+++++Murray St vs Boogs++++++
- Thread starter MomentInTheSun
- Start date
Could have started that with several names actually, but I figure it was position specific.
He and Wiley are improving big time. We need Chuma to be a little more assertive and get Purifoy some minutes. It’s hard getting him minutes in close se games, but he needs them. The shots he has took looked decent.
Murray State brought the fire today. They could not have played much better than this, numerous guys knocking down every shot beside Morant. Very impressed with how our guys took the punches and responded. This is one of our best performances of the year, imo.
We really played well considering they just wouldn't go away. Would have been very easy to lose your composure there at the end.
Murray State played lights out today. I expected them to be a 1 man show and the 1 man was a beast for sure with 25 points. Their next two leading scorers were what made this a tough W as they went for 19 and 22 points with a combined 9-14 from 3. Beating any team that has a top 10 NBA draft prospect with 2 other guys who light it up from 3 like that is very impressive.
A ton of great performances for us today. Very balanced scoring with all starters in double figures. Samir led the way with 20 on 6/7 shooting with 2 3s and 6/6 from the FT line. That's incredible efficiency. We need him to be this guy on a more regular basis.
Are there still people doubting what Austin can do for us? Double double with 17 points on 7/9 shooting with 10 boards and zero turnovers is fantastic. The only thing stopping Austin from scoring 25+ points/game right now is the fact he isn't getting more chances in the paint. I would love to see us get him 15+ shots per game in SEC play. His game will travel and insulate us from bad shooting nights. Give him 15+ shots and the other teams post guys will either be in foul trouble and/or Austin will have 25+ points.
Great game for Jared. Not a flashy performance scoring, but he had a double double with 12 points and 10 helpers against only 2 TOs. He made a dumb play at the end turning the ball over up 8 with 32 secs left, but he will learn from that. When we are at our best, Harper is racking up lots of assists with very few TOs. I would put a large sum of money on us winning any game where he has a game like this.
Chuma with a nice game as well. 17 points and kept taking good looks from 3 until they started falling towards the end, finishing 3/8 from deep. He added 5 steals, 2 assists and 2 blocks.
Finally, Bryce with a gusty performance playing sick and still able rebound off of 2 bad games in a row. 11 points on 3/8 shooting from deep. He really helped us on D as we held Morant to around his season average.
Overall, I think we took a big step in the right direction today. Murray is a good team and they played their A+ game tonight. When they win the OVC, this will be a resume builder win in March. Making the paint offense an emphasis is a great development for us given our recent cold shooting. Everything else is going work better if we can establish Austin down low early in games. 13/33 from long range today is a good result but a lot of our best looks were on kicks off drives to the paint. I think we saw the recipe today on offense for winning tough games.
A ton of great performances for us today. Very balanced scoring with all starters in double figures. Samir led the way with 20 on 6/7 shooting with 2 3s and 6/6 from the FT line. That's incredible efficiency. We need him to be this guy on a more regular basis.
Are there still people doubting what Austin can do for us? Double double with 17 points on 7/9 shooting with 10 boards and zero turnovers is fantastic. The only thing stopping Austin from scoring 25+ points/game right now is the fact he isn't getting more chances in the paint. I would love to see us get him 15+ shots per game in SEC play. His game will travel and insulate us from bad shooting nights. Give him 15+ shots and the other teams post guys will either be in foul trouble and/or Austin will have 25+ points.
Great game for Jared. Not a flashy performance scoring, but he had a double double with 12 points and 10 helpers against only 2 TOs. He made a dumb play at the end turning the ball over up 8 with 32 secs left, but he will learn from that. When we are at our best, Harper is racking up lots of assists with very few TOs. I would put a large sum of money on us winning any game where he has a game like this.
Chuma with a nice game as well. 17 points and kept taking good looks from 3 until they started falling towards the end, finishing 3/8 from deep. He added 5 steals, 2 assists and 2 blocks.
Finally, Bryce with a gusty performance playing sick and still able rebound off of 2 bad games in a row. 11 points on 3/8 shooting from deep. He really helped us on D as we held Morant to around his season average.
Overall, I think we took a big step in the right direction today. Murray is a good team and they played their A+ game tonight. When they win the OVC, this will be a resume builder win in March. Making the paint offense an emphasis is a great development for us given our recent cold shooting. Everything else is going work better if we can establish Austin down low early in games. 13/33 from long range today is a good result but a lot of our best looks were on kicks off drives to the paint. I think we saw the recipe today on offense for winning tough games.
Agreed. It is very tough to keep playing solid when you face a team that is knocking down every outside shot and has a wizard scoring in the lane. We took Murray's best shot and then ground them down the stretch. I feel really good about this W.
DR with a 17-5-5 stat line and Samir with 20? Motherfvcking BOOG'n
Samir and J’Von are growing on me. Reminds me of Malik last year after he got more comfortable with his role. And really glad to see that Samir’s Hawaiian egg was not indicative of his game.
That’s the Samir I’ve been waiting on. Saw flashes but he put it all there tonight. Chuma was what he needs to be. McCormick is gonna be a big part of our season. Almost all the role guys were doing a job tonight. Wiley was studly and we’re showing we can play through the post. Huge for the team.
#1 and #2 still weren’t quite on. Better, but not what they can be. Especially Brown. Harper’s late turnover trying to do too much when resetting the offense and burning clock was the obvious move irked me. He needs to be better than that
#1 and #2 still weren’t quite on. Better, but not what they can be. Especially Brown. Harper’s late turnover trying to do too much when resetting the offense and burning clock was the obvious move irked me. He needs to be better than that
That TO by Harper late was really bad. Aside from that though, 12 points 10 assists and 2 turnovers is pretty damn good. When we struggle on offense, Harper is turning the ball over and not racking up assists. Obviously he is a great scorer, but give him a 10-2 assist/TO game and we are going to win 95% of the time.
Agreed on Javon. He is really coming on. Adjusting to the level of competition and learning our system must be making a big difference for him.
He was good. Just not as good as he can be. 4-11 isn’t what he can do. I’m fine with only 11 shots if he’s dishing out 10 assists. That’s great. Just need him to hit slightly better %. And he also was the main culprit getting caught sleeping on those corner 3’s they kept getting off bad, lazy defense. Some of them after made FTs.
All that said, tons better than last game. Brown was better too but still not close to what we need from him.
Agreed on Brown. He’s a spot up shooter and when he tries to be more than that he puts our offense in a bad spot. We have 4 guys that can create off the dribble with consistency..... Harper, McCormick, Doughty and Chuma. No one else should be trying to create off the dribble in a half court set.
Brown can create off the dribble when he is on his game. He did so very effectively against Dayton. The problem seems to be when he tries to make it a highlight reel move as opposed to a shot fake or taking a pass cutting when he has an open lane to drive. I think you make a good point about how many other weapons we have who can attack the basket thought. Brown can be more valuable most of the time if he is on the perimeter getting open and waiting for a kick to get him a wide open look.
Agree on his efficiency today. I think 1-2 of those misses were fairly obvious fouls though. Put him at the line 2 more times and he's 4/9 with 15-16 points with 10 assists and 2 TOs and suddenly his line is really stellar.
IMO we should be sending him off more screens and action trying to get him catch and shoot opportunities. He can’t just stand in the corner every possession
I think Bruce wants to make sure we don't get too far away from our style. Austin is a great security blanket, and the more teams are successful in slowing us down the more touches he should get. Austin will basically score at will against teams without great post defenders (like today and even against some teams like NC State), but we will see more of those once we get into SEC play. The reason everyone has gotten away from the traditional bigs and throwing the ball inside as much as possible is that statistically it isn't a great shot when you have a capable defender on the other side. I don't think Bruce can get too far away from who we are, because Austin scoring 25+ isn't going to be enough if the rest of the offense goes cold.
Our biggest issue is our 3 pt shooting away from home. If Austin can give us 25+ points on the road in the SEC on 70%+ shooting, that's something we need to utilize. Our defense is legit and Austin can lead us to tough road wins. I realize our fast 3 point shooting style is our signature, but I think Bruce will realize its not our best chance to win away from the friendly confines of the Clam or in the tournament. Our 3 point shooting will benefit from the post game as it did today, imo. We got a lot of good looks on kicks with Murray crashing into the paint.
See I don't necessarily think Bruce wants us to shoot threes. I think he wants ball movement and taking good shots, but with some tempo. Sometimes those are three's, sometimes it's a alleyoop when the defense over extends. When there isn't an opportunity to score in transition, someone has to create and then move the ball around. I think we have actually forced too many bad three's in the last few games where we were maybe one more pass from a wide open good look. I do think we could win more games like that NC State game when the shooting is cold with Austin getting more shots, but I don't think we would reach our potential with that offense. Just my opinion.
We don’t run a lot of off the ball screens from what I recall, but we run the hell out of on the ball screens. He doesn’t have to just stand in the corner, he can also stand on the wing or at the top of the key. He doesn’t need the ball in his hands trying to create. That’s my point.
I think it’s nice we can beat you 2 ways. It’s not just Wiley either, Chuma made some post plays and backed guys down with success.m too. Hell even Horace scored off the block once. What I like about most of our post game is it’s quick. Austin is better when the move happens fast. That’s in the flow of our style IMO. It doesn’t work when the ball freezes for too long.
I agree with you on the creating thing. That’s not his game. He’s the guy you want getting the open looks others create.
I love the off ball movement with a great spot shooter but that doesn’t seem to be our thing. I would like to see us change it up if teams are face-guarding him and have him set screens for Harper instead of it always being the 1-5 pick n roll.
I guess my thought is we need to have different versions of our offense depending on the situation and whats working. Running and scoring fast in transition is great when its working. Teams know that's what we want to do though and better teams will find ways to slow us down. At home, we typically shoot so well that it doesn't matter because we are damn near impossible to stop when hitting 3s at a high rate. On the road though, Austin gives us the possibility to run a different offense that has a higher likelihood to win games. When we are trying to go fast and playing poorly, you end up with the performance against NC State with a zillion turnovers and 6 points 10 minutes into the game.
Things I learned today that I think this team needs to do to improve:
- Wiley has to be a focal point in the offense. Really the interior pass in general needs to be a focal point. Until defenses adjust to take Wiley out of the game, we need to keep destroying them inside. And when defenses adjust, Wiley need to be able to make some passes to open shooters.
- Bryce needs more designed plays to get him catch-and-shoot opportunities, and he needs to stop dribbling the ball. If he doesn’t have an angle with his first dribble or can’t get his guy off the ground with a pump fake and dribble around him, Bryce needs to pass it back to the top. He’s not a shake down ball handler and needs to stop trying to prove he is. We need to work him into the gameplan with some designed shot plays and he needs to look for the kickouts. That’s his game. Nothing more, nothing less. He can be an elite guard for us if he plays his game.
- I think Mac is better coming off the bench. Like Ho Daddy, I think Mac’s energy and work rate are what have set him apart from others in the past. Plus he’s more polished offensively than Ho. Just gotta get that effort out of him every time he steps on the floor. That’s what he brought last year, and we haven’t seen that a bunch this year.
- Samir needs to be that guy more often. Him hitting a couple 3s helped make his shot fake really effective and that allowed him to get into the paint, where I think he saw most effective.
- Maybe I’m wrong, but Purifoy isn’t close. We saw some flashes from Wiley even when he looked really rusty early in the season. He looks really good now. IMO we haven’t seen anything like that from Purifoy. I realize his minutes have been limited because of the games he’s been back for, but even in those limited minutes, he’s done almost nothing good or noteworthy (he had the and-1 against UAB) on either end, and he’s had some noteable mishaps on defense. I’d really like to see him get a lot of time next Saturday, and I hope Bruce can find four guys to put around him that will give him the best chance to get acclimated.
- Bruce needs to shelve the slow down, run-out-the-clock offense late in games. It’s our biggest weakness as a team. It takes us out of our rhythm and flow. And most times it gives up the momentum we have.
Overall, I thought today was a good performance. Morant caused us some problems by getting into the lane, and multiple times in the scramble for loose balls or rebounds our defense got out of sorts and led to some second chance points for them. And several times they roasted us in transition. But we shot 8-17 from 3 in the second half, Wiley was dominant and we were more focused on feeding him the ball, and we got contributions from everyone. Good win. Now, one more tune up before SEC play.
- Wiley has to be a focal point in the offense. Really the interior pass in general needs to be a focal point. Until defenses adjust to take Wiley out of the game, we need to keep destroying them inside. And when defenses adjust, Wiley need to be able to make some passes to open shooters.
- Bryce needs more designed plays to get him catch-and-shoot opportunities, and he needs to stop dribbling the ball. If he doesn’t have an angle with his first dribble or can’t get his guy off the ground with a pump fake and dribble around him, Bryce needs to pass it back to the top. He’s not a shake down ball handler and needs to stop trying to prove he is. We need to work him into the gameplan with some designed shot plays and he needs to look for the kickouts. That’s his game. Nothing more, nothing less. He can be an elite guard for us if he plays his game.
- I think Mac is better coming off the bench. Like Ho Daddy, I think Mac’s energy and work rate are what have set him apart from others in the past. Plus he’s more polished offensively than Ho. Just gotta get that effort out of him every time he steps on the floor. That’s what he brought last year, and we haven’t seen that a bunch this year.
- Samir needs to be that guy more often. Him hitting a couple 3s helped make his shot fake really effective and that allowed him to get into the paint, where I think he saw most effective.
- Maybe I’m wrong, but Purifoy isn’t close. We saw some flashes from Wiley even when he looked really rusty early in the season. He looks really good now. IMO we haven’t seen anything like that from Purifoy. I realize his minutes have been limited because of the games he’s been back for, but even in those limited minutes, he’s done almost nothing good or noteworthy (he had the and-1 against UAB) on either end, and he’s had some noteable mishaps on defense. I’d really like to see him get a lot of time next Saturday, and I hope Bruce can find four guys to put around him that will give him the best chance to get acclimated.
- Bruce needs to shelve the slow down, run-out-the-clock offense late in games. It’s our biggest weakness as a team. It takes us out of our rhythm and flow. And most times it gives up the momentum we have.
Overall, I thought today was a good performance. Morant caused us some problems by getting into the lane, and multiple times in the scramble for loose balls or rebounds our defense got out of sorts and led to some second chance points for them. And several times they roasted us in transition. But we shot 8-17 from 3 in the second half, Wiley was dominant and we were more focused on feeding him the ball, and we got contributions from everyone. Good win. Now, one more tune up before SEC play.
