We always talk about defense im concerned about an offense that is so easily rattled. 55 in the first half and 24 in the second. The Broncos are becoming notorious for these extended scoring draughts. Tonight 8 minutes almost a quarter of the game. I l don’t want to hear about 3 pt attempts either with the amount of lazy passing and blocked two pr fg’s. The reputation of being a fouling team precedes them as I thought many of these foul calls were abstracted and mysterious. The fact is they made adjustments and the Broncos didn’t and I am unclear why Herb can’t coach these problems away.
I saw a video of walkthrough practice and I thought to myself that it looked too casual. The practices may be too lax which is why intensity bothers this team so much. You will always practice how you play. Giving up a 19 pt lead is unforgivable. The Broncos got away from what they do well and I am disappointed that the game scripts against quality teams continues to replicate.
Kourtside- No reason to apologize for the rambling….all valid and fair points.
We were terrible at both ends of the floor in the 2nd half. Three out of last 4 halfs were really bad. Hopefully leads to some soul searching by both coaches and players.
The Sendek curse….Win 20 games each year, but don’t win the most important and winnable games like tonight… Not including The Zags or St.Marys in these important games… May be the underlying reason why Sendek was moved from NC State, and ASU…Couldn’t beat North Carolina or Duke or Arizona and UCLA. Those leagues get 4-5 NCAA spots - the WCC get’s two…..pretty sad…..
Our energy was so low in the second half. We didn’t match ASUs energy or their coach. What I didn’t understand is as our 19pt lead melted away with Bukky on the bench why we didn’t bring in Darlan to at least try and provide a spark when we were 0-14 and missing everything. He comes in with 2min left when Graves fouls out. We have to unlock Darlans potential and sitting on the bench won’t help especially when the rest of the team was nose diving in the 2nd half.
Knapper didn’t give the Broncos anything tonight, and Graves wasn’t much better. Conversely, Sash played better tonight and loved his drive to the hoop and left hand reversal. I’m hoping we see Normand soon.
Tonight was such a big spot to turn the narrative. It can disappointing to here basketball pundits not acknowledge the growth of maturation of the program and even the potential but I can’t blame them when we show up like this in all our televised games. If you listened to the tv boradcast over the last two games it felt as if the analysts were all but rooting for the opponent. So much so that it felt like the narrative of the coach getting kicked out and the 19pt rally made the story and sealed the fate if we weren’t going to help ourselves and play quality ball. I mean I recognize that we foul more than many teams but the second half referee foul calls were atrocious and disruptive to any kind of defense. It was as if the refs bent towards the sympathy of the big 12 coach. At a certain point it feels as if they are reffing to anticipate a broncos team thats fouls.
You would think playing st marys and gonzaga would elevate us for other conferences but it hasn’t seem to have positively affected us.
He didn’t play a terrific game by any means but he did more than Knapper tonight who didn’t do jack squat. I expect more from a 5th year senior vs a redshirt freshman.
Sash had 12 points on 14 shots, but that’s not why we lost. IMHO it’s all those cheap fouls and horrible lapses in transition defense. There was improvement from that disaster at New Mexico, but still plenty of work to do.
I’m not calling you out but I think we all need to admit that Darlan is just an okay basketball player. He’s an above average on the ball defender who fouls too much but is severely limited offensively. There’s a reason he’s on the bench, there’s a reason he ended up at SCU and not a Power 5 school. And that reason is there’s nothing to unlock, he’s just as okay college basketball player
Not sure I completely agree with this take on Darlan. He is certainly rough around the edges but there is potential there. You can’t teach the 7-2 or 7-4 wingspan (whatever it is) and he’s a decent athlete.
Given his background and what we see of him to date, it appears he lacked good coaching and development in his early years, pre-16 or whenever he went to the NBA academy. That shows in some bad habits and lack of discipline with the slapping, reaching, hand checking on defense. He’s a solid rebounder, good shot blocker for a wing, and could be a very good defender if he can just be more disciplined and avoid the silly unnecessary fouls.
Offensively, his 3pt looks decent, no obvious flaws, just needs to keep working on it to become more consistent. He’s also a decent ball handler for a guy with his length and passes and moves the ball well.
But we have to take more advantage of his skill set. For example, there was a possession in the 1st half last night where he had a smaller guy on him, Darlan posted up, we got him the ball, he spun to the rim, help D came over and he made a good pass to the weak side…..another pass or two led to an open look (forgot who). Not saying we should turn him in to a post player but with his extreme length he’s often going to have a size/length advantage making it easy for him get his own shot around the rim or pass over the top of D when defensive helps comes or he doesn’t have a shot. Finally, his PT has been spotty; it’s hard for most players to get in any sort of rhythm when their PT is so inconsistent and limited.
92B, I kinda agree with Lucas on Darlan. Decent this and decent that. So what. I love the looks of his 3 point stroke, but if defenders take that away - what’s he got?I hope he puts in some hard work this summer to clean things up and add some weapons. Lotsa potential.
This is exactly what I was saying. Work the ball to get him into mismatches near the low block or mid-key and let him iso. If the defense collapses he can kick the ball out to someone on the perimeter with hopefully an uncontested shot.
ASU played UCLA last night in LA, falling 90-77. Looks like the Sun Devils played decently against Bruins (undefeated at home, 8-3 overall), but could never quite close the gap to less than 6 points in the second half. Odum was limited to just 10 points on 3-12 shooting (including 0-7 from 3pt line). Sun Devils were exceptional at the FT line, shooting 25-26. The game was likely lost from 3: ASU was 4-26 (15%); UCLA was 14-26 (54%).