Some Random Thoughts
Positives
-Phil Greene was cooking inside the arc. 5-9 shooting and was aggressive looking to score.
-JaKarr played tough on both ends of the floor and he was rewarded getting to the line 9 times cashing in 7 times. Getting looseball in back court was a great play.
-Sir Dom also looked for his shot more than usual and was money midrange.
-D'Angelo Harrison made a difference without scoring the basketball. He made some great passes, blocked 3 shots, and didn't take many ill advised shots. Behind head pass was pro worthy.
-Jamal Branch played 31 minutes and Phil Greene had a good scoring game.
-The team only committed 9 turnovers
-9 blocked shots
-Harrison scored his only 3 off a baseline out of bounds play. He loves that curl screen.
-Christian Jones saw the floor and looked a little rusty but overall contributed
-12-15 from FT line
-Amir Garrett is at his best when slicing to the lane. More 5-7 shooting days is what stj needs from him.
-Jamal Branch hit both of his only 2 free throws in the clutch.
Negatives
-Were out rebounded 30-26
-After Pointer picked up his 3rd foul. It was questionable having him in the game and he was defending primary ball handler with full court pressure. Picked up 4th foul soon after. 5th foul was unnecessary attempt to draw charge.
-Team shot 3-17 from beyond the arc
-The fact that the team shot 17 shots from 3 was disheartening. Settled for a lot of shots against the zone of a team with visibly inferior athletes.
-D'Angelo Harrison only had 8 shots. Needs to get the ball in his hands more.
-No sets ran for Marco Bourgalt. Need to learn how to utilize him better in the half court.
-Obekpa wasn't his best tonight. Never really got into a rhythm and was having trouble switching in pick and rolls. More of a tip your cap to Mike Brey for attacking the way St. John's switches defensively.
-Deflate the ball offense (False Motion) was in full effect late in 2nd half. Nearly cost the team the game. Team doesn't have many set plays to free a guy up.
-A lot of bad fouls led to personal foul trouble and team foul trouble in the 2nd half. Notre Dame was in bonus+ for a long time and luckily didn't capitalize.
Agree w most of this. Only points of minor disagreement are:
a) tough to praise DLo for impacting the game without scoring, but call his getting "only 8 shots a negative. His lack of shots was/is/will be due to the fact that he now gets a straight double team every time he touches the ball. Very impressed with his maturity and composure this game. If we play those doubles properly, we have the personnel to make teams pay for it..which will lead to teams doubling him less.
b)Against that slow footed zone you're not going to run sets for Marco, you're just going to stick him on the opposite wing where Phil got all those open looks. That said, I dont think Marco is a Big East caliber player and I have no problem with him not being out there.
c) I dont think Brey really attacked the way we switch on pick and rolls, I think we- especially Obekpa- fouled it up and they executed perfectly. Which is why it was a great job by Lavs of sitting Obekpa most of the game.
Much credit goes to Lavs and crew for thinking outside the box and matching personnel to the game plan rather than starting the same guys and giving the same minutes to the same guys. Also credit to him for the motivational factor..it looked like he got in some people's chili between Saturday and last night and they played with some energy. Dom and Amir looked much more agressive on the offensive end and that was not a coincidence. Georgetown laid way off both of them the other day and as painful as it might be in the short run, they have to shoot those mid range J's if they're ever going to expand their repertoires and get some confidence.
A word of caution though for the "see, i told you it was all about execution" folks: we played a team last night that was tailor made for us. The anti-Georgetown. An unathletic team who could not play us man to man, which is where we've been struggling, and who we could outrebound even with our biggest guy playing 10 minutes. That zone last night was a godsend for us and so were the opportunies for transition points. But against more athletic teams, we still have to prove we can bring last nights agressiveness, unselfishness, and slashing. These next four games against lesser teams should give us a chance to do that before we play Georgetown again. That will be a nice measuring stick on how far the team has come this season.