Originally Posted by
tommy
First of all, thanks for the breakdown of the first few minutes of the second half, CDu. I noted at the time in the in-game thread that the first four minute segment of the second half last night was the single worst segment of the entire year for this team, and I believe that to be true. Your breakdown only solidifies that opinion.
But why would that be? Even if Mark can't box out his man because he's going for a block, the OTHER guys still need to be boxing out, and they're not. That is why FSU had so many guys crowded around the offensive board playing volleyball in there, or otherwise just beating us to boards. It was the other guys not boxing out their assignments that was killing us, and I don't have an excuse or a reason for that.
I agree with the last of these three assertions, not sure about the second -- sometimes we do, sometimes we don't, but I don't agree with the first. We had I believe a 14 point second half lead on the road against OSU and their physicality, and stormed back in the second half to take the lead against FSU and their physicality only to lose a one point decision. Had one ball bounced another way and we had gotten the win, our outlook would be pretty different, I think. There were obviously stretches of last night's game where we didn't deal well with their physicality, but there were also stretches where we controlled that game -- primarily the last stretches of both halves.
Bottom line for me is that yes, the obvious culprits last night were allowing way too many offensive rebounds, making too many sloppy turnovers, and not getting the ball to our best offensive player for ridiculously long stretches of time. But it took them making an extremely difficult driving layup to send the game to OT, much like it took Miami's Moore throwing in a lucky shot late that allowed them to have a chance, and we ended up losing both games by a point having had a last possession chance to win it. The sky is not falling (and I know you're not at all one saying it is). Two very tough losses by one point, including one to a big physical team in a very hostile environment. No panic here at all. Things to work on. But no panic. We still have an excellent chance at a very high seed in the tournament, and I think we'll get one.