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Message: [QUOTE="billsin01, post: 4834200, member: 837"] Yeah, lots of good thoughts here. Didn't see it live and just watched the replay. Probably for the best -- I would have been hyperventilating in the first 25 mins or so of that game. Some thoughts: [LIST] [*]We spent a lot of time on here hammering the zone and, perhaps, for good reason. What we saw tonight was a man-to-man get torched. Whatever defense you play, you need the personnel (which I think we have, by and large) and execution (this is a question mark). [*]Give the kid Smith and the big Records credit -- those kids are good players and gave us fits all night, even during the comeback. [*]I too struggle with Bell's game. I think we're just going to have to love the nights when he goes 6-for-14 from three and hope we don't see a lot of the 1-for-7 nights. His line other than the scoring is incredibly poor. No rebounds, no assists, 1 steal, no blocks. He [I]has[/I] to knock down shots but, to his credit, he did that tonight and he had a couple nice takes to the basket as well. Good for him. Still feel uneasy about him being such a big part of this team but for this night you can at least see why Red has him out there. [*]Taylor played hard. Not terribly well, but hard. Hit a big three late, had a big steal late and battled defensively. So I'll give him hustle points and hope he can find a way to be a bit more of a factor offensively. [*]Red's defense and offense both feel really, really rudimentary. The number of times one screen messes up our entire defense (the two easy pick-and-roll buckets in the first half, a couple pull up threes off basic ball screens, the non-stop buckets on mismatches on the right block) is painful. You cannot have a big watching a ball-handler drive toward the basket with a guard chasing from behind taking a wide path around a screen. That's brutal. You can't allow a big all day to back down smaller defenders with zero help. You can't have one slide for help but no reaction from the other three defenders. Can't happen. Offensively, we've played five opponents and all five run laps around us with their movement off-ball on offense. We don't have to mirror smaller, less talented teams in that respect, but we spend at least 60% of our time offensively watching someone dribble with no movement. Easily my biggest concern. [*]McLeod may be almost unplayable in man. I know people hate zone, but if we need to play him we may need to play some zone. I'm fine with it not being a basic 2-3 but if we're going to use him, we need to find him from time to time for dunks on offense and hide him on defense. [*]Judah was huge. Much better defense in the second half, got to the line a ton, made some shots and added 8 assists for good measure. BUT, he [I]has[/I] to stop gambling in the backcourt and letting his teammates play 4-on-5. His take foul, which turned into a flagrant 1 was absolutely brutal. [*]JJ did a lot of nice things, not the least of which is playing 39 mins and turning it over just twice. Hit a couple jumpers, which was great to see. Can occasionally take some bad shots and I'm not sure he's an opportunistic defender, but he was solid and is proving a nice addition for us. [*]Not incredible nights for Cope and Cuffe, but thought both still contributed. Nice defensive play late by Cuffe on the block and Cope had a nice pass to JJ, who made the extra pass to Bell for a wide open three after a Cope drive. Just nice to see Cope not force a wild shot or turn the ball over there. Cope with a few nice defensive plays too. Hope he continues to grow and improve. [*]Brown was good. Not great, but good. Weird decision to pass on a layup at one point but man, the dude gets his hand on the ball a ton. Hope he's healthy and the arrow points up the rest of the way. [*]Benny. I don't know. We need him ... but I just don't know. The first three looked good but I'm not concerned with the shots and points, to be honest. Just didn't do much in the way of rebounding or creating havoc defensively. Doesn't move off the ball. Not sure here. [*]The rebound margin is brutal but I will say I think Colgate collected two airballs and three early long rebounds, which made it look a bit worse. Bell, Taylor, McLeod and Brown all got outworked/outmuscled for a board that turned into a putback. Have to be tougher there. [/LIST] All in all, great to get a W against a well-coached team with a little talent. It's something. Not sure what, but it's something. The key will be doing more to play team defense and really drilling home rotations. We absolutely have to show more sophistication in our approach on both ends of the floor. That's red's job ... we'll see how it goes. [/QUOTE]

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