THE ST MARY'S GAME
- Thread starter welcome1
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They had a mental letdown because they got too confident after the Post game. Then they panicked when they saw that St. Mary's was outplaying them and started to make even worse plays. As the Zen Master said, "90% of this game is 50% mental". They'll figure this out and get on track. These guys are smart. They just haven't matured yet. Don't forget, they turned it around and figured out how to win it.
upstate redman
Member
WVA lost to D2 Northern Kentucky tonight, so I wouldn't be too worried about our showing against Saint Mary's.
Over the years there have been countless upsets and close calls between supposedly missmatched teams. That's why they call it a game. The whole ranking thing thing is totally overrated. There are countless kids overrated and/or overlooked every year. The classic D3 recruit may be a little less athletic but able to shoot. That's how they wind up playing college ball instead of ihtramurals. When you don't get in the faces of kids like that they can hurt you with the three ball which is the big equalizer. Too much of that and you've got an upset. Our defense right now tends to leave shooters open and if they go down we're in trouble. I'm sure it's about keeping fouls down so we don't have much choice but crunch time is winning time and I think we're going to have to change it up a little more. When Lavs gets back I think we'll see more of that.
Great point about D3 players can be good shooters and as we all know 3 pt shooting can be the great equalizer and since St Mary's hit 13 that is 13 extra pts which if taken away our 7 pt win becomes 20 and we are all not wringing our hands. A more talented athletic D1 team may not shoot well so we may actually look like we are playing better against them.
All true but let us not forget match ups.I played against players that were just bad match up and had difficulty when in theory ,it should' ve been easy. So that happens on any level . That when you turn to your other skills and get your team involved and make sacrifices This team is learnineveryday they will surprise
It wasen't the worst thing in the world for this team to play a tight game in the exhibition season.
We're obviously very young, and we are going to have to learn how to win at some point, if we want to be successful. One of the reasons for the exhibition season is to simulate having to make winning plays. Maybe the competition was not the greatest for that, but we did it, and if the young guys took the right things out of it, this will make us better.
We're obviously very young, and we are going to have to learn how to win at some point, if we want to be successful. One of the reasons for the exhibition season is to simulate having to make winning plays. Maybe the competition was not the greatest for that, but we did it, and if the young guys took the right things out of it, this will make us better.
Let's hope one of the things they took is that if you make your foul shots you wouldn't put yourself in the position of having to rally late. The fact that we buckled down in the stretch shows something but you gotta think that late in tight games they're gonna be fouling Gift and Nuri.
I noticed that last year we had the same problem with the open three point shooter and that may just be the weakness of a matchup zone. Also, as someone else pointed out we didn't press or double until late in the game which may have been the game plan to conserve energy and stay out of foul trouble until late in the game when with Sir Dom at the top of the zone they were able to double on the ball, exert pressure, use their superior athleticism and force the turnovers that turned the game in SJU's favor. If we're going to stay in that zone the 3ball is going to be there all year. Lets see what happens when they get some depth ( that's "if" they get some depth) in December. That would also let the team use some different defenses and give some different looks on defense. With only 7 in the rotation now they are going to have to conserve energy and fouls.
I've already told you this, but, if we're up a few points late in a game (and we know the oppoent is going to foul), I'd seriously consider getting Gift out of there, at least on offense. I don't care that we only have 7 guys, that's how poor I think his foul shooting is.
Nuri's foul shooting is poor too, but it might get better, and we are going to need his steady hand late. Hopefully, he can give it up quickly enough to guys like Moe, Pointer, Harrison, or Greene.
