Men vs Xavier

[mustache eagle 2,397]

Pearl was effusive with his praise about BB defensively in post game interview w rod.

was a little critical of Spencer except for OT

i was surprised about the lack of offensive input by our bigs

cbp was positive about macs second half.

i didn’t see the game and I’m having a hard time squaring the stats, what I’ve read here, other places and what I heard.  It all seems all over the board.

growth after a win ... xavier may look really good late season

[cole256 17,043]

7 hours ago, bigbird said:

Didn't we have a conversation earlier about not having someone that can drive and create their own shot off the dribble?  IMO, BB = Danny Green. Good defender, good shooter, poor driver, and poor rim finisher.

Our off ball movement and cuts need to be much crisper and we need to be able to finish at the rim much better. JMO

We absolutely did, so I wasn't surprised at all that it played out the way it did at the end of the game. He should be able to use the pump fake to get some shots off but I don't know how good of a shooter he is off the dribble. 

You know what I just thought about? Danny Green didn't play like that in college, he transformed his game to stay in the league, I wonder if Brown can do the same. 

[PowerOfDixieland 3,226]

10 hours ago, cole256 said:

Case and point

When to Use Case in Point                                 

What does case in point mean? Case in point is an idiom that means an example that supports one’s argument. Merriam-Webster first recorded its use 1647, and it has been a popular expression ever since.

[bigbird 60,500]

1 hour ago, cole256 said:

We absolutely did, so I wasn't surprised at all that it played out the way it did at the end of the game. He should be able to use the pump fake to get some shots off but I don't know how good of a shooter he is off the dribble. 

You know what I just thought about? Danny Green didn't play like that in college, he transformed his game to stay in the league, I wonder if Brown can do the same. 

Our decision making seemed slow yesterday too. We were late on entry passes to the post, we were slow with our ball reversals, and we hesitated on kicking out once the double came.  To me, that is what separates the elites teams from the really good ones. 

Our offense still gets bogged down with people watching the action rather than forcing the action. We desperately need to get a slasher.  On O, we have sloppy cuts and static players. On D, our weakside rotation, off ball screen defense, and passing lane disruptions need to become much more deliberate.

[auburnphan 6,050]

26 minutes ago, bigbird said:

Our decision making seemed slow yesterday too. We were late on entry passes to the post, we were slow with our ball reversals, and we hesitated on kicking out once the double came.  To me, that is what separates the elites teams from the really good ones. 

Our offense still gets bogged down with people watching the action rather than forcing the action. We desperately need to get a slasher.  On O, we have sloppy cuts and static players. On D, our weakside rotation, off ball screen defense, and passing lane disruptions need to become much more deliberate.

Hopefully Purifoy has developed into something similar to Tobias Harris.  Agree on the decision making, there were so many cases of hesitating.  If Wiley and Mac are gonna try to block every shot, there are gonna be a ton of offensive rebounds and constant foul trouble.  Wiley has to play big more often if they are gonna keep feeding him.  Duke could exploit a bunch of things if we are not at our best tonight.

[cole256 17,043]

36 minutes ago, PowerOfDixieland said:

When to Use Case in Point                                 

What does case in point mean? Case in point is an idiom that means an example that supports one’s argument. Merriam-Webster first recorded its use 1647, and it has been a popular expression ever since.

Typo but thanks as you can see it was used properly

  the butt hurt that you still carry from years ago is amazing. Also the fact that you somehow after all these years still post but yet can't ever post about a sport. Just come in and say something stupid and fly away

[lost 452]

I understand what the criticism above and from some is all about.  But regardless where we like it or not, AU lives and dies by the 3.  It is what this team is built on.  If it is not falling it is going to be difficult for them to match up with the best.  They just don't have the mindset to play one on one basketball.  It is all about defense and transition ball.

[cole256 17,043]

1 hour ago, bigbird said:

Our decision making seemed slow yesterday too. We were late on entry passes to the post, we were slow with our ball reversals, and we hesitated on kicking out once the double came.  To me, that is what separates the elites teams from the really good ones. 

Our offense still gets bogged down with people watching the action rather than forcing the action. We desperately need to get a slasher.  On O, we have sloppy cuts and static players. On D, our weakside rotation, off ball screen defense, and passing lane disruptions need to become much more deliberate.

I even expected more than that, but it was the waving off the post that was aggravating to me. A few times when we could just close the door on them, we ran the play, it worked, we have Wiley on a 6'3" guy in the post and isolated because that's what the play was designed to do and the final pass to get the ball down low they would wave him off or reverse the ball.....like come on bro make the entry pass

[AU64 10,122]

32 minutes ago, auburnphan said:

Hopefully Purifoy has developed into something similar to Tobias Harris.  Agree on the decision making, there were so many cases of hesitating.  If Wiley and Mac are gonna try to block every shot, there are gonna be a ton of offensive rebounds and constant foul trouble.  Wiley has to play big more often if they are gonna keep feeding him.  Duke could exploit a bunch of things if we are not at our best tonight.

Wiley....19 minutes, no rebounds....5 PFs.....need a much better night from him against Duke....

[gravejd 3,270]

Love the gutsy win by our Tigers. Give Xavier credit...they just kept hitting the shots they needed to stay in the game and then we played a bad final 90 seconds and they were able to sneak it into over time. But our guys did not panic and were able to finally separate at the end. We should have beaten them in regulation but X isn't the kind of team to just lay down when they get behind. You gotta fight them to the end. 

I think the biggest key to the game was fouls. The reason they were close in the end was all the foul shots they made. It slowed the game down to fit their style and impacted our D. Okeke played most of the second half with 4 fouls so kudos to him for playing smart and staying in the game. Even if he had to back off on D some. We'll have to figure out how to play with Duke without getting in foul trouble. They are going to be slashing to the rim constantly so our bigs will have to play smarter. 

I thought Brown had a typical Brown game.....make you scream for joy one minute and make you scream in agony the next hahaha. Hoping there is less of the later as the season goes on. I thought he did force it a bit but we don't win that game without him so i can't ride him too hard. 

We have got to get better with inside out ball movement. I think we could have done some really good things down low had we stuck with it. I love sneaking Okeke down there. He is super tough to stop when he gets it within 15 feet of the basket. Maybe as we work Wiley in more our guards will look down there more often....not sure but we gotta try something different when the shooting is as bad as it was for large parts of this game. 

Well we saw why you don't get too high on a player after 2 games. Doughtry struggled in this one but he did make some solid plays on D and he also made some good plays on O that led to other folks getting baskets. I'm not ready to send i miss you cards to Heron quite yet but this game made me worry a little bit about that position when we get into the tougher games and opponents. Need Samir to give us some more points going forward. 

Big shout out to Spencer for last game and overtime last night. Senior whose minutes have been cut (understandably) every year but he still comes out and plays hard for Auburn every night. He is a big reason Auburn BB was able to find its way out of the wilderness and he should be appreciated. Just please, pretty please....stop shooting 3s Spencer. I love you man but you have maybe a 10% chance to hit that shot. Those aint good odds. 

Harper is the heart, soul, brain, and left kidney of this team. You don't see heady PGs like him every day so everyone take a minute this year and enjoy that we get to watch him play. Stay healthy buddy cause you going down would impact the team pretty similar to losing Mac last season. We'll go as far as Harper will take us come tourny time. 

 

The unbeatable dukies are up next. Perhaps the greatest collection of athletes ever assembled on the hardwood. Lets go punch them in the face Tigers!!

[cole256 17,043]

3 minutes ago, lost said:

I understand what the criticism above and from some is all about.  But regardless where we like it or not, AU lives and dies by the 3.  It is what this team is built on.  If it is not falling it is going to be difficult for them to match up with the best.  They just don't have the mindset to play one on one basketball.  It is all about defense and transition ball.

Well we are excited and want to be known on a national level now. There aren't any good teams that last that is just a 3 point team. The best shooters in the world have off nights, you can't just say well we're going to lose this one the jumper is off....Just shooting 3 pointers is the very definition of one on one ball. 

[bigbird 60,500]

45 minutes ago, auburnphan said:

Hopefully Purifoy has developed into something similar to Tobias Harris.  Agree on the decision making, there were so many cases of hesitating.  If Wiley and Mac are gonna try to block every shot, there are gonna be a ton of offensive rebounds and constant foul trouble.  Wiley has to play big more often if they are gonna keep feeding him.  Duke could exploit a bunch of things if we are not at our best tonight.

Wiley also need to slow down once he is fed the ball down low. Be methodical and deliberate. No more of the Jojo, the idiot circus boy with a pretty new pet, type of play

[cole256 17,043]

5 minutes ago, AU64 said:

Wiley....19 minutes, no rebounds....5 PFs.....need a much better night from him against Duke....

I know you hate for me to say something but it is what it is but there are many factors to think about that. It's not as simple as looking at stats. First we are shooting crazy shots early in the shot clock, those are long rebounds and he's not even in position to try to rebound on many of those shots. He was probably the one setting a high screen.

Second we couldn't keep them out of the lane, that's why both guys fouled out because they had to challenge shots. You really not going to challenge shots AND get the rebound. 

We play full court mainly for the secondary purpose as opposed to thinking get turnovers but when you play that defense it pushes tempo, and we wanted the tempo to be up. We are messing up not being able to keep their point out of the paint. But this game we were playing wasn't good for him to get boards, that's why the guards had a higher amount of rebounds they normally have. We don't play an old school style and it sort of hurt us a bit.

[bigbird 60,500]

13 minutes ago, cole256 said:

I even expected more than that, but it was the waving off the post that was aggravating to me. A few times when we could just close the door on them, we ran the play, it worked, we have Wiley on a 6'3" guy in the post and isolated because that's what the play was designed to do and the final pass to get the ball down low they would wave him off or reverse the ball.....like come on bro make the entry pass

Exactly, they seem way too tentative or scared to make that pass.  I'd love to see a little Hi-Lo action with Chuma/Mac feeding AW. Beside establishing an inside presence, it would lead to really opening up our shooters.

[bigbird 60,500]

4 minutes ago, cole256 said:

Second we couldn't keep them out of the lane, that's why both guys fouled out because they had to challenge shots. You really not going to challenge shots AND get the rebound. 

I was surprised that we couldn't cut them off more often.  

[cole256 17,043]

Just now, bigbird said:

Exactly, they seem way too tentative or scared to make that pass.  I'd love to see a little Hi-Lo action with Chuma/Mac feeding AW. Beside establishing an inside presence, it would lead to really opening up our shooters.

I was thinking they aren't even used to doing it they don't know when to. Harper played amazing but even he would make horrible post passes when he tried at times. One at the end of the game where dude saved it over his head.....that was a horrible pass and nobody was pressuring him or nothing, unless he thought chumma was going to keep moving over but I don't see how because he set and called for the ball....throw it at his hand!!!!

[cole256 17,043]

9 minutes ago, bigbird said:

I was surprised that we couldn't cut them off more often.  

That was the most confusing thing to me because the guy didn't look abnormally quick, it's said that Brown is awesome on defense, and I looked the guy up and it seems they really wished he didn't have to start. I posted in the game thread if we would stop them from getting into the lane their entire offense would break down. In OT we put Harper on him and they only scored 2. 

[bigbird 60,500]

2 minutes ago, cole256 said:

I was thinking they aren't even used to doing it they don't know when to. 

Or how to...Lob or bounce? Baseline or key? High or low? I would think, knowing AW was going to be a major player, they would've really worked that.

[AURealist 2,185]

1 minute ago, bigbird said:

Or how to...Lob or bounce? Baseline or key? High or low? I would think, knowing AW was going to be a major player, they would've really worked that.

We're not good at the fundamentals, we're not bothering to run a real offense - at least not against Xavier.  So what's Pearl been working on?  And don't say free throws, because we all know that's not true.

[AU64 10,122]

26 minutes ago, cole256 said:

I know you hate for me to say something but it is what it is but there are many factors to think about that. It's not as simple as looking at stats. First we are shooting crazy shots early in the shot clock, those are long rebounds and he's not even in position to try to rebound on many of those shots. He was probably the one setting a high screen.

Second we couldn't keep them out of the lane, that's why both guys fouled out because they had to challenge shots. You really not going to challenge shots AND get the rebound. 

We play full court mainly for the secondary purpose as opposed to thinking get turnovers but when you play that defense it pushes tempo, and we wanted the tempo to be up. We are messing up not being able to keep their point out of the paint. But this game we were playing wasn't good for him to get boards, that's why the guards had a higher amount of rebounds they normally have. We don't play an old school style and it sort of hurt us a bit.

Basically I agree but from my observation, players get rebounds because they "want " to get the rebound and are willing to fight for the ball.  Looking for him to be more aggressive with his rebounding...….and I guess it is his job to block shots, but with his size, he can block some of those drives without having to foul as frequently.   Just saying that with the minutes he plays, we need some better results.   And did I see that Spencer had zero PFs last night......that's gotta be a first for him...great to see that. 

[Tiger 8,819]

@cole256 and @bigbird I'm out of reactions but

 

 

[Tiger 8,819]

It's hard for someone to alter or block a shot then also get the rebound. Often times it puts the player out of position for the board

[AURex 1,994]

Arriving late to the discussion, I don't have anything brilliant or controversial to contribute. And having to watch the game last night, rather than as it was played, I missed out on the live discussion.

One thing that really perturbed me as I watched the game was the really crappy play-by-play of Biles and his side-kick. It might be expected that they didn't know Auburn's personnel very well, but their job is to call the game. Instead we got backrub interludes and just repeats about Auburn shooting the outside ball again. No in-game info about the foul problems of McLemore and Wiley and why, very little comment about Okeke having another great game, etc.

Basically, I'm just saying that I've gotten a lot more insight from the discussion here that from those supposedly expert commentators. So, thanks to you all.

 

[cole256 17,043]

28 minutes ago, AU64 said:

Basically I agree but from my observation, players get rebounds because they "want " to get the rebound and are willing to fight for the ball.  Looking for him to be more aggressive with his rebounding...….and I guess it is his job to block shots, but with his size, he can block some of those drives without having to foul as frequently.   Just saying that with the minutes he plays, we need some better results.   And did I see that Spencer had zero PFs last night......that's gotta be a first for him...great to see that. 

You're right though, I'm just saying it may not be as bad as the stat line reads, he does need to be more aggressive, him and chumma as well. I'm really hoping especially chumma. I would love to see him say stop all that silly s*** and give me the ball. He would make alot of NBA people happy if he did that as well. 

But yeah you do have to want it. 

He affected the game though, that PG didn't shoot well but he didn't take many jumpers he was living in the lane and they were altering his shots and making him miss. I imagine many would read his stat line and want to give credit to the guards, which they did their part too mostly in OT but most of that credit IMO should go to A Mac and A dub

[cole256 17,043]

49 minutes ago, AURealist said:

We're not good at the fundamentals, we're not bothering to run a real offense - at least not against Xavier.  So what's Pearl been working on?  And don't say free throws, because we all know that's not true.

Well the passing was pretty bad but we're not horrible with fundamentals. We play at such a helter skelter pace to be a good offense in it we have to be fundamentally sound. 

Positives the guys forms are text book when they shoot, especially Brown. He doesn't take bad shots as far as shooting off balanced and stuff, I think that its so good it feels uncomfortable when he has to improvise. The floor was slippery but I feel like we make good decisions in transition.