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On Post Game  Coach said he met with Thatch on Thursday to discuss his Memphis performance.  Coach complimented his maturity, keeping his head up and having his career game.

(No, no mention of Fred reading this board and figuring he needed to do better, as some MBM's have posted.)

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1 minute ago, HoosierPal said:

On Post Game  Coach said he met with Thatch on Thursday to discuss his Memphis performance.  Coach complimented his maturity, keeping his head up and having his career game.

(No, no mention of Fred reading this board and figuring he needed to do better, as some MBM's have posted.)

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

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The Vegas line was 10.5 in our favor before the game. Slow, poor start, followed by an intense defensive game. We did pretty well and won by 17, over the Vegas line. Doing fine, we should stay at the same level in the overall rankings or go up but not very much. Satisfactory game, a win is a win, no matter how sloppy the start was. Thatch, was great, TJ, Jimerson, Linssen, Collins were excellent. Now on  to the next one.

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23 minutes ago, HoosierPal said:

On Post Game  Coach said he met with Thatch on Thursday to discuss his Memphis performance.  Coach complimented his maturity, keeping his head up and having his career game.

(No, no mention of Fred reading this board and figuring he needed to do better, as some MBM's have posted.)

Only explanation then is that Ford read the board and then talked to Thatch

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Glad for the Fred Thatch sighting......I did not expect that.  So are we going to the sweet sixteen or final four?  I'm still sticking with the sweet sixteen......

Good win all the way around.  Second half proves Travis can coach for all the doubters out there.

And thanks Jimmy the "oldguy" Greek for all the posts about the vegas line........

 

 

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35 minutes ago, Reinert310 said:

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

This is clearly the case. 

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2 hours ago, CenHudDude said:

Is that for lack of D?

Ford said that Mercer runs so many different offensive sets that there was no way they could prepare for all of it so they did some but then tried to get the players to understand that they had to be aware of where their man was at all times and just adjust on the run.  He also said that because we were having trouble early on that when he found a combination that seemed to work he just decided to stick with it and that caused the less use of the bench.  Nesbitt by the way did not play much either but then again he was getting beat on defense.  I don't think Ford wants to much to be read into who played and who didn't.

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Great win, but this was a weird game.  Felt like SLU didn’t play that well (especially outside of Thatch and Hargrove), but they ended up winning by 17.  

I hope they don’t make a habit of of it, but it’s actually pretty impressive how well they shook off a poor start and having both Linssen & Okoro in foul trouble early.  

Never really felt like SLU was controlling the tempo.  They didn’t force a ton of turnovers like they have been.  Jimerson missed some open 3s early and mishandled Yuri’s pass on the backdoor play.  Yuri missed a bunch of open jumpers near the FT line.  Even so the overall stats look good & it was a 17 point win. Let’s keep things rolling in Cancun.  Watch out for the ice cubes! Right @Old guy?

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3 hours ago, slufan13 said:

Only explanation then is that Ford read the board and then talked to Thatch

Ford did talk with Thatch after the Memphis game, he mentioned that in the after game interview, I do not know if he reads the board or not. Thatch was determined to do much better in this game. My wife was checking Thatch's apparel marketing site to buy a hoodie for our grandchild and noted that prior to the game Thatch had a notice saying that if he went up to or over 20 in this game he would donate profits (not sure for what period of time) to specific charities in Sykeston. He was a man with a definite goal for this game, a goal he achieved. Good for Thatch!

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1 hour ago, Taj79 said:

@NH ---m not switching.  Stuckon Haase like glue I thought.

Gotcha, I can certainly see pros and cons of either approach. For what it's worth I think all of Haase's threes came when we were not switching. Two on Linssen one on Okoro. I agree we stayed tighter on him in the second half and started switching more, which clearly worked in taking away his space. 

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Some of my thoughts on the game:

Overall I thought this was the most professional performance we've had so far. Responded well to early adversity. Nobody forced the issue too much offensively and we kept our principles on defense. Mercer was well organized and certainly had players capable of getting buckets against A-10 level defenders.

Goes without saying but Fred's performance was a revelation. He does an outstanding job of absorbing contact and is a testament to the value of two-foot finishing. Always keeps his balance when going to the basket. He also is really patient on his drives which I think is a harder skill than it looks.

A strong game by Jimerson. I think his biggest improvement from last year is his body. He's clearly more athletic this year and it's allowing him to utilize his size more than ever before. I love his aggressiveness looking to score (and we need it with no JP), but I am not sure than Jimerson is capable of throwing a pass. Two areas that he'll improve on as the year goes along are (1) making the easy pass when he drives rather than forcing tough shots near the basket and (2) hunting more threes, and making them. I expect his 3-point shooting to become more of a factor soon.

Great game by Hargrove. He's doing a very good job of finding space in the halfcourt whether it's at the high-post or creating spacing with his spot ups. He's a sneaky all-conference candidate this year.

Yuri and Linssen have a really nice connection on the pick and roll. Yuri knows where Marten can do damage on the roll and Linssen is great at putting himself in a good position to receive the feed from Yuri.

You can see Okoro's confidence increasing each game. I'm frankly shocked by how good his FT stroke looks. He never blocked as many shots at Oregon as you would think given his length and athleticism, but you can tell his defensive timing is improved. I think we're at our best with him on the floor because he covers so much space on defense and his mobility on offense creates offensive rebounds out of nothing.

Obviously not Nesbitt's best game, but I thought he actually did a good job of not forcing things on offense and he made two really nice passes to Gibson. His defense is better than we typically get from freshmen. Fred was the hot hand so Nesbitt had to take a backseat today, but Jordan is the only player besides Yuri and Deandre who the coaching staff trusts to initiate offense. He is a very useful safety valve when the opposition picks up Yuri full court like they did today.

Speaking of Deandre, I thought this was one of his better games. His confidence is growing, and he was a little more aggressive than in prior games wrt pushing the ball and looking to get shots for others. I was iffy on this pickup when we got him, but he is filling a crucial role right now.

I didn't think our matchup zone was very good today, but clearly Travis sees some upside in the Match Zone as a secondary look on defense. I think this is a worthwhile point to monitor as season evolves to see how often we go to this as a different look on d.

I was kinda bummed that the staff decided to ditch the suits today.

Attendance seemed light. We need this to pick up soon.

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7 hours ago, NH said:

Some of my thoughts on the game:

Overall I thought this was the most professional performance we've had so far. Responded well to early adversity. Nobody forced the issue too much offensively and we kept our principles on defense. Mercer was well organized and certainly had players capable of getting buckets against A-10 level defenders.

Goes without saying but Fred's performance was a revelation. He does an outstanding job of absorbing contact and is a testament to the value of two-foot finishing. Always keeps his balance when going to the basket. He also is really patient on his drives which I think is a harder skill than it looks.

A strong game by Jimerson. I think his biggest improvement from last year is his body. He's clearly more athletic this year and it's allowing him to utilize his size more than ever before. I love his aggressiveness looking to score (and we need it with no JP), but I am not sure than Jimerson is capable of throwing a pass. Two areas that he'll improve on as the year goes along are (1) making the easy pass when he drives rather than forcing tough shots near the basket and (2) hunting more threes, and making them. I expect his 3-point shooting to become more of a factor soon.

Great game by Hargrove. He's doing a very good job of finding space in the halfcourt whether it's at the high-post or creating spacing with his spot ups. He's a sneaky all-conference candidate this year.

Yuri and Linssen have a really nice connection on the pick and roll. Yuri knows where Marten can do damage on the roll and Linssen is great at putting himself in a good position to receive the feed from Yuri.

You can see Okoro's confidence increasing each game. I'm frankly shocked by how good his FT stroke looks. He never blocked as many shots at Oregon as you would think given his length and athleticism, but you can tell his defensive timing is improved. I think we're at our best with him on the floor because he covers so much space on defense and his mobility on offense creates offensive rebounds out of nothing.

Obviously not Nesbitt's best game, but I thought he actually did a good job of not forcing things on offense and he made two really nice passes to Gibson. His defense is better than we typically get from freshmen. Fred was the hot hand so Nesbitt had to take a backseat today, but Jordan is the only player besides Yuri and Deandre who the coaching staff trusts to initiate offense. He is a very useful safety valve when the opposition picks up Yuri full court like they did today.

Speaking of Deandre, I thought this was one of his better games. His confidence is growing, and he was a little more aggressive than in prior games wrt pushing the ball and looking to get shots for others. I was iffy on this pickup when we got him, but he is filling a crucial role right now.

I didn't think our matchup zone was very good today, but clearly Travis sees some upside in the Match Zone as a secondary look on defense. I think this is a worthwhile point to monitor as season evolves to see how often we go to this as a different look on d.

I was kinda bummed that the staff decided to ditch the suits today.

Attendance seemed light. We need this to pick up soon.

Nice write up! Thanks

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IMO, not a great game for collins.   shot poorly had the most turnovers on the team.   i get very frustrated when he doesnt use the screens linssen and okoro set.   he will not drive off the hip of the defender and the screener and always allows the defender to get through.   why even waste the effort by our bigs?  

this all said, he still had a game high 7 assists.   you know you have quite a point guard if he plays what seems to me to be a below average game and still had more than twice the assists of any individual on the court.  

when nesbitt came out the first time, it was right after a poor defensive effort.   in comes thatch.   pretty hard for nesbitt to get back into the game to make amends when fred is having the best game of his collegiate career and hargrove is having another double double and jimmmerson is having another fine game as well.   

i think nesbitt losing out on at least 10 minutes of floor time was really not as much a "bad game" as three really good games by his teamates.  nesbitt didnt even shoot once!   i do want to mention the one pass nesbitt had on the break where he quickly got the pass then quickly hit jimmmerson for the open three was a beautiful play.   

i thought ford really might have gambled on the continuing floor time with okoro and linssen in the first half even though they both had 2 fouls.   thought for sure we were about to see traore.   but okoro and linssen both played safely and made it through the half and the rest of the game they were fine.  whew.  

man i do not like that plinko timeout game.   twice now the participant has gotten nothing.   gambling on the "press your luck".   i hate seeing them blow the sure $50   how about the half court guy making the first attempt?  and then the layup free throw and 3 point shot guy goes 4-4?   that was pretty cool.   of course the kid putting was bad.   i think they need to find a billikens.com mbm person to take that putt.   my gosh we can at least hit the sign in 3 putts.  😄

gotta like the comeback from the bad game.   onto mexico.   dont drink the water billikens!

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14 hours ago, NoCoBillsFan said:

As one of the Fred critics, I’ll admit that I was wrong. He’s looked great 

My fave part of last night’s game: the thunderous applause Fred received after singlehandedly pulling the Bills back into the game and exiting exhausted. Jordair Jett 2.0 with the successive power lay ups. 

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41 minutes ago, billiken_roy said:

IMO, not a great game for collins.   shot poorly had the most turnovers on the team.   i get very frustrated when he doesnt use the screens linssen and okoro set.   he will not drive off the hip of the defender and the screener and always allows the defender to get through.   why even waste the effort by our bigs?  

this all said, he still had a game high 7 assists.   you know you have quite a point guard if he plays what seems to me to be a below average game and still had more than twice the assists of any individual on the court.  

when nesbitt came out the first time, it was right after a poor defensive effort.   in comes thatch.   pretty hard for nesbitt to get back into the game to make amends when fred is having the best game of his collegiate career and hargrove is having another double double and jimmmerson is having another fine game as well.   

i think nesbitt losing out on at least 10 minutes of floor time was really not as much a "bad game" as three really good games by his teamates.  nesbitt didnt even shoot once!   i do want to mention the one pass nesbitt had on the break where he quickly got the pass then quickly hit jimmmerson for the open three was a beautiful play.   

i thought ford really might have gambled on the continuing floor time with okoro and linssen in the first half even though they both had 2 fouls.   thought for sure we were about to see traore.   but okoro and linssen both played safely and made it through the half and the rest of the game they were fine.  whew.  

man i do not like that plinko timeout game.   twice now the participant has gotten nothing.   gambling on the "press your luck".   i hate seeing them blow the sure $50   how about the half court guy making the first attempt?  and then the layup free throw and 3 point shot guy goes 4-4?   that was pretty cool.   of course the kid putting was bad.   i think they need to find a billikens.com mbm person to take that putt.   my gosh we can at least hit the sign in 3 putts.  😄

gotta like the comeback from the bad game.   onto mexico.   dont drink the water billikens!

Roy, i watched traore all game. He didn’t look involved at all. Head down, didn’t stand to slap five when teammates came out of the game. Was surprised he didnt go on for just a few minutes when both the bigs picked up their 2 fouls.

Just an MBM observing here, might be nothing, hope I’m wrong.

Good seeing you after the game.

Go Bills

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I believe you can tell a lot about a player’s commitment to the team by watching their actions on the bench. Sorry to read that about Traore displaying a sour attitude. Has anyone observed Williams reactions? I’m assuming he’s probably wondering why he came here but don’t really have any proof of that. He was a major player at his two previous schools and now he’s a pine rider. Can’t be an easy pill to swallow. 

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@NH -- to clarify,  I was for nto switching on Haase.  Our guards coudl co through or under and re-engage their man.  I did not want Linssen or Okoro switching off Haase and giving him an opening or relegating coverage to a smaller guard.  Haase was aone-trick pony --- pick and pop for the three.  And with a smaller man on him, with such a shiort releae time, leaving Jimerson or Collins or Jones on him could have been disastrous.  Ditto Johnson.  Give him to Hargrove or Nesbitt and leave them alone on him.  Highly doubtful Alvarez was going to do enough to carry Mercer and the other five guys who played scored a total of 14.  Mercer didn't have enough weapons.

Okoro is a pretty decent rim protector, and I was going to say as good as French.  Except French is our historical block leader so that might be over the top.  But he is a nice last line of defense guy to have back there.  

I'm okay for switchign up defenses every now and then as a change of pace.  But neither the match-up nor the 1-3-1 half court press has worked just yet.  But you need it as the season goes on.  Dayton threw a jump-trap press on Austin Peay yesterday that almost brought the Flyers back.  Almost.  

Playing Okoro and linssen with two fouls was not so much a gamble as I saw it.  Haase again was a one-trick pony and once they were directed to just be near the guy, he was neutralized.  And, as it is known, you don't foul a jump shooter.  Haase scored 41 in a loss at Winthrop this year.  He was 13 of 18 from the floor and 7 of 9 from three.  The Winthrop front court players were all mostly 6'7" and Haase is 6'9".  To me, that's just poor recognition and poor defense.  

Collins was tweo of ten from the floor not counting his three and one of those was the nice reverse layup underneath.  I thought Alvarez and Robertson were daring Yuri to shoot and he is going to have to make at least 50% of those in the lane floaters.  He has to be an option to score or half his game gets negated.  Plus, I wouldn't mid if he started his on  ball defense at the three point line and not at half court.  Teams will press him on offense so I'm for backing him off some on defense.  

Overall, not much to complain about.  We took their best shot and ran away and hid.  

Illinois Stase is 2 and 2, having beat Bucknell in their campus game of the Cancun Challenge 105 to 100 in OT last night.  Mark Freeman, a 5'11" junior scored 34 last night and Sy Chatman, a 6'9" senior scored 23 with 11 rebounds.  Chatman is familiar to us having transferred in from Umass.  Illinois Stae starts three guards.

Buffalo is 2 and 1 and beat Rider at home in their campus game, 87 to 65.  They opened the season losing at Michigan 88 to 76.  They are led by their senior front court of Jeenethan Williams and Josh Mballo althought another A10 transfer, Maceo Jack from Geedubya, added 19 in the Rider win.  They are all experienced seniors.  

Stephen F. Austin beat Middle Tennessee 87 to 74 to go to 3 and 1 on the year.  The only tema they played of note, South Dakota State, beat them 83 to 71 and they have played all four games at home.  

Every A10 team that played yesterday lost except us and La Salle.  The Bonnies go for the Charleston Classic title tonight at 7:30 EST against Marquette.  Game is on ESPN.  Bonnies favored by three.

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These are kids - young men to be exact - and trying to read their body language during a game is a bit risky.  Now if you see it all the time and at practice then maybe there is a problem.  I think the issue last night simply was a young player like Nesbitt and Traore simply would have been lost in that game.  Even or more seasoned players were having a problem with defense for awhile.  Ford simply stuck with what was working and ultimately that is what a coach is suppose to do.

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