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Message: [QUOTE="RichZ, post: 3804248, member: 534"] [LIST=1] [*]6 seconds in to his first game time in forever, Akok showed no hesitancy to go high in the air for the block attempt. Would have brought the house down[I] (MY house. Probably not Hinkle[/I]) if he'd made the block, but it was still great to see how effortlessly he went up. [*]Twenty-five seconds later Martin rebounds his own miss and dumps it to Akok for his first bucket of the season. [*]Next possession -- Polley three. We only outscored them 5 to 4 in that sequence, but somehow, that's when I knew we were going to win and relaxed. [*]I like aggressive Polley. [*]Refs favored butler. They seemed to make quite a few reflex calls on block attempts, but through my nat'l flag blue tinted glasses, it looked like 4 on us to 2 on Butler. [*]12:30 left badams put the ball on his hip on the drive. Reminded me a bit of Kemba. [*]We made good use of our 15 available fouls in the middle -- 11 among Whaley, Sanogo and Carlton in 52 minutes. If you want to add Martin and Polley as interior guys, they had 64 minutes and one foul between them. But I'm only counting time at the 5 or the traditional 4. [*]I know it's not in Dan Hurley's DNA to turn a guy loose the first few games after returning from injury, but I would have liked to see more than 6 minutes of Akok today. [*]I found it incomprehensible that Whalley, Carlton and Sanogo only got 10 boards among the three of them. [*]Martin only shot 5 of 12, and I swear, most of what he missed was from within 2 feet of the rim. [*]Martin also tied Cole for the rebounding lead with 7 each. [*]Particularly in the 2nd half, we had quite a few defensive lapses when we had 3 guys basically at the foul line, and they got driven right past by a guard. I got the feeling that it was more a matter of the Butler staff having figured out a weakness in the defensive scheme that Dan Hurley was using for a stretch in the 2nd half, more than a personnel issue. [*]Wonder if Adams ever led the team in minutes before? Only a minute more than Zay and 2 minutes more than either Martin or Polley, but still... He kept the bonehead plays to a minimum, and I've got to admit, I feel pretty confident with him on the FT line. His value is on the rise with Bouk out. [*]Cole's 7/7/2 line isn't going to make headlines, but I felt like he had his strongest performance of the year. [*]Gaffney also contributed more to the W than his 5/4/3 line would suggest, particularly in the 2nd half. His aggressive play seems to run in spurts though. Still, both of our much maligned PGs played passable half court defense for the most part. [*]Thanks mostly to Polley and Martin, we shot nearly 50% from 3 as a team. Mix in our 80% from the line, and it's starting to feel kinda like the old days. [*]Whaley fouled out with a few seconds left, but he seemed to be a particular target of the refs. 2 of his fouls were pretty clearly clean blocks, and another was questionable -- at least to my eye. Yeah, I know, nat'l flag blue glasses, yada yada, but there were a lot of much more obvious fouls both ways that weren't called. [*]Loved Josh's mid court steal and breakaway for the jam. [I]See video below[/I]. He deserves a little fun for all the heavy lifting he's called on to do. [*]The team spirit, if that's what you want to call it, is building. Hurley's system is catching on. The guys seem to be understanding it and appreciating it. And they are all in on the culture Hurley espouses. They pick each other up when they get knocked down. They cheer each other on and celebrate each others successful plays. Most of all, they look like they really enjoy winning. It's a beautiful thing to see. [*]Happy with the win, but unless we get considerably better somewhere, we're not going to beat a good team without Bouk. [*]ESPN website is horrible; Tyler Polley should be a story since Bouk went down. On his stats page on ESPN.Com, the "Latest News" feature is that he's out for the season with a torn ACL. [/LIST] [MEDIA=youtube]_rJg2nw-YX4[/MEDIA] [/QUOTE]

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