Reinert310

And that was post Covid pause. The A10 tournament was right around the time Coach Stuen started getting really sick. I’m willing to completely excuse what happened in March last year. It was a tragic year off the court even more than it was disappointing on the court.

We beat the Bonnies at Chaifetz last year.

Eh, I think is experience is overrated. Bona isn’t going to show us anything we haven’t seen before. Is Yuri going to buckle because he’s a sophomore compared Lofton being a senior? I don’t think so. If there’s an edge, it’s that I think Schmidt might be the best coach in the A10.

I just disagree. They looked good in the 1st half tonight, but they’ve been FAR from dominant to start the season and eeked out a couple wins they probably shouldn’t have. We can ABSOLUTELY play with and beat this Bonnies team. They still only play 6 guys and are mediocre at best from deep. Don’t get me wrong, the Bonnies are a very good team. They deserve to be the favorites to win the A10 this year. But they ARE NOT the Dayton team from a couple years ago with Obi and Crutcher. They’re just not.

Oh for sure. The A10 outside of really Bona, SLU and maybe Mason has been awful so far. I’m just saying if we take care of our business, we’re gonna be in good shape. We just can’t step on any A10 land mines, and unfortunately for us, the Arch Baron Cup games this year could absolutely be land mines.

I mean, did we really expect any A10 teams other than Bona to be top-30 NET teams to begin with? I think @Boise St, Auburn, Drake on a neutral site, @Bona, @Mason, home against Bona, @Davidson, @Richmond, @Rhodey all at least the potential to be Quad 1 games. We’ve got plenty of quality matchups this year. We’ve just gotta win them.

I don’t think there’s any doubt that the Bonnies are a good team, but it’s hard for me to buy them as the overwhelming favorite in the A10 until they actually start showing up before the game is 75% over. You can only get away with that for so long before it comes back to bite you.

Coach speak. Everyone knows that every player and coach reads this board for advice and motivation.

If we play every game like we played the last 30 minutes of tonight, we’re gonna win a lot of games this year. Bottle it up and bring it with us every night.

We absolutely clamped down on D after the 1st 10 minutes or so. Offense was 100% better. Just a great all-around win. Mercer is not a bad team. Beating them by 17 looks pretty damn good.

Wasn’t he shooting like 90+% from the stripe at one point last year? I know it was a small sample, but I think he’s a better FT shooter that lol.

Thatch has an excellent game, and I’m just nitpicking, he’s a really bad ball handler.

Was just saying this to my Dad. Him continuing to get to the rim and finish is going to pay dividends getting him more space later in the season.

It looks like he’s overcommitting to guard the 3 and then late to recover. He’ll figure it out. He’s plenty athletic, and I don’t think it’s an effort thing. Just looks like he’s overthinking some.

Agreed. They’re not bad shots, and it’s not like he’s completely bricking them. That 3 he hit looked great. I feel like it’s a matter of time before they start falling.

I thought we looked 100% better on offense. Shots weren’t falling early, but we were getting great looks. That’s how our offense should look every game. Getting beat 1 on 1 on defense a little too much, and we’re just not going to be able to help off Hasse in the 2nd half, but I honestly thought the 1st half was a marked improvement.

I guess so. I’m not the only person in this thread that has criticized Gibson standing around standing around behind the 3-point line.

My criticism isn’t of Yuri at all. But if you go back and watch the off-ball cutting in the 1st 3 games versus last night, it’s night and day. And mayb @3star_recruitis right. Maybe it’s just that Memphis took Yuri away and we couldn’t figure out how to get into our sets and we’ll fix it going forward, but it’s been a problem in the past.

True. And I don’t expect this team to be perfect right now. If I come off too harsh, I apologize. But the frustrating thing for me is that this is the exact same thing that has caused our offense to struggle in years past. Nobody cutting, no ball movement, then the shot clock gets under 10 and JGood or Has end up going 1-on-3 and either forcing up a bad shot or turning it over. Hopefully, this is just a case of Memphis taking out Yuri and we weren’t prepared for it and we get better going forward. But it’s just really frustrating when the same issue keeps popping up even with new guys on the roster.

I totally agree with this. We missed a lot of shots that we wouldn’t normally miss, whether it was nerves or pressing or whatever. But we can’t just give up on our offense because a team takes Yuri out of his comfort zone. If I’m Ford, I’m drawing up sets where Yuri starts off the ball as we speak. Other teams are going to figure out that taking Yuri out is the way to beat us.

Then someone needs to go help him by getting open. Not just stand around hoping Yuri pulls something something out of his a$$. I’m not sure how standing around watching is helping anything. We need to have a other ways to get into our sets, or at least a release valve or someone other than Yuri who can get us to start our sets. Just standing around because they’ve tried to take out Yuri’s distribution isn’t an answer. This isn’t CYC basketball.

I disagree that Memphis face guarding Yuri means Gibson should just sit behind the 3-point line and hope the ball comes to him. Us standing around like statues isn’t making anything easier for Yuri running for his life.

Here's the thing: the 1st three games (obviously against much weaker opponents), we WERE running plays to get Jimerson open. A lot of them. He was back cutting, coming off screens for 12 footers, and he looked like a whole new player. For some reason that I can't figure out, whenever the Billikens start to struggle on offense the last few years, offensive sets go straight out the window. We either resort to iso ball, or Yuri making a play and finding someone open, or taking a forced shot and hoping we get the offensive board. And it starts to snowball until we create a hole that we can't get out of. I wish I knew why that was, but it's definitely become a pattern. I was really pleased that the last 10-12 minutes of the 2nd half last night, the offense started to open back up again. Maybe that was because the game was already out of reach and we stopped pressing so much. I don't know. It's disappointing because I honestly think we have the talent to keep that game much closer than it was. I mean, how many bunnies did we miss? how many free throws? We've got to find a way to get our guys to trust the system when the going gets tough. That being said, there's not another team on out schedule that has anywhere near the length or athleticism that Memphis does. We're gonna be just fine. Take what we learned last night, and put it towards Mercer.

You really expect us to miss this many layups and dunks in most games this season? I don’t.

The last 10 minutes have been better, even if we haven’t dug into the lead much. The spacing and ball movement have been better. We’ve shot horribly and part of that is just luck. We’re not going to miss that many bunnies in many games. We’ll learn from this. We just dug too deep of a hole in the 1st half.