Man, disappointing to say the least. I will start out by say Drew is still my guy, so don’t think I am jumping off the Bandwagon. Thoughts:
1. Ugly: Where to start. Tale of two halves. Refs swallowed the whistle in the first half and let the teams play. In the second half they inserted themselves into the game and were a little whistle happy. Lot of fouls called both ways. Despite some ugly shooting numbers, the only one that matters were the stark difference from the line. SBU shot 31 free throws going 27-31 (87.1%). The big difference was putting Banks on the line where he went 12-12. He was 4-14 from the floor, but made up for it at the line. Meanwhile, we were 18-27 (66.7%) which a clear regression. Some were front ends and this cost us the game. They scored 9 more from the line and couple of those FTs were after fouled a 3 point shooter, including Miles late in overtime. Our shooting was pitiful in other places as well. We were 25-75 (33.3%). Thinks about that. We got up 75 shots. When was last time you saw that. The Morty of that was 23 Offensive rebound and us getting multiple attempts several times. We missed countless shots in the lane. Our 3 point shooting was also pretty bad. We were 6-23 (26.1%) and for the most part they were clean looks. We had 5 at halftime and ended up 6.
2. Bad: We were 15 in the first half and went about 8 minutes without scoring. As SBU was working back into the game, no timeout was taken to break the momentum and slow them down a bit. We up 9 at the half, but you got the sense that we let SBU off the hook. Every time we go the lead up to 11, we committed a fouls and SBU ended getting a 3 point play to stay in. At one point they a couple of old fashioned 3 point plays, then we followed that up with fouling a 3 shooter. I thought the reliance on Dame and getting away from the offense/defense rotation for Miles hurt us. Miles did have some turnovers, but SBU was not even looking to get into the paint and he two huge blocks to help us to the 2nd OT I believe. More importantly, when put miles to jump before the 1st OT began, in the huddle when everyone stood up he remained seated. After he got up, the tall coach grabbed him and whispered some encouragement. In this regard, I think Drew got caught up in the moment and defaulted to relying on the “seniors”. We had been using a different formula all season and when push came to shove, we went away from it. Let’s hope there are no lasting scars on Miles, who has had a great season (hopefully we get an NIT bid). The loss was reminiscent of the Oregon State and Ohio State losses. We had good looks, but nothing was going in. Unfortunately, Dame, Des, Sheldon, Brandon were a combined 10-45 from the floor and 4-20 from the arc. Jaden being out hurt in that he is a capable 3 pt shooter.
3. Good. OK, some good stuff. The effort was there. We were a Jalen Quinn teardrop from winning the game in regulation. Jalen has made huge strides and was, beside the one TO (his only of the game), was solid chipping 7 points 2-6 from the floor and 3-4 from the line and good defense. Back to Miles, he was 5-8 from the floor, 2-2 from the line 3 blocks. When he was in the game SBU just stopped going into the paint. He did have 5 TOs , several were lax passes. He was not the problem, despite the late foul on the 3 shooter. We did a great job holding down SBU offensively as they shot a bad percentage from the floor and arc, though they hit some big threes late. We needed to recognize the officiating changed and we need to alter how physical we were on the top of the floor. SBU only had 8 assists and 17 TOs. Like it was mentioned above. We make FTs, we win.
4. Miscellaneous: Tough loss after a great season. Still believe in Drew and the team, but Drew is still learning and needs to be better. Let’s hope we get an NIT bid and get to see this team play again this year.
Tough day. We at Kaiser Tiger and had a great LUC crowd there into the game. Needless to say, everyone was living and dying on every possession. Good things a ahead, but man…that shooting was brutal!
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