Belated thoughts on the game and SU's potential in the tournament

[orangepassion]

I never like a game to be broken down as simple as one team made shots and the other didn't, but i believe that's what the 1st half was about. Love the zone this year, but still wish we could switch to a man-2-man when a team gets hot like that, even if only for a few minutes to give a different look and mess up their rhythm.

However, to me, the biggest weakness of this team is defensive rebounding. I know the numbers didn't look bad, but in the 2nd half Gates was literally right under the basket for every rebound and the only reason he didn't have more rebounds was b/c Cincy started turning the ball over and missing long when they missed. If you watch the game, Melo was trying to front Gates most of the 2nd half, which allowed Gates to easilly get between him and the basket for offensive rebounds, followed by an easy layup or foul. I would much rather see Gates try to shoot over Melo, who is significantly taller than get easy layups.

Don't know how much of a factor Joseph's thumb was, but we're going to need him. The only players who did anything positive in this game were Waiters and Melo. I don't recall a game where so many players were bad and yet b/c of Waiters, we could have stolen the game if we could hit some free throws in the 2nd half.

Going forth in the tournament, I believe the key to going far is securing those defensive rebounds. We need to worry more about blocking out than blocking shots. There were several games this year where we were ready to pull away and the only thing keeping other teams in games were the offensive rebound/putbacks. Hope that is the #1 focus this week.

 

[omniorange]

That game was lost on defense on Cincy's 3-point shooters (went for the shot fake too often on the perimeter) and turnovers, turnovers, turnovers - not defensive rebounding, imho.

Cheers,
Neil

 

[DNABB5]

That game was lost on defense on Cincy's 3-point shooters (went for the shot fake too often on the perimeter) and turnovers, turnovers, turnovers - not defensive rebounding, imho.

Cheers,
Neil

Yancey has two consecutive huge putbacks of missed end-of shot clock threes and two FT's on another all under 8 minute mark.

Defensive rebounding was a factor.

 

[omniorange]

Yancey has two consecutive huge putbacks of missed end-of shot clock threes and two FT's on another all under 8 minute mark.

Defensive rebounding was a factor.

If we don't have the stupid turnovers we had at key points of that game and we played better defense on 3-point shooters, those putbacks are meaningless, imho.

Cheers,
Neil

 

[CorduroyG]

Yancey has two consecutive huge putbacks of missed end-of shot clock threes and two FT's on another all under 8 minute mark.

Defensive rebounding was a factor.

it was a huge factor early in the 2nd half. there was 3 or 4 times we cut the lead to 7 or 8 where it looked like a run was coming, cincy would jack up a long 3 and miss and gates would get the rebound for a putback or kick it out and kill another 30 seconds. it deflates the team and kills any little momentum we had.

 

[orangepassion]

My point is the offensive putbacks have been a consistent issue-The Turnovers and 3's have not been. You're gonna have some turnovers, but we can control the rebounding issue much easier by blocking out more.