Hey GT is very good....

[slu72]

and when you're shooting as well as they did in the 2nd half...well the fat lady is warming up. Anyways, this team beat UConn in their house by more. No shame in this game. Some points. I'd like to see JF take it to the hole more often. He's strong and showed me a quickness today I didn't think was there. RB's solid. Frericks a couple of great moves inside and some good D. Free throws look shaky. AD, man his shot looks terrible. Ike looked better...who knows. I like JJ. The kid looks like an athlete...more minutes please. RV. Enough said. Clarke reminded me a little of Jason Edwin...very smooth shot. Overall we were overmatched. GT has a nine man rotation and Hewlitt has them playing hard. They are going to be tough. Oh, UB is one hell of a coach...we cannot lose him. He is the saviour of Billiken hoops.

[westcoastballer45]

Reggie shot 16 times and didn't go the the line once. Didn't see the game, was he not taking it to the hole at all. Any Dribble penetration. Anthony 4 shots all threes whats with that.Fisher 5-9 needs more shots and if he doesn't get them in the offense he is gonna have to start to play a little selfish. I mean three games into his career and Bryant is throwing up 16 shots and making 5 thats not very good. So is he throwing up bad shots, is their someone else open for an extra pass. It just doesn't sound to me like we are executing very well on the offensive side of the ball. Any thoughts on that. Having Fisher on the bench early really killed us but got Clarke some good minutes, how was his D looks like he shot the ball well. Just going by what I hear on radio, up dates, and stats. Would like to get some feed back.

[jjray]

>>Reggie shot 16 times and didn't go the the line once. Didn't see the game, was he not taking it to the hole at all. Any Dribble penetration.<<

He got his stuff swatted or lost the ball on drives in the first half so I think he got shy. I remember Reggie getting one basket driving to the hole in transition in the second half. Other than the 7'1" tree, GT's bigs were quick and helped out so when Reggie got by his man, there was a bigger man waiting inside who was quick off his feet. ... Also GT was the beneficiary of a lot of home cooking from the refs (lots of offensive fouls called against the Bills).

[davidnark]

I thought Clarke did a better job than Drejaj today guarding against the outside shot.

[thetorch]

Our offense is just poor. It is obvious Bryant is the only guy who consistently looks for his shot. Fisher should be shooting more and being more assertive but he is just not that type of player. Drejaj is way way way off right now. reggie was mostly shooting from the outside and making them, he did take it to the whole and shot inside though, SLU just got zero calls today with the ACC refs having no respect for the Billikens.

Frericks looked good was decent on the boards, nice post play, decent defense and was not so winded all the time. Sloan did not have a great game, thier guys were a step too quick for him and he got called on charging a couple times and was playing out of control on offense. Johnson was okay, Izik looked for his shot a little more but he is still tentative and reallly really bad on defense. Varner was useless. Clarke gave us some good minutes and hit his first 3 of his billiken career. Still has trouble with the press and ballhandling but is learning how to get around screens. Clarke and Hunt in the backcourt at the same time killed us early in the second half.

[3star_recruit]

Drejaj has to figure out another way to score besides shooting three pointers. Clarke too. I think Reggie's penetration will result in some layups, just not against the Phi Slamma Jamma teams we've played in the last couple of games.

[tseugnekillib]

If Clarke played better defense than AD today, it was the first day that happened since October 18.

Hopefully, hitting three 3's will jump start all phases of Darren Clarke's game. Confidence is difficult to come by for most freshmen.

SLU needs a good 15 minutes from DC every game, it will be interesting to see how he practices this week.

[Taj79]

... Very impressed with some of the stuff Frericks was doing. He was taking no guff from the whimpy Aussie in the middle. What did he do at the end when I saw the Aussie slap him on the back after they called a foul on him and Ted Washington told everyone on the line to "count to ten." It was also nice to see Tom blocking out on the dfensive boards. I thought he was a huge roadblock down there.

Reggie was going good guns early. He had 11 in the first half and finished with what ... 13. Fogler, the old coach-turned-broadcaster, made the statement that Bryant was the only Billiken able to take it to GaTech and he was pretty much right. But he seems to be the designated scorer and there were many times when the shot clock was going down to under four seconds and we're all watching the "designated scorer" go at it again.

JFisher had his moments. But every time he drove and laid it in, it seemed like a jail break going the other way. Not that it was his fault but every time we seemed to get an uncontested layup, those speed demons on GaTech were flying the other way.

If Drejaj ain't a three point shooter, then he's got serious game time problems. Love the defense (although it was tough on him today trying to guard Atlanta's latest human highlight film, Ismaiil Muhammed) but about the only thing AD is going to get is the kick out for the three. And he was not there today. Even airballed it on the front end of a one-and-one.

Sloan seemed to come out too hyped up again. Varner gave some great hustle and ripped a few balls out of GaTech hands but that's about the most we can expect from a real role player. Ohanan did some nice things with his two buckets but he isn't in position to box out on defense and seems a step slow ... which is exaggerated when you hit these high-hurdle teams like GaTech seemed to be. JJ looked like a player and I like (based on two games) what I've seen so far. DC hit those three treys today but you could hear Sodes going nuts on him when he launched that ill-advised, air-ball three late. Not that it matter in the overall thing but Fogler and the other guy were really impressed with Sodes calling an immediate time out and letting DC have it. They guy seems to be all that one wants on the bench coaching end. He tried his damnest to slow GaTech down with all sorts of timeouts and things.

We jsut got waxed coming out after halftime. GaTech pressed and outscored us like 16 to 6 and that was about it. The ten-point change over, added to the three point halftime deficit, was it. A 13-point loss. I think we held our own for what it was worth as long as we could. JFish, Drejaj, Sloan, DC all had four fouls. GaTech has a very nice stable. Of course, they're a donut team with that Aussie in the middle. Although I give him points for style ... red Afro with the nice head band!

The TV team voted Muhammed the MVP for the game but in my book Elder won it with some nice shooting. They gave it to Muhammed because of the dunk/highlight crap but to me, Elder's shooting made a bigger difference. GaTech is hard to guard. Jacks is the kind of point guard I want ..... one who can finish as well as pass. He's a nice athlete for a sophomore. Bynum tried too hard. It was nice to see DC roll over him in the scrum near the end. DC didn't back down either.

Too many role players getting major minutes on this team once again. I like the horizon with JJ and DC added to AD and RB. With the class coming in, it has defined that light at the end of the tunnel and it doesn't appear to be a train. But Sodes is the key ... we've got to have an adminstration that gives him support and keeps him with us. I like that guy more and more every time I watch.

One more thing about next year and the point ....... Fogler said about Jacks that it is amazing to see what one year has done to that kid. Fogler said the toughest double whammy on a college player is the role of point guard. And when you're a freshman, the best thing is that you'll eventually be a sophomore. I hope Mr. Polk is all the player Jacks seems to be.

All in all, it was not a massacre and we performed admirably. We will be tough again this year but we still need more scoring options and better talent to compete with the likes of GaTech consistently. These morale builders continue to get old ...

[thetorch]

Earl said Clarke had his best week of practicing at SLU this past week. Maybe he is beginning to grasp what it takes on both ends of the court to play some minutes.

[jjray]

Nice recap Taj. I thought Fish getting his 3rd foul 4+ minutes into the second half was a disaster for us. GT immediately went to the press and it was much more effective when he was out of the game plus Drejaj just didn't have a prayer on Muhammed. Our lack of a real 3 showed today. Still, GT is just an exceptional team and I really like the direction Brad has the Bills heading.

[billiken_roy]

pretty good analysis taj. i dont disagree with anything you said. at least not enough to start an argument.

i thought it was without a doubt the tom frericks we need to compete yesterday. and darren clark, while he made some mistakes, showed he can play at this level.

still basically an izik mia performance imo. not sure what to think of izik now. on one hand we have been teased with fabulous individual moves etc. on the other, we have consistently seen periods of nothing.

the foul trouble was huge yesterday imo. especially josh. it kept the bills from regaining any defensive effort that could have got them back in the game. that said, as taj stated, those first 5-10 minutes of the second half were devastating. this was an extremely talented gt team that just came out and turned it up for that period and overwhelmed the team. we needed to have someone step up and punch back and we didnt. this team lacks the one big superstar that would be able to make an exclamation point play that would silence the crowd and raise the eyebrows of the opponent.

still to be honest, our record is where i thought it would be at this point. and other than what i considered the bad performance at west virginia, the fact is i think we have played above what i expected thus far.

the key now are these next 4-5 games where the talent levels will even out a little more. these are all games that will be west virginia like when you match up the teams. games that can go either way depending on how the game plays out and the teams show up. now we will see how good this team is. right now arguments could be made we win 1 game. arguments could be made we can win them all.

[baller44]

i heard that drejaj had am ankle sprain