We were undermanned but competed throughout most of the game. When we maybe overachieve some the first half, and I am also thinking of the Nova game, we have a tendency to come out flat after halftime.
Danny needs to be quicker calling an immediate time out, since we don’t have the octane on offense to make up large deficits. He has a desire to wait for the official timeout at the 16 minute mark of the second half but when we are playing that poorly, 4 minutes is too long. He did finally call a timeout shortly before 4 minutes but the damage was done.
One thing Chief noticed was that Houston made quick decisions with the ball and the ball wasn’t sticky on their offensive end. They penetrated and kicked - knowing where the shooters were. The passes were delivered to the shooter in the triple threat stance and the shots went up in a smooth motion. We need to get better at this but without a penetrator it’s difficult with our current line-up.
Another aspect of the game Chief notice was we don’t make aggressive hard cuts on offense. Too much standing around and several times our spacing was poor. We also need to work at setting fundamental screens - keeping our hands down and body in a powerful stance. Chief would like to see more motion below the foul line and less weave between the foul line and half court.
While improved we still get caught in mismatches with Cobb guarding a guard at the top of the circle while our guards covering a big down low.
I will give credit to Tarin and CV for really making an effort to crash the defensive boards. Over-all we competed on rebounds with a strong and athletic Houston team.
Sid is demonstrating improvement nearly every game and given that we are down our two best players, he needs to get more shots. Of course, he looked clueless on defense at times but he can also make that block out of nowhere on defense, that no one else can make. He is a competitor and despite his slight frame he will mix it up.
I was disappointed with our foul shooting, Josh in particular needs to do much better. At the end of his shot he has a jerky release that needs to be smoothed over. I thought Josh mixed it up on the boards but on several offensive moves he needs to finish with more energy and explosion.
Until late in the game, Tyler had 3 points and maybe 2 rebounds despite lots of minutes. He did hit two late 3’s when we swung the ball like we should but don’t do enough of. It’s so important for Tyler to be ready to shoot before he gets the ball and to receive a clean pass. Our guards need to deliver the ball with the shooting motion in mind.
Now a comment about the fans - It actually turned into a pretty good and loud crowd after late arrivals maybe from Valentines dinners. True, ideally we should have played this game on campus given school is in session. Of course, we also played some games over break on campus, which were sparsely attended. I know the reasons given for this but we need to be more proactive and control our own destiny. There’s are enough of people in the AD dept making good bucks and they should be able to figure it out or we need to find people who can.
I know Danny has complained about the temperature at XL floor level and tonight was no exception. Way too cold. They have the new powerful ice chilling equipment and perhaps the heating system is overmatched? I don’t know if they are treating this like a hockey game, if they are trying to save a few bucks or the system is really ineffective but it’s not really a cold night for February and it was cold at floor level. Unacceptable.
