From My Recliner in StL

[cheeseman]

The game last night was hard to watch. We had the game in tow but then it all slips away in a 4-5 minute dry spell along with some rather stupid play. I did not want to bury all the post game thoughts in the GDT so I started a new post.

1. MM - 0-8, he not only can not hit from outside but he can not make a lay up anymore. Not sure what the problem is other than confidence but he has to figure a way to hit a perimeter shot. He does not have to score 15 just consistently put down 8-10. His defense is still there along with his ball handling but he has to do more as a senior.

2. JB - 0-6 - how many were air balls? This guy is killing me and the team. He was suppose to be a shooter - boy did RM miss that one. He hits 3 or so 3ptrs one game and then he goes AWOL for the next 3-5 games. People finally realize he is not helping us at all and then he has that one game like against Yale and everybody gets hopeful. When will we all learn that he is just not good against any decent team. He can score against the dregs but who can't. That foul on the missed 3 pt shot by RI was horrific - what was he thinking? - that was a critical play and almost let them put a nail in our coffin. I do appreciate his rebounding but that is not nearly enough to warrant the playing time he is getting. By the way JC - stop being fooled by what you see in practice with him in regards to his shooting!

3. FT shooting - sorry we have to do better on the road (.571%) - unacceptable especially for a team that is scoring challenged. Thankfully JJ has found his stoke from the line after that one bad game. Even RL is missing FTs and that never happened before. You can not win on the road very often shooting FTs like we did last night.

4. Rebounding - we out rebounded them 41-36 and that is probably why we won the game. Had they out rebounded us we would have lost - they would have gotten too many second and third chances to score.

5. Announcers - I share everybody's pain. They started out just fine and were doing OK when we had the lead but as soon as RI started their run they flipped a switch and I thought we were listening to RI's radio group. That guy from TTU who kept saying that JJ should have been called for the foul at the end was way off base - in his playing days he would have had a cow if that foul was called against him. I have one other beef and it is more general than specific to only last night - why do announcers assume that a team that plays defense is one that wants to slow the game down? Hell if we could shoot in the 45% range for a game and hit 75% of our FTs which both are not unrealistic the score would have been a blow out.

6. Referees - while they were head scratching calls at times - they called the game somewhat equally. They did not lean backwards one way or the other in my opinion. I did not think they were a great group but they did not favor the home team - look at the total FTs shot 21 for us and 24 for them - not a bad road split.

7. DE - he at least scored 11 and had 6 rebounds but he has to play smarter on defense and that last drive at the end was a freshmanish - he has to be smarter about that. Yes I know he gets hacked a lot but he has to deal with it by not getting frustrated. That 4th foul on him was a bad call but like I said before the refs were doing it for both teams.

8. That final possession of the first half - who would have thought that that scoring play would determine who won the game. Who ever drew that play up get a big shout out as do the players who pulled it off.

[Pistol]

Just catching up with the board. I listened to the game last night on my 101 ESPN app as I drove around running unavoidable errands.

The app sucks, by the way - it gave out with the score tied and under 2 minutes remaining. Couldn't retrieve it.

Anyway, the box score is confounding. I knew Jett had our big night, but am just now seeing how bad everyone else was. Yes, I know some of this has been mentioned, but 4 field goal scorers? Another 0-fer for Barnett? 8 assists in an entire game? A shooting line of 36.1%, 29.4%, and 57.1%? 9 blocked shots for Rhody?

More questions were raised than answered as A10 play started. Is our shot selection really that poor? Or do we just have poor shooters? Or is whatever Crews doing with the offense not working? It looked a lot smoother last season, that's for sure. And it still wasn't always pretty. But this is one of the ugliest teams in the nation to watch (or listen to), and unquestionably the ugliest team with 14 wins or 2 losses.

[joe_davola]

Pistol -

From what I watched, a lot of the shots we took were open and should have been made. We are just shooting the ball very poorly right now. MM doesn't want anything to do with the 3 right now. He drove multiple times to the basket and got swatted every time. JB had OPEN threes and either air-balled them or shot straight up bricks. As someone mentioned before, if we get MM some confidence from 3-land and stop JB from launching 3s, hopefully we see this dreadful shooting % turn around. AM needs to keep up his shooting. I feel more comfortable with AM shooting the 3 than any other player on the team. Going into the season I thought MM would be our most consistent threat. I think he can get that back and hopefully that will be contagious.

[Taj79]

Cheese --- please comment on my couch thread.

As for yours:

1) mm -- noted. APB on the real Mike McCall has been issued.

2) jb -- noted. I just think Crews is going to stay comfortable with the senior for now. The only other options are Lancona and Crawford and neither has shown much promsie to date. maybe that will change.

3) Loe missed three. Evans one. Manning, I'm okay with. That's four points lost and even if mm and jb make ONE shot, we are incredibly younger this morning than we are now.

4) See my note, a James/Outerbridge/Hare guy on the RI team and we are singing a different tune. Biruta, Reischel and Harris were awful.

5) not worth the discussion. We have Rammer.

6) I thought all the crucial calls went Ri's way, except for the last one which was a no call, but then they tried to disarm that with the .7 seconds call.

7) DE was on his way last night -- it was Fordham all over again from last year. refs stopped that dead. But his closing lunacy was interesting -- don't expect that from our senior leader.

8) it didn't "win" the game but it certainly helped.

[Basketbill]

Last play before half was interesting MC was brought in specifically for the in bounds pass.

Loe had a nice catch and pass to Jett, and Jett's finish. This is the second or third time Loe has taken the in bounds pass. He drove against Valpo.

Well designed and executed. I see multiple other options from that set as well.

[Bizziken]

I feel like both teams missed a TON of bunnies last night...For the first 15 minutes, Rhodey couldn't buy a basket inside.

[Pistol]

It's disappointing that McCall is passing up open shots on the perimeter. In the previous three seasons, my argument was always that he wasn't shooting enough. That he was too unselfish. So when he's both lost confidence in his shot and also not running the offense as smoothly, that's a dangerous combo.

We always said it doesn't show up in the numbers necessarily, but things just work better offensively when Kwamain was out there. I felt the same way about McCall and had no doubts about his ability to be the same guy for us this year. It's a bummer that he's regressed on that end. I think that has a lot to do with why the offense is just so ugly.

[cheeseman]

Cheese --- please comment on my couch thread.

As for yours:

1) mm -- noted. APB on the real Mike McCall has been issued.

2) jb -- noted. I just think Crews is going to stay comfortable with the senior for now. The only other options are Lancona and Crawford and neither has shown much promsie to date. maybe that will change.

3) Loe missed three. Evans one. Manning, I'm okay with. That's four points lost and even if mm and jb make ONE shot, we are incredibly younger this morning than we are now.

4) See my note, a James/Outerbridge/Hare guy on the RI team and we are singing a different tune. Biruta, Reischel and Harris were awful.

5) not worth the discussion. We have Rammer.

6) I thought all the crucial calls went Ri's way, except for the last one which was a no call, but then they tried to disarm that with the .7 seconds call.

7) DE was on his way last night -- it was Fordham all over again from last year. refs stopped that dead. But his closing lunacy was interesting -- don't expect that from our senior leader.

8) it didn't "win" the game but it certainly helped.

You were late getting it up. You have to be quicker. The rest of the world does not sleep in.

[Schasz]

No question that McBroom is our best option beyond the arc. I am not a Jake fan as he has been God awful shooting treys outside of the Yale game. Really need McCall to give us some offense. We must play better Saturday in order to beat Dayton.

[Old guy]

No one has made a comment on the foul shooting. I think we would be doing better, particularly in this year's foul prone situation, if we improved our foul shooting, that is everyone.

[cheeseman]

No one has made a comment on the foul shooting. I think we would be doing better, particularly in this year's foul prone situation, if we improved our foul shooting, that is everyone.

It was my #5

[Old guy]

No, it was your #3, I stand corrected.