Thoughts on game tonight..........

[99jc]

Moore and Iverson together are great.

1st impression of Watts is that he played out of control tonight.

we need to improve blocking out.

look decent overall Hail State

[BayouDawg]

Agree. This team has great potential. But the blocking out or lack thereof has to get fixed.

[Rawdawg]

We were +14 in rebound margin going into the game? I was there tonight and the ball just bounced in some weird ways. Long rebounds on some hero threes and just some unfortunate bounces all around. Defense was good but there?s nothing you can do about a cross over, hand in your face, fade away bad shot three ball falling multiple times in a game.

[NCMSTFAN]

It's going to be tough to take Shakeel out of the lineup. I thought when Watts returned he would take over the starting spot, but Moore can score at every level and defend. I like Moore and Molinar together. I wanted to see more scoring in the post from Garrison this game but he still played pretty solid, same with Jeffries. We have the potential to be good but we aren't there just yet.

[MetEdDawg]

Too many offensive rebounds for Detroit Mercy (12 of their 27 rebounds were offensive). Tolu coming back will help that.

We didn't take enough shots. Only 49 shots in a 40 minute game. Now we made almost 60% from the floor, so if your efficiency is high you can live with lower attempts, but not that few.

Howland has work to do to determine who can work with who. We've got a lot of talent, but tonight it was obvious that we are still working through what our rotations will look like and who's going to get the most minutes.

Sloppy game, weird tempo, and we win by 13. Davis was voted 1st team all conference. He's pretty good.

Still think we are a Top 25 team with the talent this roster has. Question is how quickly can it come together and gel.

[MCsMGs]

Too many offensive rebounds for Detroit Mercy (12 of their 27 rebounds were offensive). Tolu coming back will help that.

We didn't take enough shots. Only 49 shots in a 40 minute game. Now we made almost 60% from the floor, so if your efficiency is high you can live with lower attempts, but not that few.

Howland has work to do to determine who can work with who. We've got a lot of talent, but tonight it was obvious that we are still working through what our rotations will look like and who's going to get the most minutes.

Sloppy game, weird tempo, and we win by 13. Davis was voted 1st team all conference. He's pretty good.

Still think we are a Top 25 team with the talent this roster has. Question is how quickly can it come together and gel.

Don't know if you listened to the post game show, but the first thing Howland cited was that they got too many offensive rebounds that led to a lot of second chance scores.

[OLJWales]

So sloppy game; shoulda won by 20 plus?

[99jc]

Detroit may have been 0-2 coming in but they have some players. I think right now the main thing is team chemistry we could be very good if the rotation is right.

[HoopsDawg]

hopefully everyone can stay unselfish b/c there is only one ball. We are going to have to cut our rotation by SEC play.

[Ifyouonlyknew]

hopefully everyone can stay unselfish b/c there is only one ball. We are going to have to cut our rotation by SEC play.

The 8 man rotation by SEC play will be

1&2 - Iverson Rocket & Shakeel

3 - DJ & Matthews

4&5 - Tolu Garrison & Fountain

Carter & JD or Murphy getting 5-8min when necessary

[HoopsDawg]

The 8 man rotation by SEC play will be

1&2 - Iverson Rocket & Shakeel

3 - DJ & Matthews

4&5 - Tolu Garrison & Fountain

Carter & JD or Murphy getting 5-8min when necessary

agree, except hopefully Matthews will still play some 4.

[trob115]

Hopefully Davis doesn't ever see the floor again in meaningful minutes. He is a complete liability with his awful free throw shooting.

[revdrdawg]

It was a game of weird lucky bounces and a couple of prayers for Detroit Mercy that had no business going in. There were several times when we had a ten point lead and the ball threatening to break it open and suddenly there was a turnover and a Detroit 3. Fortunately, we always found an answer, Still, we did not get the comfortable lead until the last few minutes. We do have to do a better job of getting Garrison the ball in a good position. For some reason, we could get the ball to Davis inside (who would get fouled and miss the FT), but that never worked with Brooks.

[CadaverDawg]

I'm not a super knowledgeable basketball guy from an X & O standpoint, but it seemed to me like other than them just hitting a lot of tough shots, our biggest weakness last night was getting beaten off the dribble one on one and not having help rotate over in time, leading to some fairly easy layups at times. Not sure how you fix that, unless we just knew we had them from a talent standpoint so were playing a very basic man to man with little help? Maybe we play more help D when we play better teams? Or is that something to keep an eye on? Or just tell me I don't know what I'm talking about and I'll shut up

[chef dixon]

You can't take away much from these games this early with a lot of new pieces. We got players and they are going to get better as the season goes along. These games kind of weed out who's ready to take on the big roles.

[NCMSTFAN]

I watched the replay on the ESPN app late last night and we actually played pretty good. We shot 59% from the field and 50% from 3, we out rebounded them (even though it was only by 1) and we played good defense. Detroit was just making alot of tough shots, and thats why we didn't really separate from them like we should have. Plus our former player Prince Oduro probably had the best game of his career for Detroit, he went 7-7 scoring 14 points and also had 7 rebs. But you know you always play harder against a former team. They surely didn't look like an 0-2 team but they showed up to play us, its like that sometimes, especially in college basketball but in the end we won the game and it was never really in jeopardy.

I will say from a talent and depth standpoint, we may have the best team on paper since Howland has been with us.

[thf24]

I will say from a talent and depth standpoint, we may have the best team on paper since Howland has been with us.

Absolutely no doubt that this is his deepest and most talented team by far. More importantly though, our best players fit what Howland wants from their position. A big problem with the '18-'19 and '19-'20 teams in my observation was that Perry and Woodard never seemed completely comfortable with the way they were being asked to play.

[NCMSTFAN]

Absolutely no doubt that this is his deepest and most talented team by far. More importantly though, our best players fit what Howland wants from their position. A big problem with the '18-'19 and '19-'20 teams in my observation was that Perry and Woodard never seemed completely comfortable with the way they were being asked to play.

I agree the chemistry is there this year. Also, I'm glad the students are coming out and showing support this year. They fill the section up behind the goal really well. I wish they would put them back on the sides again, it just looks better on t.v. but nonetheless they are showing up!

[Johnson85]

I watched the replay on the ESPN app late last night and we actually played pretty good. We shot 59% from the field and 50% from 3, we out rebounded them (even though it was only by 1) and we played good defense. Detroit was just making alot of tough shots, and thats why we didn't really separate from them like we should have. Plus our former player Prince Oduro probably had the best game of his career for Detroit, he went 7-7 scoring 14 points and also had 7 rebs. But you know you always play harder against a former team. They surely didn't look like an 0-2 team but they showed up to play us, its like that sometimes, especially in college basketball but in the end we won the game and it was never really in jeopardy.

I will say from a talent and depth standpoint, we may have the best team on paper since Howland has been with us.

It's definitely one of the deepest teams I can remember. I think fans may have to adjust their expectation some based on that. We probably matchup really well with just about anybody 1-10, but only your first 8 really matter unless their are injuries or major foul trouble, and when it comes down to it, at the end of the year, you'd usually rather have a stronger team 1-6 than a team that is not quite as strong 1-6 but can go two deeper in the rotation.

We could figure out a rotation that plays really well together and be really dangerous. Our we could just be a pretty good team with better than average players not getting good minutes.

[NCMSTFAN]

It's definitely one of the deepest teams I can remember. I think fans may have to adjust their expectation some based on that. We probably matchup really well with just about anybody 1-10, but only your first 8 really matter unless their are injuries or major foul trouble, and when it comes down to it, at the end of the year, you'd usually rather have a stronger team 1-6 than a team that is not quite as strong 1-6 but can go two deeper in the rotation.

We could figure out a rotation that plays really well together and be really dangerous. Our we could just be a pretty good team with better than average players not getting good minutes.

Good point and I completely understand your point in terms of have a nice a solid rotation of 7 or 8 players to play the majority of your minutes. But as you mentioned, injuries happen almost every year and having that quality depth will be needed at some point in the season.

I think as the season goes the majority of minutes will go to Molinar, Moore, Jeffries, Watts, Brooks, Matthews, Tolu and Cam Carter. That's a really good 8 man rotation that gives us scoring, defense and shooting. I initially thought Fountain would be in that mix but Matthews is playing really well, especially defensively, he is like that junk yard dog player every team needs. He is averaging 8 pts, 7 rebs, 3 assist on 71.4 percent shooting but where he really excels is on defense.