str8baller

I actually think our D has been pretty consistent outside of a few stretches vs Incarnate Word. The offense has really been what has bogged down the last two games. Whether that holds up against KSU is another story

There used to be a week in late December that had a bunch of bowl games and good non-con basketball games. It was always a good week to be in Vegas. I think that’s kind of went by the wayside though.

As much as we may wish otherwise I don’t think you or I get any say in it, nor am I arguing we should lose any of those. But much like the football analysis (we could’ve lost Oregon and maybe another and made the playoffs), we can split our 4 P5 non con games, go .500 in league play, and likely make the tournament. Winning this game gets us to that benchmark before Dec. which would be nice.

I think to feel good about the tourney I would want to win 1/3 of our three major noncons left. If we lose this one we have to win one of Lville and UK. Watching them both I think it’s definitely doable but it ups the difficulty level taking one of those two. Winning tomorrow and then getting one of those other two would put us in fantastic shape for conference.

Agree. Something like an 8/9 matchup of Oregon vs ND to then face the #1 is kinda brutal. ND and Oregon might be the best two teams outside of the 3 unbeatens. 2/3 seed might be a better route. I’d rather play Tech, Oklahoma or Ole Miss.

IU’s QB/WR group are better. NDs OL/RB group are better. The defenses are really close at this point. ND has done a 180 there. We’ll know for sure on IU after the B1G title game but hard to believe they’re not a top 5-10 unit.

I said last year that ND was a horrible matchup for IU and it was. We were likely a top 5 team last year but got a horrible draw. I don’t think the matchup is as bad this year for IU but I’d rather avoid them. They are as good as anyone right now. The #1 team getting them off the 8/9 game is just bad luck.

Marquette was nip and tuck with C Mich for a bit but finally pulled away to an easy victory.

That would be squarely within expectations for me based off of what good coaches did last year. Anything between a 5 and 9 seed seems solid for a first year coach with good NIL with a brand new roster in year 1. B1G is doing well noncon so we should have plenty of chances.

Looks to me like they’re another team of almost all new players.

Usps touched on it, but it’s quite simply possible that our crazy first three games masked the real fact that this team of all new players needs time to gel. That would be pretty normal.

It’s probably no surprise that those two have P5 experience and know how hard you have to play night in, night out. In that vein, I’m still optimistic that Bailey and Conerway will find their groove. They really look like they’re not adjusted to big boy basketball yet. If I were a pessimist I’d point out that they then shouldn’t struggle versus Lindwood/Incarnate World. But it’s precisely that they struggled against those teams that I think it is still somewhat mental for them. They were both all conference in conferences better than those two schools come from. I find it hard to believe that last years version of themselves wouldn’t dominate those schools pretty easily. But for whatever reason it isn’t clicking for them. Being slow mentally can lead to you looking slow athletically.

I lean towards the former. Often times coaches use these games as glorified “scrimmages” in the sense that they just run their base offense and defense and want the kids to work through things. It seemed out of time outs when CDD threw in a wrinkle we scored easily. Last night wasn’t all that bad in the grand scheme of things; Tennessee beat a slightly worse team by “only” 19. If I had to guess the two issues that frustrate the staff are: 1) we haven’t been very good running our offense against clearly inferior opponents, and 2) our first halves weren’t terrible but I’m sure the staff had words for the team meant to get them to come out more focused in the 2nd half. In both cases the team came out and gave up ground to the opponent. The staff will have answers for #1 against KSU with a more detailed game plan. I’m not sure what to make of issue #2.

All things considered, there is a solution to the Bailey problem. A bigger issue is that there’s no solution to the Conerway problem. He’s not a B1G level athlete. He’s tough and smart and I think he can defend well enough based on those qualities. But offensively he adds very little. Unfortunately neither does Enright. Dorn coming back adds some versatility. Maybe Ristic or Drake will as well. We don’t need anyone to take the spot so much as give coach some options versus some of these teams.

The camera angle in this Purdue game is bad

Good news is I think coach was reading the message board and Alexis should start with Bailey/Sisley coming off the bench.

He’s got the grip strength of an anemic toddler

I agree with that if conerway can find his groove

They’re cheap and money is at a premium these days

Kind of an interesting lineup here with dorn and alexis

Sad that we’ve resorted to running actual sets for buckets against a glorified div 3 team

Ok, or just come out worse. This is officially embarrassing. Anything short of a 30 pt win and there should be questions.

Nice to see Alexis/Sisley in

I think they just did at the end, but I think that’s the first time

I agree with the rest of your post but I think there’s an element of “let’s just run our basic offense/defense and see how it goes” to these bad buy games. Annoying it’s not going better. Let’s hope we come out better in the second half than we did last game. No shame in a lackluster 30pt win.