Enough students there last night and again a good thing to see

How nice to see us control a game

4 Ramblers over 10 pts
24 Assists, ball movement was good
38% on threes is pretty good
38 paint points
16 fast break


17 TOs not so good but we won!

Let's keep it going.

Any word on the Houinsou injury? It would be a real gut punch to follow this win by losing another ball handler. He's my favorite of the newcomers to the team this year.

No word since Tuesday night, but I'm assuming he's ok. He was on the bike and walking.

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1. As people have mentioned...our Defense is getting better....hope it is the D and not the opponents.
2. Offense seems to also be on to something....St. Joes tried to stop the high pick and roll by dropping and stopping Miles and out guards got to the hoop...St. Bonnies didnt drop and Miles went off.
3. So I hate to even say it but are we figuring things out? on D and on O
4. I would hope the turnovers would be going down but not sure that will happen to any great degree as we just do not have any great ball handlers. If we can just stop the lazy unforced tos...that would help(all 2026 offers we have out are to point guards)
5. Sheldon Edwards continues to play some good basketball at both ends of the court...I like that he is getting to the hoop occasionally and not just settling for 3s.....

Defense is definitely getting good and coming together.

After ballooning up to the #140-150 rating last month, we are down to 80th in the nation points allowed. Defensive rating is now at #70 according to CBB reference.

https://www.sports-reference.com/cbb/sc ... /2025.html

Kenpom is crap and we're much better than the 100 issued currently.

Huge opportunities these next two road games to improve even further on the team defensive stats.

Some quick points heading into the two game road trip (Duquesne and Richmond).

1. Defense. The defense has been dramatically better the last 4 games. They have been very connected. What has been fun to watch is how the bigs have been much more aggressive in showing up high and forcing the ball handler to change direction, usually moving away from basket and towards half court. What this has allowed is for our wing defenders to shade the lane a touch making the easy pass to the opponent big not immediately available. Our bigs have thus had time to get back to their big and the wing defender thus "hands" the big back and gets back to their opponent. It has also reduced the amount of times we end up with a big on a smaller guard and a smaller guard on a big. There have been a couple of mix ups when the big is too aggressive or takes the wrong angle and the opposing guard and slips the pressure and dives right into the paint, but they are becoming fewer. This is very disruptive defense right now and last time we really saw this was when we beat Illinois in NCAA and during the Final Four run. Defense has always been Drew's calling card and this year's team has taken a while to embrace this style. Is it for real or due to weaker opponents? We will find out. However, this team needs to embrace this identity because defense travels and it will sustain you when shots are not dropping.

2. Turnovers. For as much as the defense has taken a turn for the better the last few games, we are still turning the ball over way too much and a majority of them seem to be unforced and on the silly side. We shot the ball great on Tuesday, but when we struggle shooting, these TO's will cost us a game at the wrong time.

3. The A10 is not a wicked good conference. Even at 4 losses it is still in reach if we clean a few things up. Top 4 and double bye certainly attainable.

4. Rankings. Rankings are irrelevant for this group. We just don't have any resume building games on our schedule. However, after the big win, we did jump quite a bit and we can jump some more if we can continue winning and doing so with good numbers. This is really only important if we win the A10 so we don't get treated horribly in the seeding. The only way we potentially could get an at large bid that I could see is if we ran the table and made it to the Championship game with good rankings. Even then, unlikely.

5. Big two games on the road and they are both winnable games. We have some tougher games after these two and we need to keep stacking wins.

I don't want to be a perennial NIT participant, but rankings will help us get to the postseason if it's something Drew wants to do with this group.

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