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Message: [QUOTE="pfister1, post: 159852, member: 285"] This game was lost on offense not defense. Yes not having Melo impacted our defense, but we knew that going into the game. We had glimpses of how the defense would look in the stints where Melo got into foul trouble in earlier games and our opponent was able to get the ball inside and get good shots at the basket almost at will. So it shouldn't be a surprise that we gave up some relatively easy points on the interior. That won't change, if at all, for a few games. JB needs to retool the defense a bit to adjust to having very little presence in the middle and I am not sure that can be done effectively on one day notice. Hell if Melo's coming back he may not really do it with vigor. What disappointed me most yesterday was how bad the offense looked. Notre Dame has never been known for its strong defense, yet they made us look like we had lost our top two offensive players rather than our 6 point per game center and 11th man who doesn't play the way we played on offense. When we debate whether we have go to guys or not, this game is exhibit 1 for the argument that we do not. We needed someone to pick up their offensive game to counter punch N.D.s initial body blows and make a statement to the rest of the team that the loss of Melo would not impair us...... and sadly noone was able to do that. The guys that needed to do this were really KJo, Triche or Waiters and none of them could. Waiters 4 for 14? Nice boost going into the half, but that was the only point he really looked like the potential 1st round pick we've all been trying to make him out to be. KJo...well...just really disappointed in what he gave us yesterday 4 for 12 and 5 boards?? Is that all you've got against a weak Notre Dame?? Triche 2 for 6?? He could only get 6 shots yesterday? Yesterday was a game that was crying out for him to take charge offensively....but he didn't even seem to try to do this. Scoop? 0-5. He was only credited with 2 TOs, but he had a couple of passes in the first half to interior players (one to CJ comes to mind) that were thrown at their ankles and the receiving player couldn't do anything with the ball as a result. Don't know if they ended up being statistical TOs, but they were the equivalent of TOs. I would have liked to have seen him hit a few shots, but I am almost ok with his 0-5. In past seasons in a situation like this Scoop would have tried to shoulder the offense and his line might have looked more like 2-14...so maybe its progress that that didn't happen, unfortunately deferring to others didn't lead to others getting the job done. Just really disappointed in how this team responded (or didn't respond) to the challenge yesterday. [/QUOTE]

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