Pistol

Well, we only have 4 returners. Mainly Goodwin is who I'm talking about, but French has been really sloppy, constantly getting double teamed outside the post and turning it over out of indecisiveness. Foreman was a slow starter last year, probably due more to health than anything else, but he has not quite picked up where he left off last season. It just isn't clicking yet. I don't know how you get a whole team to sync up and start making better decisions and playing with one another better. This isn't a shot making team so we have to win in other ways. I assumed this team would be tough in transition but we remain sloppy as ever on the fast break, even with numbers. It's perplexing.

Only my first line was about McBroom. I thought it was interesting that he said it and it was posted here in such short order. The common thread seems to be undersized shooting guards who don't have good instincts. McBroom was a very good, consistent shooter, though, and was able to find his spots often times. Whereas Isabell is being relied upon as a primary ballhandler most of the time and just has no mind for it. Isabell works at a place like Drexel, where he's not surrounded by guys as talented as he is, where he's not playing guys as talented as he is, and where he has a green light with no restrictions, to just kind of do what he wants and make plays. We saw his crazy high usage rate there. He was involved in every play. He rebounded his position extremely well. He had total freedom. But when he comes to a place where he isn't option A and B, and where he's playing with and against players who are another notch up, he doesn't have the patience or instincts to fit in the flow of an offense, and he isn't a consistent enough shooter to just be primarily a perimeter threat. I don't know what the answer is for him. But I know I'd be focusing on Goodwin as the PG moving forward. The whole recruitment of JG was about making him the lead guard to set him up for the next level. Why abandon that now? It's not like Isabell is some transcendent talent we absolutely need to run the show for a year. Keep developing Goodwin as the lead, and next year he'll have a backup with probably the purest point guard instincts I've ever seen in HS player, Yuri Collins. This PG-by-committe isn't working. TI as lead guard isn't working. Put Goodwin back there for good and cut him loose.

I feel like there's something more to it, though. A lot of guys we saw play with confidence last season look so tentative this season. The shot selection is poor across the board. Decision making is poor for the most part, too, led by Isabell's reckless abandon. Ford comes off the floor and says exactly the things that we're all saying. He's got the diagnosis. I just don't know what he's doing to address these things.

No kidding. Every time it looked like it could get worse, they would miss FTs or turn it over and just keep us in it. We didn't seem to want it tonight.

@TheChosenOne just said the exact same thing to me in a text. His decision making is really something. I was just telling TCO that I can't think of another veteran player I've seen with such bad instincts. In any situation, he makes the play that is least likely to lead to a good outcome. When we need to burn clock, he's firing away. When we need to catch up, he's dribbling aimlessly. When he's wide open, he dribbles into traffic. When he's guarded at the perimeter, he pulls back and shoots a fadeaway NBA 3. When he's double teamed, he dribbles backward. When someone else is double teamed, he passes to that guy. His brain needs to be studied in a basketball lab. What is it that makes him always choose the wrong play? It's what makes him look good when he scores or makes a nice play, because it always looks difficult.

Just checking in. Have seen bits and pieces of the game so far, but am finally able to sit down and watch the rest. Looks like an ugly one. From what I can tell, SIUC is exactly who we thought they were - an unspectacular but sound, patient, veteran-laden team. They clearly had us well scouted. They're packing it in, controlling tempo, not forcing things on offense, and not giving us anything easy. Again, I haven't seen it all but we look sluggish. The energy isn't close to what it was against Butler. We're losing 50-50 plays that we were winning against Butler. And man, do we need shooters. SIUC has baited us into taking way too many, and no one's a shooter.

This is exactly the issue. Bess is an elite defender but Thatch has shown he can play that role, too. Bess' offense and rebounding at both ends would be missed (although Thatch is a good rebounder, as well). So we'd be missing that presence for sure. I've been nervous about this as a trap game since the schedule came out. I hope we overcome the injuries and stay out of foul trouble.

ESPN+ is separate from the cable networks, which have their programming available for streams on WatchESPN. For WatchESPN, you need a cable/satellite subscription to log in. This is for watching what's currently/previously on ESPN, ESPN2, ESPN News, etc. ESPN+ is a standalone service, available for $4.99/month or $49.99/year. ESPN+ events tend to be regional broadcasts for which ESPN pays a fee in order to make them all available via their app. There are a lot of college games, sports not normally broadcast on regular TV, and things like that. The A10 struck a deal with ESPN in the offseason to make its regionally broadcast events available via ESPN+. I'm not sure whether these rights are acquired through the A10 only, through both the A10 and regional carriers, or how that's drawn up. But it strikes me as a win-win arrangement; ESPN gets subscription revenue that didn't exist before and a lot of events/teams/sports/conferences get access to viewers that wouldn't have the ability to watch them before. When you go to the ESPN app on your phone or TV/Roku/AppleTV/etc., ESPN+ streams have a yellow corner with a white + in them; the others are WatchESPN. So you access both types of streams through the same app, even though one is via cable subscription and one is its own subscription. Go to WatchESPN to see examples of what I mean. The quality so far has been very good. They've been showing the SLU games that are on Fox Sports Midwest, basically. Everything is the same except they'll black out certain ads. I went with the annual subscription because even just getting a few broadcasts is worth $50 a year for me, and there are other unexpected bonus events for me so it's worth it.

Hargrove's full line vs. Collinsville: 37 points, 14 rebounds, 0 assists, 1 steal, 7 blocks, .522/.250/.750 Hargrove's averages: 24.4 points, 12.0 rebounds, 1.6 assists, 1.6 steals, 3.8 blocks, .446/.353/.680

Just realized Hargrove's next game is against Alton. They just won last night in their first game after that horrible brawl; someone shared the video in another thread. And yes, that photo of him above is awesome. I love the look of calm on his face, like "Yeah, I'm just gonna put this right here where it belongs now."

Stats for SWIC's win over Lincoln Trail are now available. It was a low-volume night for Perkins, who only had 4 FGA and finished with 11 points (6-8 FT). He also chipped in 12 rebounds, 4 assists, and 2 steals. Without knowing the story, my guess is he had the equivalent of Javon Bess on him, or maybe a gimmick defense like a box and one. He was clearly a focal point if he just had 4 attempts. His season scoring average is down to 26.3, with a slashline of .561/.395/.814. He's now third in the country in scoring.

Here's the Post's write-up. Jashawn Anderson got to be the hero, draining a deep 3 to win it, but Hargrove was the man. His 37 points were a career high. He indeed scored 15 in the fourth quarter. "In the final seconds after a missed free throw by Collinsville (7-1, 1-1), Chambers called a timeout to run a play for Hargrove. When Collinsville took away that option, the backup for the Flyers was senior Cornelius Leflore. When LeFlore kicked the ball back to Anderson, there wasn't time for a third option." Love this: "We kept pounding the ball inside and got them (Collinsville's big men) out of the game, so that really helped us a lot," Hargrove said. "I was just trying to play my game, crash the boards and getting the ball inside the hole." Hargrove was also a force on the glass and the defense, corralling 14 rebounds and recording seven blocks.

That would be more fun but we sort of already have a "let everyone in" format because of conference tournaments. Except for new additions to D-I going through their probation period and the bottom half of the Ivy League, technically every single school has a shot to get in the field of 68. They just need to win 3 or 4 consecutive conference tournament games. (Compare that to college football, a sport in which you can beat everyone on your schedule for two consecutive years and not be considered for the "playoff" at the end.) FWIW, I agree that the NET sucks (although I'm curious to see what it looks like after a full season) and that too much of how the Tournament is formed and seeded is done to protect power conference teams, and that the whole process needs major changes.

We're 48th in the NET rankings today. For comparison, Butler is 49, SIUC is 105, and Oregon State is 77.