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SLU Game observations

97spiderfan

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Feb 2, 2005
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I haven't done one of these in forever because frankly, I didn't have much good to say about our on court performance, but I enjoy doing them so here goes.

Player observations:

Grace: A lot of love is going to JayNel and Burton for their game last night but our comeback started with Grace taking the ball inside and scoring on SLU interior defense. Thought this was a good half time adjustment by PT after SLU baited us into taking an absurd amount of 3's in the first half.
Nelson: Dude, welcome back. I'm sure he feels like an 800 lb gorilla is off his back. I felt all he needed was to see a couple shots to go through the hoop and that certainly happened last night. Very happy for him. One point of contention, SLU took advantage of Jaynel on defense. He couldn't stay in front of Collins and SLU was very good at getting Jaynel on a mismatch against a bigger player.
Burton: Senior leader, best player on the court, but us on his back in the 2nd half after probably one of his worst halves in the first.
Roche: Hit some big 3's have a really difficult time staying with Jimerson when he was out there though. As great as Jaynel and Roche were on offense, they were both exploited on defense. Dji/Randolph/Goose defintely were a better defensive grouping.
Dji: Well bud, you can shoot the 3 ball:) Thought Dji played well but again tentative on offense. We saw what Jaynel is capable of the offensive end last night and if he gets his back into this flow, he is going to be back in the starting line up, so again seize the opportunity in front of you. Look to score more.

Peter Thomas: He is 1-0 and that is all that matters. Some things I liked is that he definitely had a different thoughts on rotation and player personnel than Mooney. Saw Jaynel and Roche as a sub pattern and then Dji and Randolph played together a bunch. I kind of liked that. Obviously he made some nice halftime adjustments and he didn't call the classic Mooney momentum killer time out so A+ on that front.

Now the negatives, SLU killed us on the out of bounds play under the basket. We gifted them a good 6 points maybe more on that. I have no earthly idea as to why Jaynel just stood there like a statue, not guarding the inbounds nor guarding the guy who then took into the rack. Whatever, that set is, we need to do some tweaks to it and we should have used a time out to address it. Defense was not great most of the night, we made a couple big stops at the end but Yuri Collins had 17 assists, which I didn't even know was possible to get that many assists and pretty much all of them translated to some pretty easy points.

I think if you told anyone that we would shoot 37 3's, Collins would have 17 assists, Okoro would have 14 boards, and Perkins would score his career high on us, most everyone would have told you that we got run out of the gym. But we got insanely hot from 3 in the second half and played with grit and determination. It is kind of too late to make any wholesale changes, I think PT has try to bottle what he saw in the second half and hope that a bunch of our players catch fire from 3 and play with the passion that was clearly evident on the court and on the bench and see if we can ride this out for the rest of the regular season and Brooklyn. Common sense tell you that is unlikely to happen but I think that is the best avenue at our disposal right now.
 
I liked PT getting everyone solid PT and sticking with guys through mistakes. I didn't love a couple of the substitutions for guys that just hit a couple shots in a row, but I suppose I can't have my cake and eat it to. I LOVED the lack of the rally-killing timeout. I actually held my breath there for a minute when I thought it was coming.

Jaynel/Dji with their best combined game of the year.
 
of note, Grace does have a very nice backdown jump hook. but he only scored 3 two pointers (of our team 7 for the game!).

I think SLU put JNel in a spot he's unaccustomed to on the inbounds. don't normally see a PG taking the ball out there. we can't chase the cutter curling around a screen like that.

maybe he always does, but that was the 1st time I really noticed Roche really scrapping for boards. he always plays hard. Bigelow too.
 
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I liked PT getting everyone solid PT and sticking with guys through mistakes. I didn't love a couple of the substitutions for guys that just hit a couple shots in a row, but I suppose I can't have my cake and eat it to. I LOVED the lack of the rally-killing timeout. I actually held my breath there for a minute when I thought it was coming.

Jaynel/Dji with their best combined game of the year.
I noticed that too - scorers being pulled after scoring. I prefer leave them in, but we do a bunch of clock related subs. My guess is that was it. Maybe could have been looking for different matchups…who knows.
 
I noticed that too - scorers being pulled after scoring. I prefer leave them in, but we do a bunch of clock related subs. My guess is that was it. Maybe could have been looking for different matchups…who knows.
I noticed that as well but I think the subs were generally already at the table or about to be there, so I chalk that up to just some coincidental timing of the subs and PT having a pretty set plan for his subs going into the game that he adhered too.

Although, he also did let Jaynel get run in the second half when he got hot, which obviously was a smart decision. In general, there was certainly different rotational looks offered by PT than we had seen previously with CM calling the shots. We had out best win of the season, so I would have to say for 1 night, PT seemed to pull the right strings.
 
Nelson played a terrific game. Did not understand the dynamics of his last two(three) free throw attempts. Ref handed him the ball on the free throw line and as his first shot was in the air that went through the hoop the ref waved off the play. Nelson got the ball back made the shot and since that was now his official first attempt he had to shoot again which he missed. Fortunately it made no difference in the outcome, but it looked like the ref waved off the first shot because SLU was moving players around. Thought the waving off the shot should not have happened, but how do others interpret it?
 
Nelson played a terrific game. Did not understand the dynamics of his last two(three) free throw attempts. Ref handed him the ball on the free throw line and as his first shot was in the air that went through the hoop the ref waved off the play. Nelson got the ball back made the shot and since that was now his official first attempt he had to shoot again which he missed. Fortunately it made no difference in the outcome, but it looked like the ref waved off the first shot because SLU was moving players around. Thought the waving off the shot should not have happened, but how do others interpret it?
they said they had called it a 1 and 1. when they realilzed it was double bonus, they stopped it.
 
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The ball was in Nelson's hand, but he didn't shoot it until after they blew the whistle over the confusion. The whistle blew and he quickly just casually chucked it up there, probably hoping they'd count it if it went in or redo if he missed.
 
We had out best win of the season, so I would have to say for 1 night, PT seemed to pull the right strings.

Drake was our best win of the season. Drake is a much better team than SLU. Now perhaps with the comeback and circumstances of the night it was the "best" win in those regards.
 
Drake was our best win of the season. Drake is a much better team than SLU. Now perhaps with the comeback and circumstances of the night it was the "best" win in those regards.
Yes, there's the "any given day" aspect, but SLU did beat Drake 83–75 in Chaifetz.

UR and SLU are the only two teams to beat Drake by more than 4 points this season, though obviously our 30-point blowout is on a whole different level and makes no sense in relation to how this season has gone for both us and the Bulldogs lol.
 
Yes, there's the "any given day" aspect, but SLU did beat Drake 83–75 in Chaifetz.

UR and SLU are the only two teams to beat Drake by more than 4 points this season, though obviously our 30-point blowout is on a whole different level and makes no sense in relation to how this season has gone for both us and the Bulldogs lol.

Right I think we both caught Drake at the right time. It happens. Now on 9 game win streak. And SLU a bit in another direction. Drake probably still has to win the auto tho. I think 2nd in NET on whole schedule next to C of C.
 
Right I think we both caught Drake at the right time. It happens. Now on 9 game win streak. And SLU a bit in another direction. Drake probably still has to win the auto tho. I think 2nd in NET on whole schedule next to C of C.
You are correct, Drake was the better win. I think SLU win was way more impactful. If we lose that game, things could have really turned south, espicially with all the team has been through the past week. We needed that for our psyche and to realize that we can beat good teams.
 
Right I think we both caught Drake at the right time. It happens. Now on 9 game win streak. And SLU a bit in another direction. Drake probably still has to win the auto tho. I think 2nd in NET on whole schedule next to C of C.
Yeah, NET in the low 70s isn't going to cut it even if they make it through to Selection Sunday with only 7 losses, thanks to their ~#250 SOS. Mississippi State win was nice and @ Bradley to close out the regular season will be a big game, but even a win there isn't enough I don't think since they'd have to lose one more in the tourney to require an at-large.
 
You are correct, Drake was the better win. I think SLU win was way more impactful. If we lose that game, things could have really turned south, espicially with all the team has been through the past week. We needed that for our psyche and to realize that we can beat good teams.

Yes agree more impactful esp if it helps get us out of the Tuesday A10 games. Our psyche tends to matter little v VCU tho they seem to F with our psyche. Goes away quick when vcu is next game. And b4 VT4700 was run off by the mob here, I did disagree w him that we were always properly motivated prepared and mentally strong under Mooney going into these games. We clearly r not however maybe this change does something different it’s possible. Just not probable bc VCU has a way of changing our psyche regardless w a couple fast break dunks.
 
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I'll add one observation: I don't think JayNel is very good as the inbounder for our OOB plays under our scoring basket. He seems to either not see the open cutter, or is reluctant to make that pass. I'd replace him as the inbounder whenever possible. We've been spoiled by excellent inbound passers for a few years now, and he's not at that level (yet?)

I also don't think he's the right guy to guard the inbounder as our shortest defender by far. It's better to have length to inhibit passes right at the rim. Even if we are playing man-to-man. He shouldn't be the guy there.
 
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I haven't done one of these in forever because frankly, I didn't have much good to say about our on court performance, but I enjoy doing them so here goes.

Player observations:

Grace: A lot of love is going to JayNel and Burton for their game last night but our comeback started with Grace taking the ball inside and scoring on SLU interior defense. Thought this was a good half time adjustment by PT after SLU baited us into taking an absurd amount of 3's in the first half.
Nelson: Dude, welcome back. I'm sure he feels like an 800 lb gorilla is off his back. I felt all he needed was to see a couple shots to go through the hoop and that certainly happened last night. Very happy for him. One point of contention, SLU took advantage of Jaynel on defense. He couldn't stay in front of Collins and SLU was very good at getting Jaynel on a mismatch against a bigger player.
Burton: Senior leader, best player on the court, but us on his back in the 2nd half after probably one of his worst halves in the first.
Roche: Hit some big 3's have a really difficult time staying with Jimerson when he was out there though. As great as Jaynel and Roche were on offense, they were both exploited on defense. Dji/Randolph/Goose defintely were a better defensive grouping.
Dji: Well bud, you can shoot the 3 ball:) Thought Dji played well but again tentative on offense. We saw what Jaynel is capable of the offensive end last night and if he gets his back into this flow, he is going to be back in the starting line up, so again seize the opportunity in front of you. Look to score more.

Peter Thomas: He is 1-0 and that is all that matters. Some things I liked is that he definitely had a different thoughts on rotation and player personnel than Mooney. Saw Jaynel and Roche as a sub pattern and then Dji and Randolph played together a bunch. I kind of liked that. Obviously he made some nice halftime adjustments and he didn't call the classic Mooney momentum killer time out so A+ on that front.

Now the negatives, SLU killed us on the out of bounds play under the basket. We gifted them a good 6 points maybe more on that. I have no earthly idea as to why Jaynel just stood there like a statue, not guarding the inbounds nor guarding the guy who then took into the rack. Whatever, that set is, we need to do some tweaks to it and we should have used a time out to address it. Defense was not great most of the night, we made a couple big stops at the end but Yuri Collins had 17 assists, which I didn't even know was possible to get that many assists and pretty much all of them translated to some pretty easy points.

I think if you told anyone that we would shoot 37 3's, Collins would have 17 assists, Okoro would have 14 boards, and Perkins would score his career high on us, most everyone would have told you that we got run out of the gym. But we got insanely hot from 3 in the second half and played with grit and determination. It is kind of too late to make any wholesale changes, I think PT has try to bottle what he saw in the second half and hope that a bunch of our players catch fire from 3 and play with the passion that was clearly evident on the court and on the bench and see if we can ride this out for the rest of the regular season and Brooklyn. Common sense tell you that is unlikely to happen but I think that is the best avenue at our disposal right now.
Well said!
 
Very happy that the Spiders won and proud that the team did not give up after looking completely out of sync in the first half. But let’s face it, the Spiders stole a game.

I would have to rewatch the game to figure out exactly what happened in the 2nd half on defense because my in game impression was that no one could guard Yuri, Perkins, or Jimmerson and thus there were a ton of uncontested layups. Part of getting back in the game was SLU getting easy 2s and Richmond hitting 3s of course. But the biggest thing was the Spiders went to the line a bunch and continued the 80% make rate. This FT percentage is something I never expected.

The other side of getting to the line is the refereeing. As usual the refs were shaky, but for the first time ever (or at least one of very few times in the last decade), the Spiders got the home whistle. There were a number of fouls called on drives that easily could have been non-calls. I really wonder if the biggest difference in the coaching was that Coach Thomas seemed unflappable and did not complain to the refs.

On to the Richmond City showdown. Hopefully the Spiders can catch an overconfident Rams team after their blowout of St Joes. Go Spiders!
 
Very happy that the Spiders won and proud that the team did not give up after looking completely out of sync in the first half. But let’s face it, the Spiders stole a game.

I would have to rewatch the game to figure out exactly what happened in the 2nd half on defense because my in game impression was that no one could guard Yuri, Perkins, or Jimmerson and thus there were a ton of uncontested layups. Part of getting back in the game was SLU getting easy 2s and Richmond hitting 3s of course. But the biggest thing was the Spiders went to the line a bunch and continued the 80% make rate. This FT percentage is something I never expected.

The other side of getting to the line is the refereeing. As usual the refs were shaky, but for the first time ever (or at least one of very few times in the last decade), the Spiders got the home whistle. There were a number of fouls called on drives that easily could have been non-calls. I really wonder if the biggest difference in the coaching was that Coach Thomas seemed unflappable and did not complain to the refs.

On to the Richmond City showdown. Hopefully the Spiders can catch an overconfident Rams team after their blowout of St Joes. Go Spiders!
The FT% was the least surprising part of the SLU game. Richmond leads the conference in FT% during A10 play at 77%, and have shot 80%+ in more A10 games than they have shot under 80%. Their performance last night was essentially their average. They made 21/22 against Bona earlier this year.
 
This was definitely one of the weirdest UR games I have ever attended. We really had no idea how to get closer than the three-point line to take a shot of any type in the first half, and our defense kept backing up when SLU players drove down the lane to the basket. Surprised we didn't call timeout to roll out a red carpet to help them even more.

I don't even really know what happened in the second half because it seemed like they still had plenty of good shot opportunities and Perkins was destroying us. I couldn't figure out why he was out of the game at any point, but when he went out was when we went on that run to tie it up, I think.

I'm not even sure what lesson we learned last night about things to do in future games. Shoot 37 threes and hope 17 go in? Who knows. But I will take the W.
 
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Very happy that the Spiders won and proud that the team did not give up after looking completely out of sync in the first half. But let’s face it, the Spiders stole a game.

I would have to rewatch the game to figure out exactly what happened in the 2nd half on defense because my in game impression was that no one could guard Yuri, Perkins, or Jimmerson and thus there were a ton of uncontested layups. Part of getting back in the game was SLU getting easy 2s and Richmond hitting 3s of course. But the biggest thing was the Spiders went to the line a bunch and continued the 80% make rate. This FT percentage is something I never expected.

The other side of getting to the line is the refereeing. As usual the refs were shaky, but for the first time ever (or at least one of very few times in the last decade), the Spiders got the home whistle. There were a number of fouls called on drives that easily could have been non-calls. I really wonder if the biggest difference in the coaching was that Coach Thomas seemed unflappable and did not complain to the refs.

On to the Richmond City showdown. Hopefully the Spiders can catch an overconfident Rams team after their blowout of St Joes. Go Spiders!
You are right in your terminology in that we stole the game. It was good to see. Too many times we’ve been on the wrong side having had games stolen from us or us gifting other team in last few mins. Last night a few things absolutely played out in last few mins.

This was clutch since we trailed most of the game. Too many times this year we’ve trailed and had to dig out of holes, and this takes a lot of physical and mental energy. Would be nice to play even or better - ahead much of the game.
 
The FT% was the least surprising part of the SLU game. Richmond leads the conference in FT% during A10 play at 77%, and have shot 80%+ in more A10 games than they have shot under 80%. Their performance last night was essentially their average. They made 21/22 against Bona earlier this year.
I am not saying that the FT% in this particular game was surprising. I am saying that the FT% for the second part of the year is surprising and that they have been able to maintain it. I was not expecting FT% to be a strength this year.

The FT% and volume has been very good since mid-January with the exception of Dayton and LaSalle (lower volume) and LaSalle’s percentage (66.7%), which obviously was the last game before last night. Glad strong FT shooting returned because it was greatly needed.
 
Yeah, NET in the low 70s isn't going to cut it even if they make it through to Selection Sunday with only 7 losses, thanks to their ~#250 SOS. Mississippi State win was nice and @ Bradley to close out the regular season will be a big game, but even a win there isn't enough I don't think since they'd have to lose one more in the tourney to require an at-large.

They r now at 60. If win out and lose in MVC finals might be ok idk, but certainly weak schedule is doing them no favors. Bradley is actually ahead of them in NET so a win on road there would certainly help. Dayton went up 10 spots fwiw it's worth too. Pretty big jumps this late in season for blowout wins against bad teams. VCU is probably salivating to take us to the woodshed again on Friday and see their own big move.
 
That was a big jump from 71. It's insane the amount of boost you can get from throttling a bad team compared to winning narrowly over a good team. Illinois State is terrible, but Drake beat them by 31, so boom.
 
That was a big jump from 71. It's insane the amount of boost you can get from throttling a bad team compared to winning narrowly over a good team. Illinois State is terrible, but Drake beat them by 31, so boom.
Dang, we beat Drake by 30. We must be ranked!!
 
The FT% was the least surprising part of the SLU game. Richmond leads the conference in FT% during A10 play at 77%, and have shot 80%+ in more A10 games than they have shot under 80%. Their performance last night was essentially their average. They made 21/22 against Bona earlier this year.
Exactly, we started off the year with horrible FT shooting numbers. Lost several games because of it. They kids have buckled down and are now concentrating on their FT’s.
 
Dang, we beat Drake by 30. We must be ranked!!
We rose 46 spots in the NET with that win. Of course, that came from a NET of 188 and it was early in the season.

Just continually surprised at how much movement there can be this late in this season thanks to blowing out a crappy team.
 
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We rose 46 spots in the NET with that win. Of course, that came from a NET of 188 and it was early in the season.

Just continually surprised at how much movement there can be this late in this season thanks to blowing out a crappy team.
So...
Would a 30 point win tonight result in +46 to NET? 🤣
 
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You are right in your terminology in that we stole the game. It was good to see. Too many times we’ve been on the wrong side having had games stolen from us or us gifting other team in last few mins. Last night a few things absolutely played out in last few mins.

This was clutch since we trailed most of the game. Too many times this year we’ve trailed and had to dig out of holes, and this takes a lot of physical and mental energy. Would be nice to play even or better - ahead much of the game.


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Here I totally agree with you, I think this is the beginning of the white line in your team!
Because you guys are really trying, I hope you keep it up for a long time.
 
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