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Message: [QUOTE="SWC75, post: 1301247, member: 289"] - Again we made a valiant effort against a team that right now is just a bit better than we are but fell short. You record consists of wins and losses, not valiant efforts. - The sad thing is that there was a chance to pull this upset off. We had too many empty trips at critical times and missed too many free throws, (we were 6 for 13, including an agonizing 0 for 2 by Tyler Roberson with 2:27 left that was followed immediately by an Okafor dunk to make it 62-70 when it could have been 64-68. Every point counted and we didn’t get them when we needed them. - Usually when a shooter makes his first shot, it’s a sign that he’s going to be “on” tonight and will have a big game. Trevor Cooney has developed a habit of hitting his first shot and then having a long cold stretch. In this game he made his first three shots, including two threes in the first 9 minutes to give us an 18-12 lead. Then he missed an agonizing ten shots in a row before making three with 22 seconds left when we were down 9 and the game had been decided. There were several off-balance attempts and one where he just seemed to push the ball toward the basket rather than shooting it. The couple of times he got “good looks” he still missed. By the late stages of the game he was shaking his head. A ply where he tied up the ball standing on the end line seemed to summarize the night for Trevor and the team. - Besides the team victory, the thing we most wanted was to Rakeem Christmas to outplay or at least hold his own against Jahlil Okafor. I had hoped Rak’s quickness and experience would help him school the younger player. School’s out. Oakfor shot 10 for 15 from the field and scored 23 points while grabbing 13 boards. Rak did a great job of putting the ball on the front rim, only to see it fall away, missing 12 of 17 shots, scoring 11 points and getting only 6 rebounds. Instead of the rest of the country marveling at how good that Rakeem Christmas is and why didn’t they have him on the Wooden award list, their saying that he got exposed against a superior player. And he did. Okafor had help to be sure but he and Plumlee did a good job forcing Rak away from the basket so he had the release the ball from father out. In past games when opponents had done that Rak started positioning himself to the side of the basket and worked the baseline but he didn’t tonight. What he saw tonight is what he’ll see every night in the NBA. He did hit one jump shot from about 15 feet. He’ll need that shot to stick at the next level because he’s simply not big enough to be an NBA center, (as Okafor is). - Kaleb Joseph is a dead-eye from 15 feet but he has no business putting it up from 20. We’ve debated this on the board before but this is surely one guy who, even when he has an open three, (and he’ll get them), needs to drive in and pull-up to score. - The no-call on Cooney was bad but equally frustrating was the two times Okafor, after committing 4 fouls, could have been called for a foul but it went to a teammate instead. - We’ve proven we can compete with anybody but we still haven’t beaten anybody good. And that’s all we’re going to play the rest of the way. [/QUOTE]

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