Monday Afternoon Thoughts-Crossroads Edition
Last week was tough. As emotionally draining as Wednesday was, Saturday was equally as infuriating. Defensively we are broken right now. I wish there was another way to say it, but there's not. We are sitting in a very precarious position.
1. Let's start with positives, it's good to get Hubbard back. This is the Hubbard we know and expected coming into the season. It's honestly a little funny. Everyone had said he hadn't been right since he turned his ankle against UNLV and he turns his ankle against Bama and transforms back into the player we have known. He needs to keep this pace up.
2. Continuing with the positives, outside of one play, I thought Keyshawn Murphy's play the last two games has really been a positive development. That kid has worked his ass off on both ends to be able to give us valuable minutes. As big as Hubb was against Bama, we are not in that game without Keyshawn Murphy.
3. That was fun. Now to the negatives, someone get Riley Kugel's head out of his ass. Like wake the 17 up kid. You have legitimate NBA talent and you better realize it soon or you're going to waste it. Multiple people have said, I know 7 is a big proponent of it, but you can tell within one possession what kind of night you're going to get from Kugel. We can't have that moving forward. We're not asking the guy to give us 21 and 8 EVERY NIGHT. Would that be great? Absolutely. But heck just give us 10 and 2 or 11 and 3. We would love that. The Jekkyl and Hyde crap is getting annoying. When he's off, it shrinks our already short rotation an additional man.
4. Harris is turning into Shak Moore 2.0. He looks scared to shoot now and is not just setting his feet and firing. I counted at least 5 times in the last two games he was open in the corner and tried to baseline cut INTO TRAFFIC instead of staying in the corner and hitting the 3. We brought him in for defense and outside shooting. We don't need him cutting to the basket or trying to create his shot. Play defense and knock down 3s when the opportunity comes your way.
5. Melendez is kind of in the same boat. He's taking 7 threes in the last 3 games and had been averaging around 4 prior. He was also a double figure machine until the last 3 games. He's scored 9 pts the last 3 games and had been in double figures in 6 of the previous 7 prior to it. I think his problem is a little like Harris' in that he's afraid to shoot when the shot is open and instead tries to create a shot that isn't there.
6. Matthews. My god he is bad right now. His defense is crap, his offense is worse, he's barely getting to the FT line, and he's shot more 3s, and missed them, in the last 6 games than he shot all of last year. Get back to what you do best, play defense and attack the defense. He is doing neither right now.
7. Defensively we suck. And that is on Jans. He is supposed to be a defensive ace and our last two teams back that up. But it seems like what we added with offense, we gave up even more on the defensive end. Right now we have 4 defensive liabilities on the court at any given time. We can't have that. Look Hubbard is never going to be some superior defensive player due to his height. But as for the rest, every one of them is extremely long, athletic, and have shown in spurts that they can play defense at a high level. It will be on Jans to bring that back out of them.
8. This Saturday's game is paramount. It's as must win a game as we have played under Jans this early in the season. Not so much for it will doom our tournament chances, because a loss on Saturday alone will not do that, but I don't know where the psyche of this team will be if we lose Saturday and then turn around and have to play Florida, who's going to shoot 40 threes, and OM, who's going to be hungry to prove they're the better team.
9. This season is by no means lost and this team is by no means finished. It is February 1. I've watched Mississippi State teams look dead in the water at this point and make the tournament (2022-2023) and I've watched State teams look like they'd be a top 16 seed to this point and miss it entirely.
