Credit to the books makers in Vegas who knew that Idaho State was better than they were given credit for and that, without Knapper, SCU might show some chinks in the armor.
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The difference from previous years is the taller frontcourt guys are rotating and are defending (and often blocking) shots.
This just might be the best defense weāve seen during the HS era. No one has yet exceeded Troy Payne individually (yet), but collectively this team is playing strong defensively.
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Without BK and his speed and threat to drive everything slowed down. In the previous game he also lit the fire by nailing two threes at the beginning. I am not sure if it is statistically accurate, but when we start the game with several misses it seems to affect the confidence of all players for the remainder of the game. I think only psychology can explain a shooting performance like ours last night. . It was not Idahoās defense. So glad our D bailed us out. These guys do not give up.
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Whelp, glad I missed this one and glad we got the W.
We jinxed it by discussing margin of victory.
I donāt know much, but we absolutely cannot lose to any RPI 200+ teams if we have any pretensions about an at-large bid. Must beat UL, Utah Tech, Portland and Pepperdine. Winning all the games you should is the difference between good and great mid-major teams. Santa Clara has always managed to throw in some sort of clunker lossā¦
Loyola Chicago appears to be at least so far, worse than expected.
There are no other battleship-sinkers on their own on the schedule, I donāt think. And tons of chances to improve the resume all across the rest of the year. Single digit losses is the new 20+ wins. There remains lots to like about this squad.
For a mid-major without a year-in, year-out tourney resume, Iād argue more than 6 losses is likely to result in being on the outside looking in. Weāve seen it before, especially when teams with middling or poor records end up winning their conference tournaments.
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