Horns vs Zags

The Duke game gave us gold standard game film to analyze - let’s hope Shaka and co. spent a few hours today watching the tape.

Zags bring the the 8th ranked scoring offense to what will effectively be a home court game. They have a seasoned crew of guys (some of them holdovers from last years MNC runner up team). Texas brings the 14th ranked FG% D and 10th ranked 3PT% D (33rd ppg). Zags are big down low but play aggressively and will get in foul trouble early.

From what I’m reading about the Zags 2OT loss to Florida, our game was the undercard. Florida is better this year than last years Elite 8 team after adding Rice transfer/sharp shooter Koulechov. 10am PST is an early tip. We have our work cut out for us again, let’s hope we have the stuff to get it done tomorrow.

 

^^^Good post tx. This game will likely be as tough as Duke. The Zags are really good. And they are experienced in big games. Very tournament savvy. If the young Horns win it will be a really good sign for this team. I would be very pleasantly surprised if the Horns wind up on top. It will take a great shooting game to win.

By the way, does anyone know how we missed on the Rice transfer, Koulechov?? His terrific outside shot would have filled an enormous need that is the Achilles heel of this team.

 

Zags killing us with their shooting. We have no jump shooters. And we're turning it over. Zags have scored 18 in a row.

 

21 in a row

 

23 in a row with a foul. And Eric Davis is totally overmatched. Our worst game of the season. Out of synch. Defensive failures. poor movement, no motion on offense.

 

24 in a row

 

Finally!! Roach hits a three. Horns force a turnover. then blow it with a missed three.

 

10 turnovers. Absolutely atrocious Basketball.

 

Horns look confused, lost on offense.

 

This is painful.

 

Yes, Pain! A total beat down. Zags cut hard to the hoop, play more team ball. And are making threes.

I'm a fan of Shaka; but the Horns seem so confused on offense. Why?

 

Finally some HAVOC. And some scoring!!! Coleman has stepped up in this game.

 

Holy **** the Horns stepped up big time with the full court prsss and some smart baskets...kept it alive - another OT.

 

And then they completely **** the bed in OT. Again. Oh well.

 

This years teamn looks pretty damn good

 

3 games in 4 days on the road vs Elite 8 caliber tournament teams was a good test for us. We still have a lot of work to do.

 

End of regulation

 

Because really we don't have any skilled offensive players that I can see. We have one semi-skilled player that thinks he's Stephan Curry, but in reality he's not even JCovan Brown. Even Labamba is a big disappointment so far. He may be a great physical specimen, but I don't see basketball skills even on the same planet as what I saw from KD at the same point. I'm seeing someone more like Prince Ibeh.

I'll certainly give this team and A for effort today, but all the turnovers due to carelessness is very disheartenting. It simply results in the same thing as the FB team, coulda shoulda but in the end it results in a loss when the offense can't bail you out. They certainly never gave up though and I love the effort. I'm just not sure how far this team can go with no offensive playmakers.

 

RunP, I feel your pain. Horns were able to pressure the Zags in the second half, which is how the Horns fought back to tie the game.

But once in OT, like with Duke, they cannot run a half court offense. If we can't run a half court offense much better--hard cuts to the hole; hard rolls on pick and rolls, better drives to the hoops and dishes, occasional ally oops (there were none in this game, and we have arguably the easiest guy in college ball to ally oop to). I don't get the ineptitude of our half court failures.

This seems to be a constant with Shaka: we play great defense, we pressure the ball well, we score off of turnovers.

But against quality teams who can handle pressure and don't turn it over, we are going to have problems. I sure hope Shaka can fix it. The B12 has many teams who can deal with pressure.

 

I really thought Bamba would be more of a plug and play option for us. At this point, I’d absolutely honestly rather see Banks, Sims or even Hamm in the game more to give Osetkowski better post help. Bamba is a complete liability with the ball. His boards are typically easy grabs (he can’t and doesn’t battle for balls) and he doesn’t target as many blocks as he could because he’s out of position alot. He’s obviously a physical specimen but he doesn’t look remotely ready for the NBA.

 

From what I’m reading, he was only recruited by Florida, Oklahoma and Iowa St. He was looking specifically at a team that had a shot at a title run. Being that he played HS ball in Florida, and he wanted to end up back there, I guess Gators were the best fit for him. Not sure why we weren’t talking to him because he would have been an awesome get. Maybe because he only had one year of eligibility and Shaka didn’t have the ship?

 

Can someone please explain to me why we abandoned the press in OT. It was the very thing that got us back into the game. The Zags were rattled, so why didn't we keep the pressure on?
As said before, we aren't a great half-court team ... but we have great athletes and a deep bench. So, it seems like a recipe for Shaka's chaos. Let Dylan harass the inbound and create double teams. Let our guards fly around and create turnovers. Then have Bamba on the back-end to keep our opponents from easy baskets when thing break down. Jericho can spell Dylan; Banks spell Bamba. Then, rotate the guards through to keep the pressure on.
Our offense needs fast-break lay-ups and transition 3s, rather than sloppy half-court plays.