sutomcat
No recent Cali or Iggy awards; Mr Irrelevant
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- Aug 15, 2011
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I sat in court side seats thanks to the generosity of cto. Much thanks for letting me be 'big shot for a day'. It is always great to watch SU play, but being in those seats for this game made a special day even better. It more than offset that time I had the seats for the BC game a few years ago where we started the season with a really long winning streak until Nike ruined everything by forcing us to wear mismatched factory seconds to play the lowly Eagles. But I digress...
Just general observations, in no particular order:
The student section barely filled the lower section at tipoff. It got better, to the point where more than half of the upper deck allocated to them was also filled, but this was another really poor turnout by what is clearly the worst student section since at least 1970. Otto's Army has apparently been disbanded. The lame court storming, where at least one security guy was almost badly injured by idiot students, was a bit of an embarrassment. Sad.
Bacon and Issac are two of the most physically gifted visiting players to play at the Dome in years. Wow.
Every break in play, the SU players will huddle up and discuss things. Was curious who the alpha dog is in those meetings. It is TL, and it isn't even close. Very passionate, took players to task at times but was very positive and was clearly trying to get his teammates to play with passion.
Speaking of passion, JB has been criticized for lacking passion coaching on the bench this season,something I think has been a legit criticism. But not today. He was full of fire and energy today. Looked like he too was trying to get this stoic group to play with passion. Particularly the PGs. Thought today was one of his finest hours as a HC.
Props to all the slashers on the SU team for their success getting into the paint. Sometimes they finished, a lot of times they draw defenders inside and kicked it outside for good open looks.
Thought we got killed inside while Thompson was in. He just doesn't have a clue on defense. Issac just abused him repeatedly. We caught a break when TT got in foul trouble; when TL moved to C and TR came in to play on the baseline, our defense and rebounding got dramatically better.
JB tried again to rehabilitate FH and Frank actually looked pretty good during his play in the first half. Only had 1 or 2 bad turnovers. Second half was not good though.
With FH unsteady, thank God JG was on. The second half, FSU tightened up their defense and took SU out of its offense. Possession after possession For SU ended with JG with the ball, out near half court, SU trying to set double high screens to allow JG to penetrateand try to make something happen with less than 10 seconds on the clock. Most of the time, he did.
AW3 largely carried the team for most of the first half, and even when his scoring slowed some in the second half, he continued to contribute with his rebounding and defense. Drawing a lot of fouls and continues to drain FTs in impressive fashion. This was his best game as an Orangeman.
Thought TB was tremendous on defense, especially in the first half. His emergence as an all conference level defender has been a key in turning around the defense on this team. Drove well too. Good to see him passing the ball better as the season continues. He is playing like a senior as a true fresh. Pretty impressive stuff.
It was the best of times. It was the worst of times. It was TR rolling up 10 points in the first half, but he got a couple of shots blocked by the uber big and athletic Seminoles, and kind of checked out on offense after that. His defense and rebounding were good, but I thought a couple great defensive plays he made were called fouls.
That leaves TL, who as is his wont, started slowly. Don't think he scored in the first 10 minutes of the game. Weird; seemed to either make every shot he took or missed everything instead, was a force on the boards at both ends of the court and made a number of huge defensive plays too. FSU mostly covered him with Issac, who did a pretty good job on him, but TL hit a bunch of big shots (and FTs too).
Great win. Great effort. Thought the crowd was very loud and supportive too; even the students. Thrilled we can still dream of playing in the Big Dance for a bit longer. War Damn Otto baby!
Just general observations, in no particular order:
The student section barely filled the lower section at tipoff. It got better, to the point where more than half of the upper deck allocated to them was also filled, but this was another really poor turnout by what is clearly the worst student section since at least 1970. Otto's Army has apparently been disbanded. The lame court storming, where at least one security guy was almost badly injured by idiot students, was a bit of an embarrassment. Sad.
Bacon and Issac are two of the most physically gifted visiting players to play at the Dome in years. Wow.
Every break in play, the SU players will huddle up and discuss things. Was curious who the alpha dog is in those meetings. It is TL, and it isn't even close. Very passionate, took players to task at times but was very positive and was clearly trying to get his teammates to play with passion.
Speaking of passion, JB has been criticized for lacking passion coaching on the bench this season,something I think has been a legit criticism. But not today. He was full of fire and energy today. Looked like he too was trying to get this stoic group to play with passion. Particularly the PGs. Thought today was one of his finest hours as a HC.
Props to all the slashers on the SU team for their success getting into the paint. Sometimes they finished, a lot of times they draw defenders inside and kicked it outside for good open looks.
Thought we got killed inside while Thompson was in. He just doesn't have a clue on defense. Issac just abused him repeatedly. We caught a break when TT got in foul trouble; when TL moved to C and TR came in to play on the baseline, our defense and rebounding got dramatically better.
JB tried again to rehabilitate FH and Frank actually looked pretty good during his play in the first half. Only had 1 or 2 bad turnovers. Second half was not good though.
With FH unsteady, thank God JG was on. The second half, FSU tightened up their defense and took SU out of its offense. Possession after possession For SU ended with JG with the ball, out near half court, SU trying to set double high screens to allow JG to penetrateand try to make something happen with less than 10 seconds on the clock. Most of the time, he did.
AW3 largely carried the team for most of the first half, and even when his scoring slowed some in the second half, he continued to contribute with his rebounding and defense. Drawing a lot of fouls and continues to drain FTs in impressive fashion. This was his best game as an Orangeman.
Thought TB was tremendous on defense, especially in the first half. His emergence as an all conference level defender has been a key in turning around the defense on this team. Drove well too. Good to see him passing the ball better as the season continues. He is playing like a senior as a true fresh. Pretty impressive stuff.
It was the best of times. It was the worst of times. It was TR rolling up 10 points in the first half, but he got a couple of shots blocked by the uber big and athletic Seminoles, and kind of checked out on offense after that. His defense and rebounding were good, but I thought a couple great defensive plays he made were called fouls.
That leaves TL, who as is his wont, started slowly. Don't think he scored in the first 10 minutes of the game. Weird; seemed to either make every shot he took or missed everything instead, was a force on the boards at both ends of the court and made a number of huge defensive plays too. FSU mostly covered him with Issac, who did a pretty good job on him, but TL hit a bunch of big shots (and FTs too).
Great win. Great effort. Thought the crowd was very loud and supportive too; even the students. Thrilled we can still dream of playing in the Big Dance for a bit longer. War Damn Otto baby!
