Really impressed with how Drew managed the second half. They were picking on us with a very small lineup in the first half and Drew made the right adjustments to counter Yaklichs strategy. Great sign going forward.

I agree to an extent about the depth, but I think it’s important to note the personnel UIC had out there. A lot of wing/forward types with no true center. Think that contributed to the lack of Hutty/Knight/Welch minutes. I actually thought Hutty played pretty well today when he was in. I kind of like the idea that we can shift our lineups depending on who we are playing. Keep in mind, Keith is still coming back from injury, which will add another proven player to the rotation for sure,

Happy 50th Anniversary, streak!

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You struggle with numbers, and facts in general.

To be fair, you're strong in criticism and negativity!

Not sure how I struggle with numbers, box score doesn’t lie. 6 players accounted for nearly all the minutes. I’m not negative at all — team is really good and could make a run once again. What I have said is simple — growing pains. Drew will have a learning curve and there is no way he will watch this film and think he should’ve played Williamson 39 minutes today.

Right now - he looks afraid to make a mistake. And just like players, he will improve and get better the more experience he gets. I think the team could be very good at year end, but he needs to look beyond last years team to get him there.

Maybe this will help:


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Hint: For "bats" substitute "games".

Braden Norris showed his Alpha Male side twice in the second half.

First, during a stoppage in play Braden looked at Drew and raised three fingers. I interpreted this as Braden wanting Drew to call a play for him to take a three, and sure enough when play resumed the Ramblers ran a set which resulted in Braden open for a corner three, which he canned.

Later in the half with the game in hand Braden was bringing the ball up court against an aggressive defender. Instead of passing the ball to an open Lucas Williamson (probably the right play), Braden seemed to take the defensive challenge personally, and eventually drew a foul. He converted both free throws.

Braden may be small, but he is one tough and confident dude!

Bring on Sparty.

Well, the minute distribution was a little odd. I did not understand why Welch never got back into the game. He got pulled because he looked like he had a contact issue, but never got back in. Knight had few minutes as well. UIC did go small, so it appeared Drew went with the “biggest” small lineup he could.

However, in first half and for most of the game it was way too much one on one with the other players planted in spots. Player movement was poor and ball movement was not crisp. We did not run much motion at all. We cannot win that way. In the 1st half, we were not even looking to shoot the three. We were scoring some twos, but they were scoring 3s. In today’s college basketball, you can’t win if you don’t shoot and make some 3’s. In the second half, we looked more aggressive looking to catch and shoot and it was the difference in the game and why pulled away. We have to get back to more motion, cutting, passing and looking to shoot open 3s. We had 29 baskets, but only 13 assists. It almost looked like in the first half Drew made the conscious decision to force the ball down low. It took us out of rhythm.

On the upside, we have shown a tendency to come alive late in our games with about 10 minutes left in the second half and play better. Can’t explain it, but I will take it. Can we do that on the road?

Now we do have to keep in mind that we re not really built to play smaller quick teams. When we started this rising up, we were the smaller quick team and we gave bigger teams fits. As we have gotten bigger, small quick teams have given us fits at times. I would think against MSU, we will need all our bigs and lots of bodies to get after them. We will also need to shoot some 3s and I am concerned because we did not play any games away from the Joe. One road game would have been nice just to see a different shooting background.

Other than that, how did you enjoy the play Mrs. Lincoln…lol

UIC played hard. I think they're finally back to where they were in the 80s and early 90s, looking at us as a benchmark to where they want to be. They may not put this much effort into any other game this year, or maybe they're going to tear up the Horizon.... Sometimes it seems like they have little motivation unless they're trying to knock us off. If they keep playing like they did against us, they'll challenge for the HL title.

Like others have said, good adjustments from Coach Valentine at halftime. He came out trying to play the guys he planned for, but certain guys were simply too effective to take out... Tate Hall was fantastic-- he didn't miss a shot, got 8 rebounds, and got his hands on some passes for deflections and steals. Schwieger scored inside, outside, at the line, and made a steal and a beautiful cross-court assist on an open three. Williamson scored when he was needed and played another great defensive game. Norris had 12 points, 3 assists and 0 turnovers.

We shot 57.1% on threes against a team that had held opponents (including Dayton and Valpo) to 25% three point shooting before this game. And if you're going to talk about depth, UIC played only 7 players for the entire game-- they were going all out for the win. Was this UIC's audition to replace the Chicago team in the MVC?

Yeah, the first 28 minutes looked dicey at times, but that's because we didn't really get to use our depth against a team that is good down to the 7th guy. The depth emerged in the last 13 minutes where our better-rested guys outscored them by 19.

We're 4-0 on the season with a 26-game home court winning streak, ranked #31 in KenPom and getting a vote in the AP poll. All we need is at least one win in the Bahamas, a split with Drake in the regular season, one or two wins in St. Louis, and 13 or more conference wins for an at large. Get on the damn bus, man, we're headed for big things this year and the A10 next season.