SShoe

Polks minutes are dwindling. With the way Danny's playing and DPs not, those minutes can only get worse if and when Drejaj actually gets to full speed.

and a few of those were front ends of the 1-1.

You're right, and we're just being impatient, but when you see games like this it's tough. It'll eventualy happen for us.

I like Frank, but as an announcer, he's not the best.

he should've

First question, I don't know. Is it our young players or is it Brad? Second question, my guess is he wanted ball handling, as we had turned the ball over 19 times tonight. Third, I don't know. He just doesn't and I can't explain it. Fourth, can't explain that either. Fifth, Brad is in love with the typical PG idea of a floor general who handles the ball first and shoots second. He's finally realizing we're a better team with KL, TL, and DB as the guards. My question is, why did Brad never figure out Drejaj was not up to playing speed and should not have been playing. Had he not gotten hurt, he would've continued playing and sitting KL and DB during a crucial period. His timeout usage was bad as well.

It is so frustrating as we are right there, but god that type of game has happened to us so often this year and last, it's unbelievable. Somebody please tell Frank to shut up. "Brad Soderberg looking for his first win of the season over a Top 20 team!" Just shut up. Drejaj wasn't ready to play tonight. He needs some more time to get up to speed. Slow and for once had trouble on Defense. DB was great, Kevin was good, Tommie did it all, Ian and Pops just neutralized each other. We should have won this game.

The only shooter with bad mechanics of the young players is probably Tommie and maybe Dwayne who's body is moving around a lot during his shot. Kevin has great mechanics, Danny good, and Luke has a nice release, but too slow (that can be worked on).

Very true...I think that's why we recruited Dustin over some might argue better overall players and are still considering a sf/pf who can stroke it from the outside. Brad has said in the past he wished he would've recruited more shooters. I for one think Ahearn would be a perfect fit for this team (don't want to get into this discussion again). We are also still relying heavily on freshman and sophomores. I think we can assume that as the years go on, these youngsters will become better at stroking the three.

It is, but at this point you just can't do that much about it. Shooting improvement takes a long time and you can't spend all your time working on that. Just instill some confidence in them so they take them when open, go out and recruit some shooters, and hope your players spend their off-seasons working on it.

Shooting is like any other skill. You practice it repeatedly in order to become better at it. JJ Reddick didn't become the best shooter in the country because he sat around. The man shot a 1000 shots a day for years. Unfortunately for us, you can only improve your shot so much in a week. That doesn't mean you don't work on it, but getting into shape and gaining a better understanding of the offense tends to be coach's bigger priority during season. In the off-season and out of practice do players become better shooters. Speaking of which, I walked by practice on Monday saw everybody there. An hour later I walked by again after practice was over and everybody was gone except for Lisch who was still in there shooting by himself. You gotta love it.

ESPN has it changed to 7 as well.

I gotta go with SLU/UMASS, First Round Tourney, Larry Hughes. Close is SLU over Mizzou for nothing better than just beating Mizzou felt sooooo good.

He looks and talks just like his dad.

That ref had some good ears. He felt the need to address us a few too many times.

I said last year that if DP doesn't shoot from the outside we might see a starting lineup that didn't include him. It'll be interesting to see if we start him on the bench against GW. Brad said on his Fox interview that GW is a pressing team. I don't know if that's true, but if it is, DP is a great press breaker so he'll need to be in the game more than tonight. DB played great tonight. Too many turnovers, but hit some big threes. I'm definately eating my words on this one. It'll be interesting to see what happens when Drejaj returns. Who's minutes will dwindle the most?

So earlier I said Luke should play more and DB should be shifted to the bench. Nevermind.

well, let's just put it this way, Luke should be the first guard off the bench right now and when drejaj returns, second guard off the bench. My depth chart has him higher than DB who is still getting some minutes and doing nothing with them.

that is weird. I always thought once conference play starts, your conference rpi ranking stays where it's at. Maybe some of that has to do with the MVC starting conference play before other conferences? While they start playing each other the Big Ten, etc or playing tough Non-Conf games. I don't know, seems fishy.

he did not show it >consistently last year when he did get pt and we have not >really seen it this year either. Luke played pretty well as a freshman last year when he got the chance. If I recall, the games he started and played substantial minutes, he was averaging something like 10 a game. I could be wrong so I'd need to see the actual stats of games he started.

I will ask >is given Luke's current level he does not add anything to >floor in that situation then we currently have. I think he currently offers more than DB is bringing to the table. Unless we run, DB is not nearly as effective. Luke is more solid in the half court game and can still shoot the three pretty well despite the slow release. He also has a knack for getting to the basket and either getting fouled or squirting up a shot. Luke needs to play more. That doesn't mean he needs to play 30 minutes a game, but 15 to 20 might be okay. He has had very little minutes this year, including 0 minutes against Iowa while Danny played 15+ minutes.

Lisch's shooting percentage might not be the best right now, but some of that stems from the fact he's shooting up fade away threes at the end of the shot clock because nobody else will take the shot. So I don't blame him completely for the percentages. What I do see progressing over time is both his outside shot and his more willingness to take his man off the dribble and hit that fifteen footer which I think is where he is best right now anyways. Getting 9 or so pts a game as a freshman is pretty good and he'll only get better. I'm not at all feeling like he hasn't lived up to the hype. He might not have lived up to Roy's hype, but not even Lebron James could have.

Then I think that's illustrating how unimportant and misleading the RPI is this early in the season. There is no way NW State is a better team than Carolina. The fact that you would even argue that, well makes me think i need to quit wasting my time on you...

Mizzou is awful...SLU would kill them. Accept it.

maybe not, but Luke seems to be doing more with his minutes than Danny is these days.