We laid an egg again in a winnable game…
Lack of defense, offensive lapses, and not exploiting mismatches like they did. Kuhse “runs” their offense while we seem to not have a game plan that gets used on the floor…
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Sad thing is SCU is more talented than SMC.
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Because we have Herb!!!
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We played without focus and Vrankic is out of shape
Played like we’re not coached!!!
Iiknow the answer We should have hir
Guys played hard. Great to see Pipes shooting well again
Not a tough loss. Just another loss.
Enough to lose the game!
I didn’t see Jacob Holt in at all. Surprised since he did well against the zags
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With Bediako back, Holt’s (and Tongue’s) minutes will likely be more limited. Exception may be if/when one of Vrankic/Braun/Bediako gets in foul trouble. Also, Justice is spending some time at the 4, did so last night for several minutes even with Bediako back in the mix.
Frustrating loss, missed opportunity to challenge for the top 3 or 4 in league. As many of us here have noted, this is simply not an overly talented SMC team.
We could/can beat them by a dozen if we simply play a ‘cleaner’ game which you must do vs. SMC because they are going to play hard and smart and generally not kill themselves. Way too many turnovers (many unforced) especially in a slower, low possession game against a team that doesn’t pressure, trap, etc. Way too many missed layups. And seemed we were deficient in winning 50/50 balls both in rebounding and deflection/loose ball situations. Several small things add up to something big and you end up with the 8pt loss we saw.
And offensively…we weren’t terrible by any means but a few too many possessions of Vrankic trying to pound, pound, pound the ball inside while the 4 others stand around the perimeter watching…just kills player and ball movement. And counting on Vrankic to out muscle Tass or even Bowen is fools gold…will be successful here and there but bigger picture slows down and degrades your offense…last season was evidence of that. There is plenty of offensive weapons and firepower in the rotation, we simply don’t need to and shouldn’t play through Vrankic unless he has an overwhelming and clear matchup advantage which may only occur vs. someone like Portland. He will still get his touches and scoring opportunities, just do it within the flow of the offense.
Silver linings from last night: Good to see Pipes get untracked with his shooting, will need that from him to beat the likes of BYU/USF/SMC. And nice to have Bediako back, he looked rusty (missed layups) but he seemed to be moving well, blocked a few shots and did a solid job defending Tass.
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You nailed it, 92.: careless mistakes. We were evenly matched on rebounds (we actually had one more than they did), and made the same number of shots from the field. Two notable differences: they made 3 more 3-pointers than we did, and we had 5 more turnovers than the Gaels. Those 3 extra points on the same number of FGs, plus the 5 extra turnovers, pretty much accounts for the 8 point difference in the final score.
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The frustrating part for me is that this is a talented SCU squad, loaded with D1 experience and veteran leadership. We’ve got to realize that this is the high point for Sendek. For me it’s just not nearly high enough.
Fair point bettererer…the time is now, you can’t constantly be in 'wait ‘til next year’ mode.
-Vrankic and Pipes are out of eligibility,
-who knows if Justice will take advantage of the ‘free’ 2020/21 season and return to SCU for a 5th…he could grad transfer and look to do what Tahj did and find a P5 team with a hole to fill at his position and a strong chance to make the NCAA tourney or he may simply want to move on and head overseas for a pro career (don’t see him as an NBA guy).
-And Jalen…he’s getting a lot of hype…I think better than 50/50 he returns but possible he looks to either turn pro or transfer to a high-major.
And while the frosh look solid there’s still a lot of development needed with that bunch and Stewart looks like the only strong bet to become a 1st team All-WCC caliber player. If Justice and Jalen don’t return we would need a good haul of transfers (both quality and quantity) to have a competitive, 20+ win season in 2021/22.
Everyone prob knows this but no game today, regularly scheduled off or ‘bye’ day. But we do have the rescheduled USD game on Monday…I’ll get a game thread going later this weekend.