GDT: ABC

[NH]

That was the best game I can remember from Gibson Jimerson. He has struggled against length and athleticism in the past, but tonight I thought he was in control and patient. Shame that we wasted it in a loss but I’m going to take that as an encouraging sign moving forward.

[Dr Bird]

17 minutes ago, wgstl said:

We have one, ford just likes to sit him at bad times 

not convinced JN is a playmaker.   Seems to be a score first guy.

[HoosierPal]

On the post game Ford was critical of everyone except Collins.  When Collins say, the offense stopped.  Everyone just stood around looking at each other.  Also said the team took too many bad shots, guys not playing within the system.

[wgstl]

7 minutes ago, HoosierPal said:

On the post game Ford was critical of everyone except Collins.  When Collins say, the offense stopped.  Everyone just stood around looking at each other.  Also said the team took too many bad shots, guys not playing within the system.

I thought we took decent shots all game. 

[mrjoelabs]

3 hours ago, HoosierPal said:

Holmes and Smith, true freshmen, were pretty good tonight.

Better than our opposite numbers

[billiken_roy]

walking the ball down the floor again last night even when down double digits in the last 10 minutes.   it would be one thing if we had any kind of half court offense.  we dont.  ford loses another game.

[mrjoelabs]

Spot on Roy. That and the players were just better.  Smith will torture us for 4 years.  And Elvis hasn’t left the building he’s just arriving 

[billiken_roy]

4 minutes ago, mrjoelabs said:

Spot on Roy. That and the players were just better.  Smith will torture us for 4 years.  And Elvis hasn’t left the building he’s just arriving 

imo, dayton players were not better.  we have far better talent if used the right way.  just a horrible game plan.

[HoosierPal]

11 hours ago, wgstl said:

I thought we took decent shots all game. 

Here is what Coach said.  Ford said. “A lot of guys didn’t play well individually. We just weren’t in sync and give Dayton credit. Our offense is what killed us. Our offense killed our defense. We had a lot of one-one-one play, a lot of broken plays, a lot of bad shots. There was no rhythm, no flow to our offense. None.”

[mrjoelabs]

1 hour ago, billiken_roy said:

imo, dayton players were not better.  we have far better talent if used the right way.  just a horrible game plan.

Well, I dunno, Smith and Holmes looked pretty darn good...   

But yea the game plan, well there wasn't one.  Is there ever?

[johnbj14]

I really like Yuri. He does a ton well on the court, and clearly is the engine that drives this team. However, 7 turnovers can not happen under any circumstances. 7 games this season of 6 or more turnovers. That is simply unacceptable. 

[wgstl]

21 minutes ago, HoosierPal said:

Here is what Coach said.  Ford said. “A lot of guys didn’t play well individually. We just weren’t in sync and give Dayton credit. Our offense is what killed us. Our offense killed our defense. We had a lot of one-one-one play, a lot of broken plays, a lot of bad shots. There was no rhythm, no flow to our offense. None.”

I believed you, and I agree with coach on practically all of those things.  That being said, our terrible offense + clock management led to almost all of those "bad shots".  In general, I felt our shot selection (minus the forced shots at the expired shot clock) were better than most games this year.  Sure freds shot down low after that nice pass where he sat there for a sec and went straight up against Holmes was a bad shot, but other than that there were few times I could think of.  I will add that we passed up too many good shot selections, if maybe that's what coach really was addressing?

 

Also a player mentioned that by the time we got the ball to half court the shot clock was halfway gone.  I felt other than just a few times we were able to break the press and get the ball up to half court rather well, and rather quickly.  I don't think that was the issue, I thought our issue was once we got it past half, we'd have 3 or 4 players with their hands on their hip, and not in a position to run a play.  That seemed to always take a few seconds just to start to run a play and that's where we lost time on the shot clock.

[wgstl]

I know I was hard on him last night, and I would like to re-watch again, but okoro was bad on offense.  He stayed out of foul trouble and didn't have many TO's, but his misses might as well have been TO's, as they weren't even close to going in.  He did have the nice and one play too.  His footwork got him turned around dang near every time, and he had so many rebounds hit his hands and bounce elsewhere.  He did also do a solid job on defense.  

 

Linssen's footwork would have gotten Holmes in trouble imo.  

[Slu let the dogs out?]

13 hours ago, wgstl said:

Yep. I’ve believe 15-3 gets us in as long as no bad losses. This remains true, and UD was one of those that fits the losses. But man I’m tired of now winning big match ups.  Especially tired of dropping an egg and having players disappear 

We won't be finishing conference play at 15-3. At best, 13-5. This team is too bipolar. Would love to be proven wrong though.

[drkelsey55]

I turned the game off during the second half when the fouls where SLU 8 Dayton 3.

Enough said

 

[willie]

1 minute ago, drkelsey55 said:

I turned the game off during the second half when the fouls where SLU 8 Dayton 3.

Enough said

 

Sorry but I thought the refs were pretty fair. 

[Bills By 40]

29 minutes ago, johnbj14 said:

I really like Yuri. He does a ton well on the court, and clearly is the engine that drives this team. However, 7 turnovers can not happen under any circumstances. 7 games this season of 6 or more turnovers. That is simply unacceptable. 

Usage rate is an important variable. People compare Yuri's TO rate to other PGs without comparing other PGs roles to Yuri's. It isn't apples to apples. That being said, no I don't want to play devil's advocate for 7 turnovers but sometimes you have to. 

Of those 7 turnovers I'd say 3 of them weren't Yuri's fault, can specifically remember being furious at a low-post entry pass to Okoro who just big-man fumbled the ball and it led to a transition layup on the other end. When complaining about turnovers we owe it to one of the best PGs SLU has ever seen to acknowledge when guilty by association.  

[Bills By 40]

2 minutes ago, willie said:

Sorry but I thought the refs were pretty fair. 

For much of the game, yes, but the way Dayton was playing was very similar to us and many of the fouls I saw in the 2nd half called on us were happening on both ends of the court. Felt as if the refs read our scouting report and wanted to avoid putting us on the FT line. 

[wgstl]

9 minutes ago, Slu let the dogs out? said:

We won't be finishing conference play at 15-3. At best, 13-5. This team is too bipolar. Would love to be proven wrong though.

When I said a week back that we need to go 15-3 I counted this as a loss.  I still see @GMU, @ davidson, and @ URI as losses, the bonnies at home as a toss.  So you may very well be right, but it will take upsets to get there.  This is why I've always been confused about Wiz NCAA prediction % thingy. 

[cheeseman]

The refs called the game about the way you should expect them to call it when you are the visitor.  The problem was we may have only had 15 TOs but 10 in the first half and by that time the game was basically over as it played out.  Getting out rebounded hurt us and the fact that we continued to have no real half court offense identity keeps killing us.  I am not picking on JN but he has to develop into being more aggressive on the court - he is freshman so you give him the time.  Had JP not gotten hurt JN could have been eased into his role but no such luck.  Dayton is not the team they were in their first part of the season they are progressing at a rate that out runs our development.  We have too many times where Yuri dribbles the ball outside searching for anything but the other players just keep not getting open so it leads to a hurried shot at the end or a TO.  If GJ said as much - see the main board.  I don't know what to make of this team and that includes the coaches also.  At this point we are maybe a NIT team.

[johnbj14]

19 minutes ago, Bills By 40 said:

Usage rate is an important variable. People compare Yuri's TO rate to other PGs without comparing other PGs roles to Yuri's. It isn't apples to apples. That being said, no I don't want to play devil's advocate for 7 turnovers but sometimes you have to. 

Of those 7 turnovers I'd say 3 of them weren't Yuri's fault, can specifically remember being furious at a low-post entry pass to Okoro who just big-man fumbled the ball and it led to a transition layup on the other end. When complaining about turnovers we owe it to one of the best PGs SLU has ever seen to acknowledge when guilty by association.  

Yes, usage rate is an important factor, and yes his teammates do contribute to a portion of his turnovers by not catching or being an active outlet to relieve pressure. However, for a player of his passing pedigree, there are still a number of mistakes that haven’t changed from his freshman season. Like I said, I love Yuri, and a side effect of his awesome passing will be some risky passes, but at some point he has to cut them down, whatever it takes. His TO rate adjusted for his increased usage is only slightly better than his freshman season, and his offensive rating overall is down from last season. 

[wgstl]

Just now, cheeseman said:

  I am not picking on JN but he has to develop into being more aggressive on the court - he is freshman so you give him the time.  Had JP not gotten hurt JN could have been eased into his role but no such luck.  

The good news about this part(while it sucks this year) if Perkins does come back, thats one more weapon to go along with bc he was forced to mature faster. 

[wgstl]

26 minutes ago, Bills By 40 said:

low-post entry pass to Okoro who just big-man fumbled the ball and it led to a transition layup on the other end. 

I mentioned this earlier about Okoro and his hands last night.  As you mentioned, he also couldn't hold onto the ball on a lot of rebounds.  Had me wondering if he hurt his hand. 

[billiken_roy]

what befuddles me is that it is becoming pretty obvious that yuri is the engine and if he isnt playing his game we are lost.   he is small and a lot of his game depends on getting the defense to help on him and then leaving key billiken scorers open.   in the open court that is a piece of cake for yuri.   in the half court, that just isnt going to happen.  thus, yuri becomes worthless.   he ends up driving the lane with a tree in front of him that he cant reach over the outstretched branch.  result is a blocked shot or a stop and no where to even pass half the time. 

if we are going to insist on playing half court, i suggest giving the spot out front to nesbitt.   while he hasnt finished as we need on his drives to the basket, i got more confidence that he will be able to get over the tree than i do yuri will.  

i really dont want the above switch.   the switch i want is to the billikens to ALWAYS push the ball down the court with collins leading the way and the likes of nesbitt, jimmmerson, and hargrove streaking up the sidelines waiting for the kickout.   i just dont get the game plan.

for ford to call out the players for not playing well offensively, well we dont have a half court offense to speak of from what i have seen this year.   so who's fault is that?

[HoosierPal]

43 minutes ago, wgstl said:

I know I was hard on him last night, and I would like to re-watch again, but okoro was bad on offense.  He stayed out of foul trouble and didn't have many TO's, but his misses might as well have been TO's, as they weren't even close to going in.  He did have the nice and one play too.  His footwork got him turned around dang near every time, and he had so many rebounds hit his hands and bounce elsewhere.  He did also do a solid job on defense.  

 

Linssen's footwork would have gotten Holmes in trouble imo.  

One area where Okoro needs substantial improvement is passing the ball out of the paint. Total assists for the year is 5.  No, not per game, total for the year.  That is an average of 0.3 assists per game.  Okay, he isn't French, but Hasahn averaged 2.4 assists per game in last season's abbreviated schedule.  Okoro isn't getting triple teamed as French was, but he does draw a double more often than not.  I have no idea if he has been told to muscle through, or if he just doesn't see the floor as well as French did.

And yep we miss Linssen.  It will take him a while to get back into game shape.