were wide open for a reason. We had 29% and 31% 3-point shooters that were already cold still throwing up bricks. When you're hitting them, sure go for it. When you have been consistently bricking wide open 3's, you have to somehow get a better percentage shot, even if it's harder to earn and achieve.

Usually after a victory over a team ahead of you in the standings, leads to a lot of posting activity on here. Ironically, it seems a bit subdued and there just doesn't seem to be a lot of sunshine out.

As I said in my previous post, no one other than David had more than 2 attempts from 3 point range in regulation and no more than 3 including overtime.

For each of those guys, you can't complain about taking their first shot.

Do you want guys to not attempt a second three pointer if they miss their first one? If they make the second one, they are shooting 50% from three.

Do you want guys to not attempt a third three pointer if they miss their first two? If they make the third one, they are shooting 33% from three.

Criticize David all you want, but for the rest of the guys is that really the standard you want to use? Miss your first one and you shouldn't shoot again?

Garrett Stutz was 0-3, taking 3 more shots than he should have. Kyles, our best shooter, went 0-6, probably 3 more than he should have. Hatch was 1-3, I guess that's ok. Murry, our worst 3-pt shooter, went 0-3. I don't think he should shoot a 3 again, so IMO 3 more than he should have. JT has proven he can hit some, but in a game where the outside shot was sucking energy out of the place and his inside play was keeping us in it, it was one more than he should have taken (0-1).

So yes, if we could have eliminated an extra 10 wasted 3-point shots, then I would have felt a lot better about things. That would be 10 extra cracks around the basket that we probably convert 50% of the time, at least. That's a W by double digits in regulation.

Drive to the mothaeffing hole and draw fouls. I don't give a flip. Anything was better than watching wide open after wide open BRICK clank off the iron and watch energy exit the building. And if you were at the game last night, you felt the letdown after each and every one.

At some point, the head coach has to step in and say.. NO MORE 3's. WE ARE GOING TO MAKE A CONCERTED EFFORT TO HAVE THE BALL TOUCHED INSIDE THE PAINT. I guarantee you the 3's stop firing at that point.

[ShockerFever]

Everytime, I watch Syracuse, I wonder why we cannot play more zone. Not a lot, just more to change up and confuse.

Count me in the "Let's do something different for once" club.

[Aargh]

Usually after a victory over a team ahead of you in the standings, leads to a lot of posting activity on here. Ironically, it seems a bit subdued and there just doesn't seem to be a lot of sunshine out.

Darn - I'm agreeing with Fever twice in the same thread.

This year's Shocker team has turned out to be the literary equivalent of going from "Great Expectations" to "Curb Your Enthusiasm".

I think this was the most obvious example I've ever seen of the TEAM taking the CROWD out of the game. Every time the crowd got going, it seems the players did something bone-headed and the crowd sat down.

[lostshocker]

At some point, the head coach has to step in and say.. NO MORE 3's. WE ARE GOING TO MAKE A CONCERTED EFFORT TO HAVE THE BALL TOUCHED INSIDE THE PAINT. I guarantee you the 3's stop firing at that point.

and the moment you do that is the the moment the other team stops playing perimeter defense and drops even more guys into the paint to defend. taking away one aspect of your offense effectively takes away all of it.

[Shocker85]

At some point, the head coach has to step in and say.. NO MORE 3's. WE ARE GOING TO MAKE A CONCERTED EFFORT TO HAVE THE BALL TOUCHED INSIDE THE PAINT. I guarantee you the 3's stop firing at that point.

and the moment you do that is the the moment the other team stops playing perimeter defense and drops even more guys into the paint to defend. taking away one aspect of your offense effectively takes away all of it.

And it becomes MUCH easier for the defense to react inside because they have far less court area to defend against a one-dimensional offensive scheme. The missed 3's are becoming troubling though.

The biggest problem I'm seeing is that teams have figured out how to beat us on defense. The good, well-coached teams are spreading the court on us. Good coaches recognize quickly that our big guys are not quick at all. Their bigs post high, pulling Durley, Stutz, Blair away from the basket and making space for the guards to penetrate. Our bigs are too slow to react defensively and are out of rebounding position. When our bigs stay home, a shooter is planted in the corner for a wide open jumper. Some zone would help that a lot. Rebounding would suffer some, but the penetration by the guards would be minimized. Fouls on the bigs would be minimized. Challenging almost every team in the MVC to try to beat you on the perimeter is a win-win. Other than the occasional NIU-like shotting night, most teams will fail.

--'85.