23-24 Season

I have no idea why the [uck fay] we play Gainey instead of giving those minutes to Mashack. Are we hoping for his one in ten game shooting outburst? Jahmai offers so much more and, after games, we get Barnes saying "I should play Jahmai more". Well, do it. He makes good stuff happen. Gainey is a defensive liability and rarely warms up enough on offense.

22 minutes for Gainey and 17 for Mashack is stupid, utterly idiotic.

 

Need more out of our super senior guards on offense. I know J had 26 vs UK, but that’s the outlier. We will go as far as those two take us scoring wise imo.

 

Didn’t Mashack get 2 quick fouls tonight?

 

This team has some major concerns for me, heading down the stretch. I have three main ones.

1. Not enough consistent scoring beyond Knecht and (usually) Zeigler. I haven't the faintest idea what's happening with Vescovi, but my expectation was a three-headed scoring monster, which hasn't developed at all.
2. Rebounding is very suspect and we give up a lot of extra possessions, which are going to be magnified in the postseason.
3. We have long had issues with allowing guards to drive on us, but we have been scouted and picked apart by penetration against a few of our guys. Knecht and Gainey were mercilessly attacked tonight and this won't abate.

 

We still control our own destiny in the SEC, but this team has some flaws that make it hard to see a 6-0 finish coming. Can’t point at anything that’s a sure loss, but we have some flaws that people can take advantage of.

In fairness, everyone seems to have some flaws this year, so we can still make a deep run, but if we run into somebody with a good rim protector that gets on the glass, we may be in trouble.

 

After rewatching, and I won’t waste time and post all the pics, but imo to rebound better we need to frankly get our hands on the opponent and get them out of the way. I stopped counting at 7 the number of times we had them boxed out and they either slung us out of the way or shoved us in our backs. Even Tobe. How does Tobe go from great position to out of the way? The guy uses two hands and his whole body to shove, that’s how.

 

Are those pics from the original plays or the many replays they showed while raving about that dude’s rebounding “skills?”

 

I am resigned to the high probability that no matter who we play or whether we are favored or not, there will always be player(s), coach(es), rebounding, shooting, stat(s), etc. that the announcers will fawn over and feverently pump up relative to our opposition. Every. Time.

Nothing is (or ever will be) said about the shit refereeing. For that they make excuses about how well they have done.

Our only choice is to win despite everything. Which is easier said than done. We got our azz beat. It sucks.

 

It is a head scratcher (at least from my ill-informed perspective). I thought we needed Mashack's skills (even with 2 fouls) more than Gainey's might hit a 3.

 

Knecht better go for 40 against TAMU @ home after the overrated chant.

 

Going on a 9 minutes stretch (across the half) without a fg? Jeez um. On the one hand, that is unbelievably bad but on the other, that seems like something one can improve upon relatively easily.

 

I may get negged for dropping this name, but I thought Crean's observation that we were playing a beat too fast and trying to force things just a little quickly out of frustration was right. And I'm usually a proponent of attacking in basketball. For almost the whole game, we were frenetically desperate like you are in the last two minutes if you're down by 8, rather than being something like "optimistically aggressive."

 

It seems to be a little bit too important for this team that our first couple of shots go in. We seem to be worse than most at handling negative emotion. Which is a little surprising given ZZ's personality.

 

I was taught and continued to teach “be quick, but not in a hurry.” We were definitely pressing to score and uncomfortable. Aggies defense was quick, athletic around the rim and hassling us and when shots weren’t falling as they hit everything, we started playing differently than we usually do.
It happens as players force the issue trying to make something happen when not much good is happening.

 

Liked "optimistically aggressive."

 

it’s infectious either way. Just the way it is until somebody hits one. Auburn was 3/16 Saturday from 3 and had it happened to them.

 

I know Arkansas sucks but I hate playing there. Always scares me.

 

doesn’t seem to matter much this year when a team is at home.

 

They’ve also got players. Lord knows they’ll put it together tonight

 

Watching Vandy center shove that dude for Aggies who shoved us around all night was enjoyable. He dominated inside and was just slinging Aggies out of the way.