BS Finish

[Derek Spallone]

Although, I think the ending was pretty bad and I really didn't even want to watch overtime because as a Northwestern fan as well overtimes are the worst for me but I did watch it. What I observed and im sure all you did as well was just empty possessions and not getting rebounds. We need to be a more physical team and smarter team in order to go deep in the season. To end regulation a wide open three was taken by them 1. Kyle Kelm comes in for a tip block and we say good effort 2. It was called a foul therefor that was not needed. They were 0-11 I would rather have Kelm miss that assignment and crash the boards because im pretty sure that guy would have misses that three and the shot clock was winding down and there was not a lot of time left. Overtime I knew they would come out firing but the last thing you want to do in overtime is come up empty, fouled 15 seconds within the overtime. Come on now and we lived and died from behind the arch which as a Northwestern fan is another reason I could relate and not want to watch overtime. When Johnson got called for backcourt violation im sure Martin wanted to bench him but his defense bailed out Aaron went for a quick layup that was missed when we could have slowed the game to our pace and moved the ball. Thing I stated was make them play our tempo and dont get caught up in their temp and style of play and we did just that plus free throws and the not boxing out on free throws ! Just wow but let me know what you guys think as well. I hope we bounce back saturday verse a very good Davidson team but you as well as anyone else know this win would have been the biggest on the schedule period. Positives Jordan Aaron played stellar and shots were there for about 37 minutes we played good defense then things flipped around. Composure, confidence, and depth will be important as guys get worn out and tired the season is young just like the team.

[Jimmy Lemke]

The phantom foul on the three-pointer against Kyle Kelm put the exclamation point on a poor second half of basketball.

[Derek Spallone]

Absoulutely, and whether we want to blame the refs which I wouldn't mind at the end of the day its how you play and that gave them momentum to run with in OT

[Jimmy Lemke]

Well like I said, it was the exclamation point - far from the only bad thing.

[Derek Spallone]

Tough because this was probably that RPI Marquee type game that if won could help towards the long stretch but at the end of the day I guess it really matters how conference goes, and how we can bounce back from this loss to play a very good Davidson team like you told me they return all those starters and players in general so we know they can score flat out.

[lutzow10]

I honestly have a problem with the fact that for the entire second half we weren't trying to clog the lane and let them try to shoot from outside until they started hitting shots. I mean honestly. They hit ZERO 3's. Ehy weren't we stepping bak and making sure we didnt get beat to the basket. They killed us with all the drive and dump stuff. And we couldn't play help defense on drives to the paint to save our lives.


On the plus side, i saw glimmers of really great defensive plays. Some of Bobo's steals and breakups/deflections were outstanding.


I do feel that Harris should have made quite a few extra passes and we prolly would have better opportunities on a lot of plays.


Free throw shooting is yet again atrocious this year. When i heard that Harris shot 33 percent for the season last season my jaw dropped to the floor. The fact that Jeter's players aren't showing improvement should be an automatic reason to stop trusting players to work on FTs on their own. They should line up every practice as a team, every guy shoots two, if he misses the 1st team does a suicide, makes the 1st misses the 2nd a down and back. Every guy goes. Do tha every day i know a team that improved by thirty percent from the line in 3 weeks. Nobody wants to be the guy that is responsible for making his teammates run.

[Jimmy Lemke]

You're absolutely right. There was a point when Demetrius Harris took a contested jumper on the baseline where he should have made a pass to the elbow for a wide-open three.

[lutzow10]

I shouldnt single out Harris though. He is just one of the people who did it that I noticed. Once it got to the end of regulation and overtime, most of the shots we took seemed a little premature. Ones that, if one more pass would have been made, would have been much better looks. I think this was a good thing to experience though. Now we can study what we did wrong in the closing minutes of the game and hopefully improve upon things. It can only help how we play in pressure situations in the future.

Another thing we struggled with was catching and holding on to passes. So many passes bounced off of guys hands because they weren't ready for the ball. We can't afford to let things like that happen in such clutch moments

Also, i know mister "Mister Offense Board Monster" for SC was being a little cheap with some of those moves to get rebounds, but we need to learn how to deal with guys like that if refs are going to let them do **** like that. That is the thing that killed us the most other than FTs. All the damn second chances tjey were getting. I mean he was managing to get boards while he was surrounded by three of our players. We need to go after the ball like the game depends on it, because second chances are what let comebacks like this happen.

[Kyle Rawling]

The problem with trying to fix poor FT shooting in practice is that FTs are just as mental as they are physical. After Parkside, Jeter said Harris couldn't miss in practice. If it's a mental problem with Harris the only way it'll get fixed is experience. If he continues to show no progress, the unfortunate answer is benching him. I'd hate to do that with the progress he's made but if it stays a big enough liability, that's what's best for the team. This isn't to say the whole team shouldn't be practicing from the line, they should extensively. But it's not always a physical issue.