UK Game Thread

[WSOPdawg]

I mean, 3 more points and two more rebounds aren't winning that game. People screaming he sucked aren't accurate. He was almost at his average. He didn't lose that game.

No, but at least 4 missed layups by Perry & Ado would have been the 8 points we needed to even the score. Then throw in Nick & Tyson combining to go 6 for 24 shooting the ball and you have 3 crappy-ass performances (counting Perry)! Way to choke in the big game, guys.

[Dawgcap]

Anyone who bashes a player from State is way too passionate or a dumbass. We played a pissed off team And emotionally we weren?t ready for that. Shitty shooting to start at someone else?s court and we weren?t up for the moment.
Make no mistake Cal based his plan on frustrating Perry and he did. Great coaching job by him and then the bigs for UK believed they were better and showed it for 1 game tonight. Cal is irritating but he ain?t dumb. He doubled and then turned his bigs loose on the board to build their confidence

[Cowbell]

Yes. Better game plan. Well an actual game plan.

LOL

[WSOPdawg]

Anyone who bashes a player from State is way too passionate or a dumbass. We played a pissed off team And emotionally we weren?t ready for that. Shitty shooting to start at someone else?s court and we weren?t up for the moment.
Make no mistake Cal based his plan on frustrating Perry and he did. Great coaching job by him and then the bigs for UK believed they were better and showed it for 1 game tonight. Cal is irritating but he ain?t dumb. He doubled and then turned his bigs loose on the board to build their confidence

Dawgcap, when's the last time we EVER been emotionally ready for the big stage?

Why do other teams step up when given the opportunity, but not MSU MBB? Why couldn't we get emotionally ready last year as a 5 seed after having not made the Big Dance in forever? At what point to we stop making excuses for choking when it matters most?

Not a flame, I'm serious. Maybe get a sports psychologist for the program to help with the mentality of "learning how to win and sustain success."

[HoopsDawg]

We were emotionally ready, lol. Just had 3 key players that didn't shoot well.

The UF game was a big win.

Perry is the leader. Need him to play winning basketball on both ends and keep his composure even when having an off night offensively.

[pilldawg]

Effort was completely there. Just had an off game shooting in general and Kentucky plays good defense.

[mabtsdawg]

Perry has been scoring a bunch at the free throw line. Didn't get foul calls tonight. Other than that, Perry was not far off his normal night. On lots of his misses this year when he is right at the basket, he draws a foul and gets to the line, so the miss doesn't count against him. Tonight, he didn't as many calls, so his misses counted. He has never gotten his points because of scoring touch around the basket. He is a brawler, and when he is playing all out with confidence, he is a load.

The disappointing thing tonight was that with UK focused on Perry, NW had one of the worst games of his career: 2 baskets, 2 assists, 2 turnovers. And Carter's shooting struggles continued. Thus, the loss. Solid games from Woodard and Stewart. Ado did his normal stuff. NW and TC just didn't get it done tonight.

[Dawgcap]

Dawgcap, when's the last time we EVER been emotionally ready for the big stage?

Why do other teams step up when given the opportunity, but not MSU MBB? Why couldn't we get emotionally ready last year as a 5 seed after having not made the Big Dance in forever? At what point to we stop making excuses for choking when it matters most?

Not a flame, I'm serious. Maybe get a sports psychologist for the program to help with the mentality of "learning how to win and sustain success."
Don?t have all the answers but I will say we caught a pissed off team and they worked us. Look I love the talent but mentally we are young. We pout a bit but I believe we gather and grow. This team can do damage it?s up to the players and staff to realize it.
But one thing I will say is while I realize we have a few that pout or whine over a call I also realize they haven?t figured out that the only way to change that is to battle harder. We have shown spurts of this. This team is so talented I just hope they realize it. I believe they do. Attitude is something you grow into. I think it?s hard to coach it?s about friends looking in each other?s eyes and stepping up.
I?m far from done with this team. If they fell could be nasty

[Dawgcap]

Gel not fell

[Dawgcap]

Good thing is that I don’t think this affects our NCAA chances much at all. Frustrating we didn’t capitalize on a huge resume opportunity though. Our NET should remain practically the same. Our schedule is about to get a lot easier. Just take care of business and play how we’d been playing the previous 5 conference games and we will be dancing

Bottom line we go 6-3 or 7-2 we are in. The bubble is bullshit because guess what other teams lose also. Finish strong. If we don?t go 6-3 we don?t need to be in

[dantheman4248]

We got beat because of effort tonight. Kentucky our efforted us on the glass all night and it paid off. They were in our heads and it showed. The only reason we were in the game is because of the pure talent this team has.

That's the head pounding part. We have the talent this year to compete with anyone. If we can put together a full 40 minutes of good effort and smart basketball we'd beat anyone in the country. We've yet to come anywhere close though. The frustrating part is it's mainly effort and movement on offense that we are lacking. Not being headstrong into stupid iso's or long nba 3s. The kids are so gifted anyways that it works half the time and you shake your head at the dribble for 20-25 seconds with no off ball movement, kick it to a guy 5 ft behind the 3 and he sinks a contested shot. Imagine if we ran stuff that got them open looks...

[Dawgcap]

We weren?t playing them at home and I don?t know stats but I?m betting Kentucky doesn?t lose 2 in a row very often. I was so hoping they beat Auburn previous game because we were in for hell

[Ari Gold]

Lose by 8
When our big 3 ( Woodard, Nick and Perry ) don’t play their best
And they have their best player tally a season high In points
To me it Says a lot about this team and CBH for competing in an extremely hard place to play and UK coming off a loss when your big 3 don’t have a good night . This game could have really gotten away from us and it didn’t.


If you had told me that I would have said no way we stay within 8 at Kentucky.
And had a shot at the end to make it even closer.

Not saying this is a moral victory. **** that. This team is too good for moral victories. Yes It Sucks to lose the game , but it won’t hurt the resume. So no this wasn’t a bad loss in the big picture if we handle our business

[Ari Gold]

In Reggie's defense, we don't have enough offensive strategy to get him open against teams with good bigs. We got beat by a better coached team tonight. Plain and simple.

This is 100% inaccurate. Reggie missed at least a half a dozen shots he usually makes. He got a lot of touches. Reggie needs more DOG in him. When things don’t go his way he can really let it effect his play. When he is rolling he is one of the best in the country.

[Ari Gold]

And for those that are still wondering why teams don’t play much zone defense anymore.
UK went zone on consecutive trips .. results were an offensive rebound by Ado for a basket and a 3 pointer by Tyson on the next position. Cal calls Timeout. They don’t go back to the zone

And yes I wished we would play zone a little , Hell I think a team that plays zone some against UK might give them problems , but Cal showed tonight it’s not as easy as most of you might think it is just to drip in a zone defense

[Ari Gold]

We got beat because of effort tonight. Kentucky our efforted us on the glass all night and it paid off. They were in our heads and it showed. The only reason we were in the game is because of the pure talent this team has.

That's the head pounding part. We have the talent this year to compete with anyone. If we can put together a full 40 minutes of good effort and smart basketball we'd beat anyone in the country. We've yet to come anywhere close though. The frustrating part is it's mainly effort and movement on offense that we are lacking. Not being headstrong into stupid iso's or long nba 3s. The kids are so gifted anyways that it works half the time and you shake your head at the dribble for 20-25 seconds with no off ball movement, kick it to a guy 5 ft behind the 3 and he sinks a contested shot. Imagine if we ran stuff that got them open looks...

Not sure what game you watched , but effort was there tonight. This game could have gotten really ugly if it was minus effort. We just played a possible final four team on the road coming off a loss..
We didnt play well , but effort was there .
We out rebounded them and doubled them on the offensive glass and only had 10 turnovers .. 4 blocks ..
I think we were 5-16 shooting 3s most of those were pretty good looks .

[Dawgcap]

Not sure what game you watched , but effort was there tonight. This game could have gotten really ugly if it was minus effort. We just played a possible final four team on the road coming off a loss..
We didn?t play well , but effort was there .
We out rebounded them and doubled them on the offensive glass and only had I think 9 or 10 turnovers .. that?s not lack of effort ..

I think his point was that while we showed effort Kentucky went after every ball hard. It?s great to play hard but it looks bad when the other team went harder. Bottom line Kentucky wanted tonight and they went and got it. The effort they exerted was a bit above ours. They were impressive on the effort side and we shot the ball bad enough to never give us a chance.
Bad time to catch Kentucky and anyone that knows basketball knew that. Never want to catch a pissed off Kentucky team and it showed tonight.
Regroup and get better!

[smootness]

This is 100% inaccurate. Reggie missed at least a half a dozen shots he usually makes. He got a lot of touches. Reggie needs more DOG in him. When things don’t go his way he can really let it effect his play. When he is rolling he is one of the best in the country.

More than that, he just needs to have better vision and a willingness to kick it out if it isn't there. When he decides he's going to go to work in the post, the ball never comes back out, regardless if anything is there for him or if there is a guy 10 feet away wide open for 3.

He HAS to be better at using the attention he creates to open opportunities for other guys. He should use the attention he gets as an advantage. Instead, it is a huge disadvantage.

[dantheman4248]

Not sure what game you watched , but effort was there tonight. This game could have gotten really ugly if it was minus effort. We just played a possible final four team on the road coming off a loss..
We didnt play well , but effort was there .
We out rebounded them and doubled them on the offensive glass and only had 10 turnovers .. 4 blocks ..
I think we were 5-16 shooting 3s most of those were pretty good looks .


I watched the game between two equally talented teams. You must have watched the traditional Kentucky overmatched is completely in the talent department game. You've gotten to the point where you confuse our immense talent for actual effort. Kentucky simply outworked us and made everything difficult for 40 minutes. Dare I say we got Kentucky's best punch last night.

And yet we didn't give our best punch. You say most of the 3s were "good looks" they weren't. 2 of the makes were nba 3s that were contested. I specifically remember one possession about the 3 minute mark where we dribbled the ball with no off ball movement down to 8-7 seconds then kicked to tyson who sank a deep contested 3. It was an ugly ugly ugly possession, but we're so good it works.

It's infuriating to lose to Kentucky because you got out efforted. Period. They wanted it more. That was the difference all night. They made us uncomfortable. If we matched their intensity last night, we win easily. If you can't see that by now I don't know what to tell you.

[Ari Gold]

I watched the game between two equally talented teams. You must have watched the traditional Kentucky overmatched is completely in the talent department game. You've gotten to the point where you confuse our immense talent for actual effort. Kentucky simply outworked us and made everything difficult for 40 minutes. Dare I say we got Kentucky's best punch last night.

And yet we didn't give our best punch. You say most of the 3s were "good looks" they weren't. 2 of the makes were nba 3s that were contested. I specifically remember one possession about the 3 minute mark where we dribbled the ball with no off ball movement down to 8-7 seconds then kicked to tyson who sank a deep contested 3. It was an ugly ugly ugly possession, but we're so good it works.

It's infuriating to lose to Kentucky because you got out efforted. Period. They wanted it more. That was the difference all night. They made us uncomfortable. If we matched their intensity last night, we win easily. If you can't see that by now I don't know what to tell you.

It’s Kentucky... and we aren’t as talented as Kentucky..
We have 2 players max that would start for them.

Yes UK played better than us. Our big 3 didn’t play well. It ****ing happens.
But if I had given you the stat line of Reggie , Nick, and Wood before the game started I would have said we lose by 20
We battled a final four level talent team on the road , with them coming off a loss and back home after 2 tough road games. And we were right there in the game.. Again there are no moral victories but this isn’t a bad loss.

No team plays their best for 40 minutes every game. Players have bad game . Coaches have bad games . The sign of a good team is when when your big 3 all don’t play well and yet you find a way to battle and stay in the game

I’m not sure what some of you expect from this team.. again check out all the experts before the year started and see where they all had us picked.
This team can and should make the NCAA and if We do we will be a very hard out...

We ran a possession where we kicked it to Tyson and he made a 3.. I don’t give a shit how ugly you say it was it was a basket.. and I think that was the possession where UK went to a zone .. We changed the offensive set and got Tyson a open look. And he scored. That’s good coaching .

UK makes a lot of teams uncomfortable. They play very good defense, they are long, athletic deep and talented.

[dantheman4248]

I'm just gonna go ahead and assume you never played basketball above the elementary level. Your comment is dripping with 2k level knowledge of the game. Apologies for giving you the benefit of the doubt.

[Ari Gold]

I'm just gonna go ahead and assume you never played basketball above the elementary level. Your comment is dripping with 2k level knowledge of the game. Apologies for giving you the benefit of the doubt.

Be sure to ask around on here and see what kind of answer you get to that .. you might be surprised.
You are out of your league kid.. trust me.

[dantheman4248]

Be sure to ask around on here and see what kind of answer you get to that .. you might be surprised.
You are out of your league kid.. trust me.

I'm sure you're very important. I'm certain you have many leather-bound books and your apartment smells of rich mahogany.