Very embarrassing, and I speak of our FT shooting. We have 4 big men and only one of the 4 can shoot decent FTs and he does not play. The other three are horrible and that is inexcusable. Do we have a coach to work on FTs? I mean change their technique - they cannot be any worse. Those 3 need a “midnight practice” to improve their FTs. Any D1 player should be able to make 6 out of 10 with practice, practice, practice………. If they cannot demonstrate that consistently in practice, they should never be on the court in a game.
Do NOT forget that JD leads the country in "lane violations created"! LOL
They should shoot underhand. It's fun ... Rick Barry did it in the NBA and was a great FT shooter.
FYI, the Redturds lost by 20 to Valpo in Abnormal just a week ago.
SIU is only 7 spots ahead of their ending KenPom from last year. The difference this year is the Missouri Valley is much weaker and SIU has been able to win the games they lost last year.
Not going to complain much at all if they win a weak Valley, it's better than anything they've done the last 15 years, but they're going to have to greatly improve if they want to keep competing when the Valley isn't down and that starts with the offense. The offense wasn't a problem today but having the 229th ranked offense isn't going to get you many chances for an at-large in the future.
Not sure why trying to improve FT shooting of the bigs is ridiculous. I don't think I have ever seen a more unorthodox FT shooter than Muilla. The guy can rebound, but if he hadn't gotten that lane violation, he wouldn't have even made his 1 for the night. Seems like it played a part in why Mullins chose to go small at the end of the game when the score was tied as the obvious strategy would be to hack JD whenever he got the ball.
I don't think its rediculous to try to improve, but i do think its a little rediculous to say that anyone should be able to shoot 60% with practice. I don't think thats the case. Some people just do not have the ability. Look at Shaq, man probably shot a million free throws in his lifetime and still shot at about 50%. Not every human is built the same way. Some people just do not have the ability to be a good shooter weather it be because large hands, or wrists elbows and arms that just don't bend the right way or whatever.
FYI, the Redturds lost by 20 to Valpo in Abnormal just a week ago.
Oh come on, if ISU played like they did against Valpo against us, we would have smoked them too. They shot 24% from 3 and 34% from the field (Kasubke and Knight went 1-8 combined they were 7-11 yesterday). Valpo’s defense is not good, certainly not that much better than SIU even on an off day.
Don’t get me wrong, yesterdays effort was not good enough. Too many of those threes were open, so much confusion on switches and people getting beat off the dribble (although Knight made two really deep hand in the face threes…a 30% shooter). SIU has to be good enough to pull that one out at the end even if ISU is playing out of their mind.
Missed free throws were tough, and I will never understand how ISU got so many calls at the rim and SIU didn’t. D’Amico was almost concussed on that fast break drive. Domask went up through contact all night and never got a call, but ISU’s big guys sure did. I think Watson noted that multiple times in the post game. No problems if that’s how they are going to call it, but do it both ways. That certainly didn’t cost us the game, not with how we played on D, but absolutely reduced our margin for error.
We missed a golden opportunity to put some distance between us and the rest of the field, now things get much tougher with Bradley away. I won’t say this is a must win, but it sure is close to one.
The problem isn't that the valley is actually weak, I don't think that is the case. I don't ever really think it's the case. By the metrics it is awful because the non conference is so bad. The inability the perform in the non conference is perplexing. Missouri state is full of 4 stars but turn their entire team over every year and stink in the non conference. UNI had a bad non conference but lost players and were just figuring their way, they are much better now. Bradley didn't have their best player for much of non con. Scheduling for mid majors is impossible, you have to play bad teams and sometimes on the road and one loss to a bad team destroys you in the metrics and with your resume... It's a weighted game and its heavily stacked against good mid majors like teams in the Valley. Bradley, Drake, Missouri State, SIU, Belmont are all teams with a lot of known and proven talent. The Valley is not actually weak, it's just weak on paper and it get's weaker and weaker on paper as the power 5 conferences play more conference games and destroy any ability to build a resume or strong metrics.SIU is only 7 spots ahead of their ending KenPom from last year. The difference this year is the Missouri Valley is much weaker and SIU has been able to win the games they lost last year.
Not going to complain much at all if they win a weak Valley, it's better than anything they've done the last 15 years, but they're going to have to greatly improve if they want to keep competing when the Valley isn't down and that starts with the offense. The offense wasn't a problem today but having the 229th ranked offense isn't going to get you many chances for an at-large in the future.
If you are a valley team you get 2 chances (tops) a year to get a quad 1 win... you better go 2-0 and then never have a slip up, which is damn near impossible when you play at places like Illinois State, Bradley, SIU, Murray, Belmont, etc..
The problem isn't that the valley is actually weak, I don't think that is the case. I don't ever really think it's the case. By the metrics it is awful because the non conference is so bad. The inability the perform in the non conference is perplexing. Missouri state is full of 4 stars but turn their entire team over every year and stink in the non conference. UNI had a bad non conference but lost players and were just figuring their way, they are much better now. Bradley didn't have their best player for much of non con. Scheduling for mid majors is impossible, you have to play bad teams and sometimes on the road and one loss to a bad team destroys you in the metrics and with your resume... It's a weighted game and its heavily stacked against good mid majors like teams in the Valley. Bradley, Drake, Missouri State, SIU, Belmont are all teams with a lot of known and proven talent. The Valley is not actually weak, it's just weak on paper and it get's weaker and weaker on paper as the power 5 conferences play more conference games and destroy any ability to build a resume or strong metrics.SIU is only 7 spots ahead of their ending KenPom from last year. The difference this year is the Missouri Valley is much weaker and SIU has been able to win the games they lost last year.
Not going to complain much at all if they win a weak Valley, it's better than anything they've done the last 15 years, but they're going to have to greatly improve if they want to keep competing when the Valley isn't down and that starts with the offense. The offense wasn't a problem today but having the 229th ranked offense isn't going to get you many chances for an at-large in the future.
If you are a valley team you get 2 chances (tops) a year to get a quad 1 win... you better go 2-0 and then never have a slip up, which is damn near impossible when you play at places like Illinois State, Bradley, SIU, Murray, Belmont, etc..
This!
At least it was interesting to see Ebube get a few minutes and contribute some non-harmful stats to the line. Wonder if he will play again at Bradley?
Same story that has bitten SIU a few times this year; lack of focus and effort from the jump. Against lesser teams, you can't just show up, especially facing a motivated opponent on the road. You have to bring the same level of intensity every game. SIU is a good team, but very few programs have enough talent to overcome a lack of focus and effort and SIU is not one of those programs right now.
As others have pointed out, I also can't understand Mullins fascination with the small lineups featuring Troy at the 5. We are clearly not as good with those looks and it continues to cost us, particularly with rebounding, second chance points and post defense.
That said, credit to Illinois State. They still had to make plays and they did. They were able to get into a nice rhythm early and continued to make big shots every time SIU threatened.
Gotta reach deep and try to steal one at Bradley or SIU faces the very real possibility of not only losing out on a chance at the league title, but falling out of the top 4 as well.
--Insert something witty here--
I get everyone's frustration with the guards... But we all do realize all the screens they set with our bigs (any of them) in is what created the wide open shots that lead to the 11/19 from 3 or whatever it was. I will take that contested turn around over Troy over wide open 3's all day. Our big's couldn't cover them and honestly didn't help rebounding when they were in either. Only one that could have justifiably played was Rupert, but the defense was not good with any big in.Same story that has bitten SIU a few times this year; lack of focus and effort from the jump. Against lesser teams, you can't just show up, especially facing a motivated opponent on the road. You have to bring the same level of intensity every game. SIU is a good team, but very few programs have enough talent to overcome a lack of focus and effort and SIU is not one of those programs right now.
As others have pointed out, I also can't understand Mullins fascination with the small lineups featuring Troy at the 5. We are clearly not as good with those looks and it continues to cost us, particularly with rebounding, second chance points and post defense.
That said, credit to Illinois State. They still had to make plays and they did. They were able to get into a nice rhythm early and continued to make big shots every time SIU threatened.
Gotta reach deep and try to steal one at Bradley or SIU faces the very real possibility of not only losing out on a chance at the league title, but falling out of the top 4 as well.
@saluki-4-life I believe many of our defensive problems were caused by switching. Switching has been effective when we play vs 5 out or 4 out offenses that rarely post up. Yesterday we were hurt in switches resulting in mismatches in the post and perimeter, as well as general confusion. They played 5 bigs a total of 77 minutes. Their bigs shot a total of 3 3's, all by McChesney. Why didn't we keep our bigs on their bigs and our perimeters on their shooters? Also, I do not think we have to choose between Troy guarding the post and open threes. Troy helps this team in many ways but guarding the post is not his strength and simply has not worked. Finally, if you prorate our bigs' rebounds yesterday per minute to 30 minutes Rupert would have 6, Muila 11, Ebube 10 and D'Amico 3. The 3 posts got 10 rebounds in a combined 32 minutes. LET THE BIGS PLAY AND THEY WILL PRODUCE!
100% agree. It is beyond my comprehension that any one with basketball savvy cannot see how we give up rebounds and points without any of our big guys in the game. #22, Lewis scored points and consistently got rebounds over our smaller guards trying to guard him.
I peeked at the box score and saw he had 18 points and 10 rebounds, many during the time we had no "big" in the game. Many of his points and rebounds came when we were in need of a stop and/or rebound.
Difficult to understand why we continue to think we can play small when a 6 ft 8in player is padding the stat sheet at our expense.
