Ramblermania.net

Interesting game...lots of tactics as we would say in chess (for you CPS fans. Whitney Young won the State Chess Tournament yesterday).
Interesting and effective that they switched defensively when Avila went up top and left Rubin in the paint. I think this took some drives away from Avila
Interesting when SLU spread the baseline with Avila on the block, shooters in the corners and quick drivers up top...Sometimes we doubled the post , sometimes not....sometimes they got the ball to Jimerson sometimes not.
SLU had a quick guard, quick with the ball and quick to the basket. With Moore out this seems to be the dynamic we are now missing. We have Big guards. Who again seemed able to get to the hoop. Houinsou seemed to be able to get to the hoop but not finish. He seems like a mismatch we can get against SLU. Watson has been better at the hoop and Jalen Quinn still inconsistent.
Expect to see a lot of adjustments on both sides next game..
Love it when Miles Rubin really gets emotionally into the game.
Seems we have made a decision that with Moore out and DeLouch not a factor we are going to put the offense in the hands of the guards.....and that mid level pick and roll.
But I believe yesterday was the minimum amount of bench minutes this year? Seems we have fully regrouped after the loss of Moore and return of Dawson and are ready for the final push.It seems that there are still maybe 8 teams fighting for that double bye.
six games left. evenly split home and away.. All of them either ahead of us or no worse than two games below us in the loss column . Gonna be interesting

Miles was definitely more aggressive on offense in this game. As called out by Ragas and others, it was probably the match up against Avila that made him dial it up a notch. Let's hope he stays this aggressive. He missed most of his shots, but at least he got the shots. And most of them were good shots. This is an element that has been missing in our offense. We need some post play (like last year with Dame) to open up a little more space on the floor.

I have been on Drew for various things most of the year, but he was terrific in this one. The defensive scheme and changes on Avila were very effective. He called a couple of timeouts at exactly the right time. And most important, right after Sheldon drilled the first 3...he called a play to get him the second shot. And the boys executed brilliantly. Drew also tightened up the rotation a little more in this one....mostly keeping Deloach on the bench. Let's hope the 50/50 split between Rubin and Deloach is offifically over - it's time for Rubin to get 75-80% of those minutes. Of course- he will have to stay out of foul trouble for this to happen. Miles and foul trouble will be a critical factor in our end of season push for a top 4 spot.

But helping our execution a bit was the lack of depth for St Louis. Their starting 5 is a very good unit. But they have virtually no bench - at least they didn't in this game. I am guessing their starters all played at least 35 minutes, and I think they showed some fatigue down the stretch. Avila had 3 airballs in the last 5 minutes or so including a critical one from about 7 feet on an inbounds play and Jimerson...while not a good defender to begin with, couldn't keep up with Edwards on the two 3 attempts.

Disagree on the Avila comments. Bit of a statue? Sure. And certainly not intimidating on defense. But he does throw his body around well and is quick and smart enough to get a lot of rebounds. He defended the quicker Miles pretty well And I thought he was very impressive on offense....just didn't shoot the ball particularly well today. Again - fatigue could have been a factor. But just look at his box score - I think every team in the A10 would take those numbers from their center.

Jayden was fantastic in this game. Each time St Louis pulled away a bit in the first half, he hit a big three to get us back in. He was also more aggressive - and seemingly quicker - on his drives to the basket. Could be that his ankle is back to 100% - or that he is just not thinking about the injury anymore.