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Message: [QUOTE="malpearl31, post: 4515163, member: 6520"] Just re-watched the first half to see if Bell was as bad as you said, and Bell’s +/- was 3rd-worst in the first half. Jesse, Benny and Bell were each -9 over the first 7 minutes before JB subbed them all out with L’ville leading 19-10. The replacement trio of Hima, Maliq and Taylor was then +14 over the next 8 minutes - with solid contributions from Taylor and Hima, for sure - and Joe and Judah both got hot at the same time (Joe’s driving layup in traffic and Judah’s prayer off the wrong foot over a defender were both fairly low-percentage shots, but we’ll take ’em). Benny checked back in first, and immediately gave up an offensive rebound on a free throw that led to a Louisville 3 from Ellis. Jesse came back in next (SU led 29-27), and then both Benny and Jesse checked back out with just over a minute to play after Jesse picked up his 2nd foul with SU leading (32-31). Bol replaced Benny this time and immediately found Joe on a set back door play to push the lead to 34-31. (Nice call by JB, btw.) Then we closed out the half with Judah inexplicably turning the ball over at half court (leading to a fast break layup) and Bol fumbling a pass with under 10 seconds to play leading to Louisville’s jumper at the first half buzzer. So the starting forwards/center ended up with Benny at -13 for the first half, Jesse was -10, and Bell ended up -9. For the bench, Taylor was +8 for the half, Hima was +9, Maliq was +14 and Bol was -2. So in summary, it wasn’t a great 1st half for Bell - but it was worse for Benny and Jesse if you want to go by the +/- numbers. Taylor was definitely the better option in the first half. But in the 2nd half - as I argued in an earlier post in this thread - Bell was pretty good, and I just don’t think he’s worthy of a lot of blame for our struggles (at least not tonight, anyway). [/QUOTE]

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