Coach34
01-19-2025, 12:29 PM
1. What a good day of SEC basketball, baseball practice with my kid getting his 1st pen in, and NFL football. Celebrated it with the first crawfish purchase of 2025 accompanied with some shrimp, onions, and corn (My mini-me is a seafood lover as well).
2. What a great game and win last night. 2 very good basketball teams- that are rivals- going at it. We jumped on them early and maintained the lead the entire damn game until the last 8 seconds.
3. Make no mistake- Mississippi is very damn well coached. Jan came out with a good strategy defending them and they struggled most of the 1st half. We had a chance at the end of the 1st half to put them away and couldnt do it. Up 14 after a stop and Jones takes a 3 that is just off- rims out. Would have put us up 17 with all kinds of momentum. Instead they get the rebound, score the next 5 points to get it back to 9 and the half ends up with us ahead by 8. They survived that point that would have really put them away.
4. Beard adjusted well at half. They started attacking Hubbard more with ball screens forcing us to switch defensively- and their ball movement off that forced us into bad defensive rotations. They got alot of open 3-ball looks from this and knocked them down- hitting 9 3's in the 2nd half to only 4 in the first
5. As I said a few times and many others here knew- Kugel being out was what was hurting us. It's not Hubbard's lack of production. Obviously Hubbard shooting it better would help us, but Kugel is the straw that stirs the drink. He appears to be maturing as a player and is living up to the potential he was known for. His last 7 games he is shooting over 41% from 3. Him being 6'5 plus his ballhandling makes him a must have on the floor and I expect he will increase his 20 mins per game average going forward.
6. The big key nobody has mnetioned much was the 51-29 rebounding edge we had. That was the difference in the game. Nwoko and Cam had 19 between them. Add in Murph and thats 30. Those 3 outrebounded Mississippi by themselves.
7. Speaking of Murph- he played pretty well yesterday. His ass was tired when that one ended. 32 mins yesterday for him against some big bodies. Good timeout by Jan in OT to get Murph a rest before we ran a play late in the game. He could see Murph bent over. 18/11 from Murph is a great day.
8. Ugly job on the FT line almost cost us. 17/28 overall for 60%. Cam was 0-4. Got to be better.
9. We are a good basketball team with a big week coming up. Road games @Tenn and @SC. Tough to win in Knoxville but we got to compete. Tenn is not unbeatable at home but it will take us having a good game. I'm sure we are packing Kugel in ice today and working to get him ready on a short turnaround Tuesday. @SC is a good chance for us to get a road win. It's not a "must win" but it's pretty close. SC has been getting beat down in SEC play and we dont need to be the team that gives them some life. Got to avoid an 0-2 week to put us at 3-4 in the SEC with Bama coming up next week.
10. I'm enjoying this basketball season. It's fun watching SEC basketball becoming SEC baseball level nationally. The level of coaches in the SEC is top notch and better than ever. NIL has really supercharged SEC basketball as well. Because of the smaller rosters- this is a sport where NIL has helped us. Other schools cant hoard the talent. Good to see basketball in a good place again.
Hail State
2. What a great game and win last night. 2 very good basketball teams- that are rivals- going at it. We jumped on them early and maintained the lead the entire damn game until the last 8 seconds.
3. Make no mistake- Mississippi is very damn well coached. Jan came out with a good strategy defending them and they struggled most of the 1st half. We had a chance at the end of the 1st half to put them away and couldnt do it. Up 14 after a stop and Jones takes a 3 that is just off- rims out. Would have put us up 17 with all kinds of momentum. Instead they get the rebound, score the next 5 points to get it back to 9 and the half ends up with us ahead by 8. They survived that point that would have really put them away.
4. Beard adjusted well at half. They started attacking Hubbard more with ball screens forcing us to switch defensively- and their ball movement off that forced us into bad defensive rotations. They got alot of open 3-ball looks from this and knocked them down- hitting 9 3's in the 2nd half to only 4 in the first
5. As I said a few times and many others here knew- Kugel being out was what was hurting us. It's not Hubbard's lack of production. Obviously Hubbard shooting it better would help us, but Kugel is the straw that stirs the drink. He appears to be maturing as a player and is living up to the potential he was known for. His last 7 games he is shooting over 41% from 3. Him being 6'5 plus his ballhandling makes him a must have on the floor and I expect he will increase his 20 mins per game average going forward.
6. The big key nobody has mnetioned much was the 51-29 rebounding edge we had. That was the difference in the game. Nwoko and Cam had 19 between them. Add in Murph and thats 30. Those 3 outrebounded Mississippi by themselves.
7. Speaking of Murph- he played pretty well yesterday. His ass was tired when that one ended. 32 mins yesterday for him against some big bodies. Good timeout by Jan in OT to get Murph a rest before we ran a play late in the game. He could see Murph bent over. 18/11 from Murph is a great day.
8. Ugly job on the FT line almost cost us. 17/28 overall for 60%. Cam was 0-4. Got to be better.
9. We are a good basketball team with a big week coming up. Road games @Tenn and @SC. Tough to win in Knoxville but we got to compete. Tenn is not unbeatable at home but it will take us having a good game. I'm sure we are packing Kugel in ice today and working to get him ready on a short turnaround Tuesday. @SC is a good chance for us to get a road win. It's not a "must win" but it's pretty close. SC has been getting beat down in SEC play and we dont need to be the team that gives them some life. Got to avoid an 0-2 week to put us at 3-4 in the SEC with Bama coming up next week.
10. I'm enjoying this basketball season. It's fun watching SEC basketball becoming SEC baseball level nationally. The level of coaches in the SEC is top notch and better than ever. NIL has really supercharged SEC basketball as well. Because of the smaller rosters- this is a sport where NIL has helped us. Other schools cant hoard the talent. Good to see basketball in a good place again.
Hail State