They Fought Through It | The Boneyard

They Fought Through It

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Unless they go on some crazy run from here through the AAC regular season, it's going to come down to 3 games in Hartford in March.

Just not sure where this effort was the first 3.5 games.
 
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It will take too long for this team to dream about an at-large bid, but in 15 weeks who knows

Looking so fundamentally unsound with FTs, easy lay-ups, knowing the scouting report on D, it's not looking great
 
It's going to be a really rough year but Jalen obviously has tremdous talent, Vance has a sweet stroke and they all competed in the second half. Hopefully they learned a lot about themselves tonight.
 
Defense needs to figure it out but got to say I loved the fire we played with. We could have packed up but more good than bad and hope this sparks a run for us.
 
brimah and facey and enoch really give u no offense other than lob alley oops. This team desperately needs a post presence
 
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I'm hoping we play at a faster pace from now on. We score better when we aren't pounding the ball for 20 seconds and standing around.
 
Stinger92860 said:
We gave up 57 points in the 2nd half.
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Gave up 58 but scored 64 (1 less than our season high). As someone alluded to...finally we saw some heart. That's all we could have asked for from these guys having gone down 18-3 and losing Terry.

Tonight tells me more of what I already knew. We have a boat load of offensive talent, we just aren't putting guys in position to succeed. Ok State plays extremely up tempo and basically takes half court sets out of the question. Our guys were simply playing basketball out there and the offensive talent showed. Ok State is going to win A LOT of games and we clawed back in the second half despite missing 2 of our 4 best players. We will be fine. It will take time, but we will be fine. We'll be the best team in the American come March.

Another takeaway (sorry to ramble but this is the only place to do so) is that Facey's PT needs to be cut substantially. When him and Brimah are on the floor together our offensive possessions are scary. It's virtually a 3 on 5. I know he's raw and thin but Durham has a nice stroke and if we're going to be dealing with growing pains all year I think the kid deserves 15-20 mpg to grow and get better.

Obviously not happy with a loss but they gave 110%. Jalen battled back from a brutal, brutal first 8 minutes. Rodney got his shot back and looked great. These injuries are going to pay huge dividends for Vital/Jackson down the line. I'm confident we can get the auto bid in March.
 
Does anyone ever think that the immense pressure for us to win these early season games against Power 5 teams gets into the players heads and makes them play tight? Oklahoma St for example can play loose knowing they have many more opportunities to play top tier teams. While we have a top heavy schedule. I strongly believe our conference affiliation has more to do with how we play than we like to think. I am not blaming our horrible start 100% on this, but it must play a role. And honestly, ever since we joined the AAC we have only shown up in March when we play looser with nothing to lose and no expectations, having that "prove the doubters wrong" mentality. Really unfortunate and incredibly frustrating situation we are in.
 
Once Terry went down, they started playing less scared and more as a team. The second
half was exciting.

I did think that our out-of-bounds plays were poor. Pressure man-to-man defenses shoulder silt in layups but like everything the first half, the players were tentative.
 
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huskyharry said:
Once Terry went down, they started playing less scared and more as a team.
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Without Terry to defer to, or Jalen playing remotely well, they figured they'd have to take the load themselves.
 
lange10 said:
We have a boat load of offensive talent
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I hope it arrives soon.

One decent half in garbage time does not an offense make. This may be the worst offensive team we've ever had.
 
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Where is offensive talent? The front court is terrible. JA and Purvis are incredibly streaky, neither are really consistent offensive players. Gilbert can't shoot. Possibly Vance longer term. Not including Larrier until we know more.

8893 said:
I hope it arrives soon.

One decent half in garbage time does not an offense make. This may be the worst offensive team we've ever had.
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I don't know the actual #s, would have to watch again, but in the last 6-8 minutes they almost never got a stop. OK State always had an answer, maybe a bad call here or there, but sure Ok State would say the same.


lange10 said:
Gave up 58 but scored 64 (1 less than our season high). As someone alluded to...finally we saw some heart. That's all we could have asked for from these guys having gone down 18-3 and losing Terry.

Tonight tells me more of what I already knew. We have a boat load of offensive talent, we just aren't putting guys in position to succeed. Ok State plays extremely up tempo and basically takes half court sets out of the question. Our guys were simply playing basketball out there and the offensive talent showed. Ok State is going to win A LOT of games and we clawed back in the second half despite missing 2 of our 4 best players. We will be fine. It will take time, but we will be fine. We'll be the best team in the American come March.

Another takeaway (sorry to ramble but this is the only place to do so) is that Facey's PT needs to be cut substantially. When him and Brimah are on the floor together our offensive possessions are scary. It's virtually a 3 on 5. I know he's raw and thin but Durham has a nice stroke and if we're going to be dealing with growing pains all year I think the kid deserves 15-20 mpg to grow and get better.

Obviously not happy with a loss but they gave 110%. Jalen battled back from a brutal, brutal first 8 minutes. Rodney got his shot back and looked great. These injuries are going to pay huge dividends for Vital/Jackson down the line. I'm confident we can get the auto bid in March.
Expand ...
 
JSM1970 said:
Where is offensive talent? The front court is terrible. JA and Purvis are incredibly streaky, neither are really consistent offensive players. Gilbert can't shoot. Possibly Vance longer term. Not including Larrier until we know more.
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Gilbert and Larrier are/were the best hope. By far.
 
What is great is that our fans down there were given a UConn show. I'm happy that they were rewarded (as if Hawaii is not enough) with some decent basketball in the 2nd half along with a close game at the end.
 
8893 said:
I hope it arrives soon.

One decent half in garbage time does not an offense make. This may be the worst offensive team we've ever had.
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I'm going to agree to disagree big time with this statement. Jalen and Larrier are future 1st rounders. Alterique is a stud. Purvis is purvis - streaky but when he's on he can knock down jumpers and pour in 15-20 easily. Vance is a knockdown spot up shooter who seems to be a player who can develop into someone who can create for himself off the bounce. Vital has been a big surprise as well - strong, can finish at the rim, nice stroke. We have weapons...we just don't use them the right way when we run our boring half court sets which could be why you think they have no talent.
 
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ConnHuskBask said:
Unless they go on some crazy run from here through the AAC regular season, it's going to come down to 3 games in Hartford in March.

Just not sure where this effort was the first 3.5 games.
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Understand NCAA basketball, we could lose every nonconference game, and even every conference game, but if we play great in the AAC tourney, this team is 100% capable of going on a run for a few days and stealing a tourney berth.

Thanks to this awful conference, I will not give up hope in a tournament berth until we have no scholarship players healthy. At worst, we'd have to beat a few decent teams, and an always gritty cinci team to earn a shot at the tourney
 



Put them with the Adams we saw in the second half plus the Purvis we saw for two years. Add in Vance and Vital, who are doing very well as freshmen. We have offense.
 
Kembacity said:
Understand NCAA basketball, we could lose every nonconference game, and even every conference game, but if we play great in the AAC tourney, this team is 100% capable of going on a run for a few days and stealing a tourney berth.

Thanks to this awful conference, I will not give up hope in a tournament berth until we have no scholarship players healthy. At worst, we'd have to beat a few decent teams, and an always gritty cinci team to earn a shot at the tourney
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Thanks for the information sensei.
 
lange10 said:
I'm going to agree to disagree big time with this statement. Jalen and Larrier are future 1st rounders. Alterique is a stud. Purvis is purvis - streaky but when he's on he can knock down jumpers and pour in 15-20 easily. Vance is a knockdown spot up shooter who seems to be a player who can develop into someone who can create for himself off the bounce. Vital has been a big surprise as well - strong, can finish at the rim, nice stroke. We have weapons...we just don't use them the right way when we run our boring half court sets which could be why you think they have no talent.
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I was referring to a team without Gilbert and Larrier, which I think is likely, at least for a while. And if either one of them has anything remotely serious that could benefit from a season to rehab, I wouldn't hesitate to seek medical redshirts for them.
 
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