Some thoughts on last night's game

[orangeandbrown]

Somebody said recently that if you shoot well, you can stay in basketball games. That sort of told the story last night against Florida State, where red hot 3 point shooting from Martin Samarco, and then Steven Wright, kept us in the ball game, but eventually we were beaten when the shooting dried up and our fatigue and lack of rebounding caught up with us. (71-60).

A few points:

* We were outrebounded 43-25. Hopefully, that will get better in MAC play, but in the meantime, its an absolute disaster.
* Brian Moten played only a few minutes, but Coach says he will get more time.
* Steven Wright had 12 points, including some major 3s. He still shot poorly, but he's a much needed offensive force. With the poor play of Floyd and Robinson, he's going to have to play a lot more 1 than we wanted.
* Floyd played 32 minutes and only took two shots, something which was considered largely impossible earlier.
* FSU still shot 30 FTS to our 16. (And we missed half of our FTs, unusual for us.)
* Our fouls were down (23) and we only had 13 TOs, which is important.
* We still shot less than 40% for the game. Last time I looked, we were the worst shooting team in the MAC.
* We had only 3 points off the bench, and that came on a garbage 3 from Moten late in the game. Let that sink in for a few minutes.
* The T on Dakich certainly preceded the run that put us away. We had just scored to go up 3, but Coach thought Lefeld had been fouled and should have gotten "the harm" too. It preceeded an 11-3 run that set the tone for the final ten minutes. To be fair, the T happened with about 14 to go, and with just under 11 it was tied again, so I'm not sure it was as big a jolt as it appeared at the time.
* FSU started the game on a 12-0 run, and shot 56.5% in the second half. Combine that with the Fts and the boards, and you win the game, even when they don't take care of the ball (18 turnovers).

[OptionQB]

By my count Steve was 4-10 (all 3's on the makes) . . . So he didn't shoot all that poorly.

FT shooting and rebounding were horrible.

And yes the technical bit us hard down the stretch. We were tied at 46-46, but it was 43-40 when it happened and we were outscored 17-31 thereafter, so yes, it loomed quite large. Momentum completely changed and it seemed to zap whatever energy was left in the team as well.

Way too many 3s . . . Channel 13 had highlights of the game and Wright actually made a fadeaway 3 on one possession to show the offensive "patience" we had yesterday.

[BleedOrange]

Good stuff, ob. btw, the box score that I saw showed rebounds at 41-22. Matt only had 1 board in 26 minutes.

[San Diego Falcon]

* Our fouls were down (23) and we only had 13 TOs, which is important.

I find these two stats encouraging given FSU's quickness and propensity to make the other team turn the ball over.