Attendance: 3,215. Nice to see the students get into it at the end. Perfect game to ride into Horton from an atmosphere standpoint. Hope they're ready to be rowdy for 40 minutes. Pedon grabbed the mic at the end of the game to thank the crowd and especially the students. The 2 missed free throws on a single trip to the line under 5 minutes for free Jersey Mike's is a great promo for crowd involvement. It was still dead in the arena for most of the game, but I'm becoming hopeful we are getting close.
vs Northern Kentucky - 12/6/23 - 7 pm - ESPN+
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Redbird222
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I saw NKU play IUPUI and thought that zone might be trouble but wasn't sure if it was good defense or a poor offense by IUPUI. I think the answer is NKU plays very good defense that you don't see very often. A matchup zone that traps and is high pressure. The turnovers are frustrating but almost understandable given this defense.
Our defense continues to impress me and the offensive rebounds saved us. We had some open looks but we are not a team shooting with confidence beyond the arc right now. We need to get Mal going. He started the season strong but has not looked the same offensively since the missed game winning 3 pt shot against High Point.
A big thanks to Mr Foster and Lewis. Bruise and Cruise compliment each other well on the floor.
I thought Pence played good defense the six minutes he played in the first half. I am not sure why he didn't come into the game instead of Sissoko in the second half.
It was nice to see the fans stand-up, stretch, and get loud at the end of the game. It's also nice to have a reason to stand-up.
I am not sure why we didn't foul at the end of the game. We only had 3 fouls to give. Hell Muller proved you can foul intentionally with a 2 point lead (it worked but I don't think I will ever understand that logic).
I am looking forward to the game at Horton. I wish they still had the north bleachers extend to the rafters. I'd love to take one more trip to the top and watch the lights shake from the noise.
Our defense continues to impress me and the offensive rebounds saved us. We had some open looks but we are not a team shooting with confidence beyond the arc right now. We need to get Mal going. He started the season strong but has not looked the same offensively since the missed game winning 3 pt shot against High Point.
A big thanks to Mr Foster and Lewis. Bruise and Cruise compliment each other well on the floor.
I thought Pence played good defense the six minutes he played in the first half. I am not sure why he didn't come into the game instead of Sissoko in the second half.
It was nice to see the fans stand-up, stretch, and get loud at the end of the game. It's also nice to have a reason to stand-up.
I am not sure why we didn't foul at the end of the game. We only had 3 fouls to give. Hell Muller proved you can foul intentionally with a 2 point lead (it worked but I don't think I will ever understand that logic).
I am looking forward to the game at Horton. I wish they still had the north bleachers extend to the rafters. I'd love to take one more trip to the top and watch the lights shake from the noise.
Bingo!
SlackBooDom
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Great win. Nice to be tested and show resilience to come back in a game. Pedon is setting a culture of unselfishness, toughness, and togetherness that can win basketball games like last night. The main positive for me was the rebounding. Not finishing defensive possessions can be deflating. Winning the O boards 12-6 was a key to the win in my eyes. I'll continue to beat this drum as a negative - turnovers and 3-point shooting. We took 27 threes and 31 2's and the current skillset just can't allow for that. We're shooting 28% from 3 on the year. Those not named Banks last night were 4/20 from 3. Coupled with -6 in the turnover column and you can easily see how we would have lost that. Good teams find ways to win games. We should be favored in the next three and would be 9-3 going into Kentucky. Winning is contagious - good sign of overall program health the way we're stacking right now.
Nice win, good job grinding it out while not shooting great or getting to the line much. Defense, rebounding and matching their physical play earned us this one. Good to learn another way to win a close game. Really nice to hear the crowd get into it down the stretch, too, especially the students. Hopefully they got the excitement they were looking for and a understood it was a perfect example of how they can affect a game. Just remember it's okay if more than 1 row actually stands up FFS. But energy is energy and it's building...so that's good. Keep it going.
On to Horton.
On to Horton.
Morning after. REALLY good half court defense. Got surprised with their speed and got beat down the court a few times. But good learning experience. Agree with too many threes because we are pretty good inside and not so good from three. But then the zone kinda dictated. Also Mal will get going sooner or later and that part of our game should improve.
Manchester Matt
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That's the thing about the three point shooting. The guys I want taking them the most, MP, LK and JK, all struggled last night. It happens. I sure as hell don't want those three to stop shooting open shots. Like Brick said, Mal is going to get hot.
Ball movement and forcing some flow got a lot better as the game went on too. Good on our guys for fighting to establish that. If we could just start flipping the turnover stats and run more, we can really find another gear. But steady as she goes...keep up the effort.
DoubleDeuce
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Belmont student section last night. Can we get there?
We used to be there...
Don't get me wrong. I'm glad the student's showed up and filled the north student section. But that was an exciting, nail biter of a game pretty much from the jump. I don't think they stood and were engaged until the last minute or so. I don't understand it...why show if you aren't going to be engaged?
Hell, the elderly lady sitting next to me was more into the game than they were.
That's been my concern for a while now. Sure, it's great to fill the section but then why sit on your ass? There's like 1-2 rows down in front standing and the rest are just lounging about. That's why I kindly pointed out (with video) how it used to be on Twitter last night. Maybe current students dont know its possible to do that because they've never experienced it unless they went to games as kids. Maybe they think this is all there is and that what they see on TV can't be duplicated here. Meanwhile, Belmont, SIU and even Valpo make our students look terrible. Would I rather have them there sitting and watching than not showing up at all? Of course. But for crying out loud, get off your ass and get into the game. This is YOUR team and YOUR school. Show a little effort. Get hammered before games if that helps. Do something.
ChiRedbirdfan
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Impressive!
Also Wow..What a unique idea to put the students on the sidelines!! (Huge sarcasm). I will say not easy for Isu athletics to succeed long term due to strategic changes needed. However Isu athletics had a chance a few years ago to help get the students more involved/closer to the action/ideally behind the visitors teams bench and they F’ed that up. All they had to dowas take a look around what was happening/trending for student involvement. A dumb/moronic choice was made, imo. So in that respects I have no sympathy for Isu athletics when they bitch about students not showing up. They chose not to show up for the students. (Sorry but this topic irritates me)
Ironically I took a pic last night of my computer screen showing redbird seating area behind the visitor’s bench last night when the game was excitingly close …the pic was taken with about 40 second remaining. I will see if I can add it to this post Absolutely empty/lifeless and it caught my attention.
So…Nice nitty gritty win by the team. I am enjoying what Pedon is trying to accomplish and the progress made. I suspect we will have a few acute failures again this season but trend is good. I feel proud of this team esp factoring in their image.
I was actually thinking something similar. The lower bowl seating is not great for students since the remodel. The old section D put you pretty much right on the floor, and F & G were still super close behind the basket with only the cheerleaders in front of you. So you had a wall of students there with the band in the middle. Now they are backed away from the court with no angle seating...only directly behind the basket. It would still work great when full and if students there would stand and get into the game, but I wonder if they aren't thrilled about the seating layout. I sat there for a couple games last year over Xmas break and I remember thinking they were great for casual fans but wouldn't feel right if I was a student.
ChiRedbirdfan
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Rollbirds5
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Feel fortunate to be in some solid student sections during my time at ISU, the games were a blast going to! Just saw a memory recently of storming the court vs a ranked Dayton team, that was a fun one. Remember seeing multiple fifths of fireball and other liquor bottles on the ground after that one
We would've been there together! First win vs a ranked opponent in the history of Redbird. I was in the front row, behind the basket and one of the first on the court.Feel fortunate to be in some solid student sections during my time at ISU, the games were a blast going to! Just saw a memory recently of storming the court vs a ranked Dayton team, that was a fun one. Remember seeing multiple fifths of fireball and other liquor bottles on the ground after that one
Looked it up 1977