I don't see any way we make the tournament without Jordan. D'Lo is a warrior who has improved in just about every way possible in his time here. I want him to make the tournament so bad it hurts.
As for Butler, I think people are shorting them credit. This is not the same squad we saw last year. They are a lot tougher, much more physical and legitimately a very good defensive team. Are they world beaters: no. But, they will make you work for every inch, earn everything you get and keep things close enough to allow Dunham the chance to get hot and beat you. Ironically, we tried to turn up the heat on them which would have been the play if we had enough bodies to play full court pressure and sub enough to keep fresh legs the whole game. But, in our situation, it may have been best to just play solid half court d. Dunham shot 6-7 and got three of those open looks (all converted) were on a lucky bounce (loose ball scramble for ball went to him in the corner), D'Lo slipping and falling down (although D'Lo was out of position and his hustle to recover resulted in the slip) and a misguided attempt to zone Butler. I think they will be middle of the pack.
The most troubling aspect (other than Jordan) of the past week is that we saw the return of this team not valuing each and every possession. Against Seton Hall and Butler we saw ill advised shots early in the possession. A Greene jumper off the dribble. A Dom three pointer. A Branch pull up 18 footer. A Dom turnaround jumper from 15 ft. A Jordan semi-contested three pointer. You can get these types of shots any time you want and they are a much different level of look vice a Greene open jumper with feet set. A Dom open 15 footer with his feet set. A Branch pull up 15 footer. A Dom tunaround from inside 10 ft. A Jordan semi-contested 15 footer or wide open three. These are all decent looks. No need to take the first grouping unless the shot clock is under 5. It's certainly not what you want with 20+ seconds left on the shot clock. I thought we had grown past this during the pre-conference schedule...but it returned in the past week.
Win or lose...I want to see clean basketball. Taking what the defense gives you. Finding ways to probe the defense that forces them to make decisions they don't want to make. identifying what the other team wants to do on offense and making that tougher or take it away. Make someone other than the best player find a way to beat you. That's good basketball. That's fun to watch. That's winning basketball. The % of time we saw this this from the second half of Minnesota through Tulane was higher than the past three years. That's why we were winning. We reverted back to our prior level of execution last week. That's worrysome.
