This is what happens

[Rico444]

This is what happens when you don't play a full 40 minutes.

Cincinnati's offense in the first half was chucking up 3s. Once this was apparent (about 5 minutes in, to me anyway), our guys needed to get a hand in their face. They decided not to do this until the 2nd half, and guess what? Cincinnati only scored 27 in the 2nd half.

Too often, this team has trouble showing up for 40 minutes. They played with heart tonight, and they fought back from a double digit deficit. But we need 40 minutes against these really good teams, or it won't matter how much heart we show in the 2nd half.

 

[caw]

This I agree with. I also think Calhoun makes some good/great halftime adjustments. I'm not sure how much Boatright would have helped from a statistical POV, because we got good to great production from the 1-3 tonight but I think Lamb and Napier have reverted to their pre-Boatright defense, in which they don't play aggressively in the first half on offense/defense so they don't get in foul trouble/tired and then play more aggressively in the second half. Lamb hasn't been able to turn it on and off like Napier has.

 

[superjohn]

Completely agree, everything with this team starts with the defense and we simply didn't play defense in the first half. We need to play D for a full 40 beacause our offense always goes stagnant at points during the game. Boat was missed tonight.