Redbirds @ Murray State 12/5 5:00 PM ESPN+

[schoolsportsfan]

Anybody know where Matty was tonight?

Matty is not doing any road games all season. Only home games.

 

[CaliRdBrd]

Yet another Redbird loss. Yawn....

 

[DoubleDeuce]

I think this young team is better for having played this game. For me that is the bottom line.

 

[Brick]

I take a lot of positives from this game. First we now have an inside game. Been sadly lacking for past couple of years. We never quit and as this team matured I think we might be pretty good. Still lots of work to do on defense to be sure. AND just to happy to hoist up threes with a hand in the face.

 

[MadBird]

I only watched the second half. Have to admit, altho it seemed to be slipping away from us the whole half, we made up some ground and held our own and had a chance, but couldn't close. Chalk it up to young guys on the road. That said . . . .

The stats tell the story -- 5-23 from 3 point range (22%), 10-21 from the line (48%), out rebounded by 10. The good news, only 11 TO's.

Our guards have a tendency to chuck, as always. How Coach Dan every year has this situation I'll never understand.

The big guy looked pretty damn good to me. Some toughness we have needed for quite a while. 15 and 9 is okay.with

There's a lot to like with this team. There's some decent "raw" material. They're young, and mix in Kotov and Mahorcic, new. Discipline. Purpose. Toughness. If Coach Dan could get that stuff out of his guts and glom it onto this team, they'd be somewhere.

 

[WoodlandWarrior]

I’d like to think that we’re better than the 9th place projection in the Valley, but we are giving up a lot of points. That has to change.

 

[redbirdron1]

Not a bad outing and should Dusan be able to bring that effort on most nights, we've got a key piece to the puzzle.

Next - will someone from the threesome of HS, Abdou and Chatman bring a consistent contribution. After seeing Dusan -
gotta think this collection of guys playing the 4 (blue collar) role must bring it. Maybe we have someone there who emerges???

Where does Washington fit - he's a tweener. Gotta develop into a slashing 3 and put minute pressure on one of the 3 guards who start.
And Fleming too - I'd hope that Howie and Washington can be the guys to bring something if the 3 guards are bombing and missing like
yesterday.

 

[Redbird Alum 2004]

Not a bad outing and should Dusan be able to bring that effort on most nights, we've got a key piece to the puzzle.

Next - will someone from the threesome of HS, Abdou and Chatman bring a consistent contribution. After seeing Dusan -
gotta think this collection of guys playing the 4 (blue collar) role must bring it. Maybe we have someone there who emerges???

Where does Washington fit - he's a tweener. Gotta develop into a slashing 3 and put minute pressure on one of the 3 guards who start.
And Fleming too - I'd hope that Howie and Washington can be the guys to bring something if the 3 guards are bombing and missing like
yesterday.

What about having Fisher play the 4? Ah that would have been a good front court. Chatman has the talent to be that guy but We shall see. Sissoko has a very high motor but I think he needs to keep his emotions in check some. I was really liking when we went 4 guards around Dusan. All about which freshman starts to emerge first. Last year we all thought it was going to be Reeves and then Horne just blew up.

 

[BIGfan]

Horne missing target

 

[DoubleDeuce]

What about having Fisher play the 4?

In the words of Coach Norman Dale, "I would hope you would support who we are. Not, who we are not."

I know what you are saying, but we play the hand we are dealt. I'm more concerned that Dusan's attitude on the court is contagious.

 

[CB2K]

If this team could establish an inside presence on both sides of the ball then this team would improve dramatically. Learning defense and to be consistent at it may be the most difficult thing to learn as an underclassmen. I watched the game again and there's just too many missed defensive assignments leading to easy baskets, layups, and fouls. Defense is a grind but committing and executing will put a grind on the opponent's offense. This is the area where I thought DM would excel on all his teams which he has shown on some of them. The PLee junior/senior years were a testimony to that. I hope this team buys in to this philosophy like they did. This team has a nice lot of young players and is deeper than previous years -- hope DM raises them right to be tough-defensive minded stalwarts. They did not shoot well and the Racers shot very well but the Redbirds still kept fighting -- nice to see on a young team. They seem hungry to me.

 

[DWRedbird]

I’d like to think that we’re better than the 9th place projection in the Valley, but we are giving up a lot of points. That has to change.

I'd agree with this. I'm not sure we are are a 9th place team in the Valley, but man we are going to have a lot of trouble if we don't start improving defensively. I think a lot of this is inexperienced defense. Guys rely a lot on athleticism early on in their careers as they are used to be one of the best guys on the floor night in and night out in HS. If the staff can get them past relying on that, they could very well surprise some folks. To help with that, I'd utilize the athleticism and press/trap a little more defensively. Make the other team use it's energy and waste clock. We seem to do the best when we get the opposing team to start rushing.

Other thoughts

The Good:

- Dusan had a really good ISU debut. I think he is the post player that we have been hoping for, for awhile. Good instincts offensively, and he actually did fairly well on the block as they game went on, defensively. If he stays this consistent, it will do wonders for the team.
- The frosh all did well, and it was fun to watch them. I think this is a pretty good recruiting class.
- We appear to be rebounding the ball better this year, than we had last year, that's a good sign.

The Bad:

- FTs. The whole team should be shooting 1000 of them a day until we black this out of our memory. If we make 70% of them, I think we may win the game.
- Got to get the carelessness offensively under control. The sloppy passes our killing us.
- Still need to figure out the offense. The random portion of the game where we do nothing but stay outside of the lane and chuck jumpers has to end. Pretty much kills us every time.

 

[RedbirdSoxFan]

I'd agree with this. I'm not sure we are are a 9th place team in the Valley, but man we are going to have a lot of trouble if we don't start improving defensively. I think a lot of this is inexperienced defense. Guys rely a lot on athleticism early on in their careers as they are used to be one of the best guys on the floor night in and night out in HS. If the staff can get them past relying on that, they could very well surprise some folks. To help with that, I'd utilize the athleticism and press/trap a little more defensively. Make the other team use it's energy and waste clock. We seem to do the best when we get the opposing team to start rushing.

Other thoughts

The Good:

- Dusan had a really good ISU debut. I think he is the post player that we have been hoping for, for awhile. Good instincts offensively, and he actually did fairly well on the block as they game went on, defensively. If he stays this consistent, it will do wonders for the team.
- The frosh all did well, and it was fun to watch them. I think this is a pretty good recruiting class.
- We appear to be rebounding the ball better this year, than we had last year, that's a good sign.

The Bad:

- FTs. The whole team should be shooting 1000 of them a day until we black this out of our memory. If we make 70% of them, I think we may win the game.
- Got to get the carelessness offensively under control. The sloppy passes our killing us.
- Still need to figure out the offense. The random portion of the game where we do nothing but stay outside of the lane and chuck jumpers has to end. Pretty much kills us every time.

Much of the 3-pt shots seem to come when Dusan was on the bench. No inside game results in long bombs. Need to keep him in the game at least 32 minutes. If he can stay healthy and out of foul trouble, I could see the Birds as high as a 5th place finish (possibly 4th)!

 

[Redbird Alum 2004]

In the words of Coach Norman Dale, "I would hope you would support who we are. Not, who we are not."

I know what you are saying, but we play the hand we are dealt. I'm more concerned that Dusan's attitude on the court is contagious.

I actually think the hand we were dealt is going to do wonders for player development. These frosh and sophs are going to be good. Going forward defenses are going to collapse on Dusan which will only help the young guards

 

[Metamoron]

A couple other comments.

We can get shots besides 3s if we do things like screen away from the ball and back cut. Unfortunately that has not been part of any offense Dan has ever ran. So we ball screen and ball screen and dribble and dribble then go into chuck mode. I was specifically watching for screens away from the ball for a while and there were several (5ish) trips in a row where it didn’t happen.

Having said that I was happy that I think three times we scored on possession right after a time out. And guess what, most of them were due to something away from the ball. So hopefully that becomes part of the offensive sets.

We gave up several offensive rebounds because we had people trying to block shots that never should have been trying. Leaving their man wide open to get the rebound and easy put back

All in all, this is still a young team gaining experience playing against a decent team who plays very well at home.
We just need the coaching staff to keep getting them to improve.

 

[bombay]

Encouraging group of young players.

 

[CaliRdBrd]

If this team could establish an inside presence on both sides of the ball then this team would improve dramatically. Learning defense and to be consistent at it may be the most difficult thing to learn as an underclassmen. I watched the game again and there's just too many missed defensive assignments leading to easy baskets, layups, and fouls. Defense is a grind but committing and executing will put a grind on the opponent's offense. This is the area where I thought DM would excel on all his teams which he has shown on some of them. The PLee junior/senior years were a testimony to that. I hope this team buys in to this philosophy like they did. This team has a nice lot of young players and is deeper than previous years -- hope DM raises them right to be tough-defensive minded stalwarts. They did not shoot well and the Racers shot very well but the Redbirds still kept fighting -- nice to see on a young team. They seem hungry to me.

The fact that this defense has never consistently (mostly never) played hard-nosed defense under Muller is the reason he should have been gone years ago.

 

[stats]

The fact that this defense has never consistently (mostly never) played hard-nosed defense under Muller is the reason he should have been gone years ago.

The 17-1 team with Paris Lee and Tony Wills was built on defense. It started with pressure on the ball. The line-ups were pretty consistent and players knew how to play together. I felt it was our identity that year. Good team defense goes way farther than just the players working hard. Even though mixing up defenses and line-ups on a game to game basis may be good strategic moves, I feel hurts us in the long-run. Our guys worked pretty hard yesterday, but with no pressure on the ball you can pretty much count on the fact that our opponents gets to do what they want offensively.

 

[Bird Friend]

Having said that I was happy that I think three times we scored on possession right after a time out. And guess what, most of them were due to something away from the ball. So hopefully that becomes part of the offensive sets.

Might not hurt for Dan or one of the assistants to make a little comment that they don't have to wait for Dan to draw up one of those designed plays . . . They can work just as well when the kids decide to do it themselves every now and then.

 

[Brick]

Susan made a couple of really nice passes in back door cuts too!