3/15 Tulsa game (C-USA Tournament)

[Dawg06]

You have to think that Tulsa benefited slightly from the few extra hours but I don't think that it will make much of a difference. We'll both be a little sluggish in the early going. I feel it will be close at the half but our depth will provide some separation in the 2nd. We will win by 8.

We had no depth. We essentially only had two guys coming off the bench: Kenyon and CJ. Massey is ineligible. Appleby is still hurt. Gibby and Sto haven't been part of the regular rotation. Edwards is redshirting. McCree is ineligible due to transfer rules. Is the walk-on still on the team?

[boxerdog]

I don't think we had the legs to do that. Our guys didn't have much in the tank down the stretch.

It takes about as much energy to defend in the halfcourt (and we defended). The press tends to force the opponent to rush and Tulsa didn't look as good when they got in a hurry. They hang their hat on their half-court defense--especially on the perimeter. We allowed them to play us on their terms. It's been established ad-infinitum that our offense is predicated on our pressure defense. I think we should've stayed true--even if that meant giving Sto significant minutes. By the end of the game, our best offensive option was Speedy creating his own shots. Because of playing to their strategy, we effectively eliminated a significant amount of our normal scoring options. More than just tired, we looked uncomfortable and out of sorts with OUR OWN offense down the stretch. Half of it was because they played incredible halfcourt defense, the other half is because we let them dictate the style of play.

[dawg80]

On Sportscenter they showed the "lowlights" of the game and the ESPN guy essentially said, this sums up the game: showed us missing a 3 and Tulsa hitting a layup. He then sung Danny Manning's praises, blah, blah, blah. But the video footage did sum up the game.

I posted last year we have no true half-court offense, and our interior defense, while improved still has holes in it, as Tulsa demonstrated yesterday. But, the lack of a true half-court offense has placed a glass ceiling over Coach White's team. Can NOT consistently win games at this level against good teams w/o a real offense. Period.

[HogDawg]

With that in mind, I thought we would've pressed them more. The halfcourt game played to their favor. The ONLY reason we beat TU in Ruston was because of our fullcourt press, which rattled them down the stretch! You could tell Manning was satisfied with the first half because he figured we wouldn't be able to drain that many three's in the 2nd. He was right.

I can handle losing, but we should've done it on our terms--playing OUR game! We allowed Tulsa to trick us into playing their style, and lost because of it.

BINGO!! I thought the SAME thing, boxer. I couldn't believe my eyes when we didn't full court press Tulsa late in the 2nd half. Tulsa was very patient and payed a solid half court game that REPEATEDLY gave them high percentage shots very close to the basket. As I stated earlier in this thread, Mike White got outcoached by Danny Manning in this one.

[HogDawg]

We had no depth. We essentially only had two guys coming off the bench: Kenyon and CJ. Massey is ineligible. Appleby is still hurt. Gibby and Sto haven't been part of the regular rotation. Edwards is redshirting. McCree is ineligible due to transfer rules. Is the walk-on still on the team?

.....and Talbot looked like a bull in a china shop....