I’ll be watching, but probably pausing a lot throughout to deal with kids. So, no liveblog for this game. Just feel free to comment on what you are seeing.
Not that that doesn’t have some entertainment value, but still…I’d rather be watching Pitt.
Also, why does Fields insist on shooting stepback threes from just inside halfcourt?
…not sure how that was a foul on Young…two guys going for a ball run into each other?
Whats sad is that we’re being out rebounded…
And if Nasir misses one more gimme, I may break my TV.
– they’re crashing the boards on their shots and we’re not boxing out. I think they realized the only way to stay in this game is to out work us. They’ve had 2 offensive goaltending buckets that weren’t called already.
– we’re very sloppy with the ball. On the second to last offensive series, feilds tried passing the ball to Nas who didn’t come to the ball, just stood flat footed, a defender came over his back and swatted the ball back to fields. Fields got pissed off and went playground, dribbled all over for 10 seconds before driving right down the lane and throwing up a layup while getting destroyed (not called)… The last play fields missed the entire bucket on his 3…way off, didn’t make any sense at all.
– as i said above, we’re collapsing for no reason, we have guys just hoping if they get a little closer to the lane maybe they can strip the ball, and instead are leaving their men wide open for 3…Young did this one time i remember, a few others 2. Which makes little sense, because half their points seem to be 3s.
I think we went up big, then started getting a little lazy thinking that they’re not very good, and have been getting out worked since.
I’m not sure how Young has 2 points, cause he made a wide open bucket off an inbounds, and then made a layup + 1…he has at least 4 or 5. He also missed a wide open shot or two as i recall, but he hasn’t had the ball in his hands a lot, and when he has, they’ve been trying to strip it, which has been effective in either getting turnovers or getting him to give up the ball.
Wannamaker gets burned by 3…then turns the ball over which leads to 2 more in transition…
No boxing out, offensive goaltending not called, 2 more…
Young misses wide open 3…
Woodall falls for shot fake, gets in air, and destroys his man…2 FTs…
Young gets ball stripped, but gets block on other end…
Fields gets called for chippy push…2 FTs…
Young leaves his man wide open, sagging to lane, for 3…
Nas misses easy layup, then we allow 2 offensive rebounds and a stickback cause no one is blocking out…
Thats how the end of the first half went…now i’m about 9 min behind so i’ll have to catchup…
On the other end, we gave up another offensive rebound, but they missed an easy layup….
Some kid thought he was in acting school and got called for the flop…we ran an inbounds play for Young to drain a jumper…
Dixon gets another wide open 3 and drains it…he faked the screen, the blair set screen instead, and he popped out…
Young decides to take over with his running hook…twice…he goes for the steal on the next play and tips it out of bounds…
We seem to be better on the boards so far…only 1 offensive rebound given up so far…
Biggs gets lost in transition, his man drains an open 3…
Biggs rolls towards basket but Fields and him are not on the same page, ball goes flying out of bounds…
I’m still behind…trying to catch up at commercials…
Nas picks up his dribble and we have to call a time out cause no one comes to him…
we’re up by 20 now…
Gibbs gets rebound, throws it away to them cause he gets trapped on baseline, but Woodall gets back in the play, draws offensive foul on them before they can make layup…
We piss around for a long time, Woodall has to shoot a 40 ft shot with 2 on the clock, almost banks it in…
Wannamaker leaves his man open by a mile, but he misses the most wide open shot (3) of the game.
Woodall gets rebound, tries to go “fields” on them and dribbles ball off his foot in the lane…they come back in transititon and draw a foul on a layup attempt…
they make their 2 FTS…
Fields almost turns it over feeding the post, but its batted back to him, he then sees a wide open Gibbs for 3…
They attempt to post up and shoot over Blair, doesn’t work out at all…
Fields goes “duke shot”
they miss wide open 3 cause fields playing off his man, blair throws the homerun ball to fields who tips it to Nas? for an easy layup…
They are now trying to trap in the backcourt, we get around it, and one of our guys runs over someone on way to basket…offensive foul…
They try to post Blair again, 4 shotfakes, then finally travel…
Blair misses jump shot, not sure why he took it…missed rim…
They get a layup on the other end, defensive breakdown in lane.
Fields misses a 3, blair misses a runnning hook shot (not sure why he’s shooting either of these two shots…trying to be Young?)
On the other end we don’t box out and they get tip in…not sure who’s man.
Biggs gets open for 3…drains it.
Biggs reaches in…stupid foul on block.
Biggs leaves his man for no reason, but luckily he misses a wide open 3…
Young powers his way down low, 3 guys guarding him, he goes up strong for a layup + 1….
67-42 now…
I’m more concerned with Wannamaker, and to a lesser extent Biggs, cause i’m not sure what he’s doing on defense a lot of the time.
4.5 min left and we took out Young…fields and blair have been sitting… Dixon, woodall, biggs, mcghee, wannamaker now…
Gibbs too excited trying to block a 3 from about a mile and a half away when shot clock is running out and fouls his man for 3 FTs…
Dixon anticipates pass at top of key and takes it the other way for a layup…
Wannamakers man burns him on a curl to hoop, causes mcghee to step up and foul…
Nas in for Biggs…
Gibbs gets ball stolen from him when lazily dribbling at top of key…we get dunked on…
Gibbs draws foul on jump shot…
Impressive second half and margin of victory against a decent mid-major. I’m optimistic about this team…
I should be able to comment a ton on Friday too, i think the games on FSN…if it is, i’ll be watching it.
PS. This blog has bipolar disorder…half the time i’m getting bitched at for commenting too much…
Overall, the team looks good for this early. As the younger kids get better and protect the ball better…well, things are looking up…
Wannamaker looked like a deer caught in the headlights of two oncoming cars. Biggs OK on offense, clueless on defense. Gibbs and Robinson seemed pretty good on D.
And….Gary McGhee with 2-2 free throws at the end.
Young’s ball handling is suspect yet again but his athleticism is clearly outstanding.
blair is fantastic but needs to stay out of foul trouble. same story.
dixon made a few poor decisions with the ball but other than that he looked real good. definitely a surprise. didn’t know he could stroke it like that.
fields, what can you say? the man is great with the ball and smart.
biggs looks like he’s made strides to improve his game. it was unusual to see him take the ball to the hole the way he did two or three times tonight. i like it when he’s agressive.
robinson to me looks like the most impressive youngster. missed a few easy shots but he’s gonna be good. has a good feel for the game.
wannamaker also looks like he’s improved. more confident. more assertive.
gibbs has a strange stroke but as long as it goes in. i think he has the chance to be a better version of ramon.
woodall’s handle worries me. but i like his tenacity.
mcgee also looks like he’s improved. sometimes he can still be a pushover under the boards. this shouldn’t be the case. he’s huge.
team d looks great.
You should look into upgrading to the new version of WordPress when it comes out in a week or so. It includes threaded comments, which would work really well in open threads like this.
The starting line-up looked very good. Biggs has played very well so far. Needs to pick it up on the defensive boards, but playing well with the increased responsibility. I think a line-up of Fields, Dixon, Brown, Young and Blair may be too much for most teams to handle defensively. For teams with a bigger front line the current starting line-up will be great. We are going to be tough to score against that is for sure.
Once Young really gets going offensively we are going to be very, very tough. This looks like a pretty good team so far. I am very impressed with the defense. Miami didn’t score for the first 5 minutes of the game.
