DChoosier

Some parts were definitely ugly but…. A team that has been called soft battled after being down 9. We only had 4 turnovers. FOUR!!! That being said, we have a tall/long team and got killed on the boards. UGH. Big picture. 3-1 in the BT. Would be great to win at Rutgers to go to 4-1 with 2 road wins. Looking forward to the game.

Many comments (deserved) that Woody goes on autopilot with his lineups. That certainly wasn’t the case for the last 10 minutes of the second half.

Down 9 and get the win. The guys dug in. It’s a beautiful thing.

Agreed. That was so clear.

Can we at least say having Trey in his grill helped make that happen?

That was a monster basket by MR. VERY impressive.

I would guess most of us played at least a little basketball and learned, WHEN WE WERE 9, to get inside our guy and get a butt/hip on him to box out for a rebound.

I’m happy for him in that he is doing it in such a pressure situation. This isn’t getting 8 against ISU. He knows what this game means and has done some positive things. Would be great if it impacts him for the balance of the season.

It’s crazy to be in a game with that stat.

The difference between being 2-2 or 3-1 after tonight is huge (yes, I realize that is obvious). Please, please close this out. It’s good to see we been pressuring Battle this half. Keep it up.

It’s hard to understand how Trey has been around forever yet he almost never gets a call when he is mugged going to the basket but gets called for touch fouls.

We would be up 7 if we could possess balls that we get our hands on. It’s crazy how many “we almost had it” situations we have.

MR for the 3 !!!

Size on the perimeter was indeed a HUGE factor and so was Hulls injury. UM beat Syracuse. BFD. Syracuse, and no other team that year, or since ‘75-76, has gone undefeated so yes…a team beat Syracuse that year. What a revelation!! Marquette was 14-4 in the Big East, beat Syracuse in the regular season, was very familiar with the Cuse zone but scored a total of 39 points against them in the Elite 8 game. Syracuse was on a roll. I’m not excusing Crean, when it came to the zone, but that loss has been greatly mis-characterized by our fan base.

And guards…..

Yep, They then had years where they mixed it up and then went full-time zone starting in 1996.

Yes, I think that was RMK’s greatest championship accomplishment as the ‘87 squad was not nearly as loaded as the ‘76 and ‘81 teams (not to mention that the ‘87 Syracuse team Knight beat had a ton of talent). There were a number of differences, however, between the two games including the obvious coaching difference between RMK and Crean. No contest. The Crean team got crushed on the perimeter but I would take a senior Alford and a junior Smart over a hobbled Hulls in a sling and a freshman Yogi (and the Knight guys each had 2-3” on the Crean guys) every day of the week. Alford hit 7 threes, there is no way an injured Hulls or a freshman Yogi could have done that under any coach. Alford and Smart combined for 44 points (17-30) vs Hulls and Yogi playing 50 minutes and both going scoreless. Hulls was injured and they were dominated by Syracuses 6”4 and 6”7 guards (the ‘87 and ‘13 Syracuse defenses were not the same). Hulls getting injured was a big deal as he and Yogi only combined for 5 points in the previous game, which we could have easily lost, vs Temple. Also, in ‘87 it helped tremendously that Syracuse wet the bed down the stretch. We played well but if Syracuse had hit their free throws there never would have been the Smart shot. Shite happens in a single game elimination tourney.

OSU is currently favored but at the Hall we will get this crucial W IU - 76 O$U. - 71

The original post said we didn’t get any GOOD transfers. You didn’t catch my sarcasm when I replied that I am “pretty happy “with Walker and Ware.

I’m pretty happy with Ware and Walker. The glaring issue is that we didn’t get a couple of guards.

Our ceiling is dependent on guard play so I definitely agree that the ceiling is lower this year.. Not only would it be great to get scoring from consistent 1 and 2G perimeter threats but it would really open up things for our solid 3/4/5’s. Any coach with an IQ above 50 is going to double/triple team Ware and Malik. There will be the occasional game when they get burned by a hot shooting TG or X but most of the time packing it in will work for them.

If a coach would get us in the top 10 consistently I’d be ok with the coach drinking 1/5 during the game (in a brown bag of course)

What do we do to the trustees tonight? March to their homes with lit torches…LOL

I talked to a knowledgeable Syracuse grad prior to the game expecting he would agree it would be a tough game. Instead he surprised me by saying “we kill teams with midget guards like you guys”. 5’11” Hulls, basically playing with a sling, and 5’11” freshman Yogi got eaten alive on the perimeter by their 6’7” lottery pick guard. Cody had a very bad game. It was a terrible match-up and match-ups matter in the tourney. In the following game Syracuse held Marquette to 39 points. I’m not saying Crean did a great job but sometimes it seems like people think we lost to UE.

Looked like crap. 6th banner is looking like a long shot I still think we beat OSU at home to go to 3-1.