Thursday's exhibition

[BleedOrange]

I'm excited to see Madlock and Knight. Coach Orr says that Madlock is our most athletic big man. In the team picture, he looks a little taller than Larson and Polk. We all have heard about Knight.

[factman]

Knight is the REAL deal!!! Joe J is also the REAL deal! We got up and down the floor, and practically wore me out watching, played some zone D, didn't shoot very well, and Madlock never saw the floor. There it is in a nutshell. Oh yea, we won by about 15 but really didn't score much.

[Falcon137]

So we played fast and didn't score? That doesnt sound good.

[transfer2BGSU]

Madlock saw some action at the tail end of the game.

Coach Orr is not so quiet on the sideline 8)

[hammb]

Give the kids time 137.

This is an obvious HUGE difference in style of play. They were definitely trying to push the ball after every defensive stop & rebound. It was a nice change of pace.

On offense we ran a few plays, did some good things off dribble penetration, but overall struggled mightily with our shots. Miller, especially, had a very tough night. Of course he shouldn't be shooting 5 three pointers either. OP didn't play much in the first half, but had a very good 2nd half.

The zone defense was nice to see, we were in zone almost the entire 2nd half. It was pretty effective too, for the most part.

Jakubowski is quick and had a couple real nice feeds off dribble penetration, something new.

Knight looked like the best player on the team. He must've had close to 20 points and 10 boards. He's the exact kind of 6'7 long athletic kid we've been missing for the past decade or so.

Yeah we didn't score much, but we had 21 points at the 10 minute mark of the first half. There were times when the running was flowing and we were getting good looks in the half court set. Then there were other stretches (finished that first half with only 25) where we couldn't get a look to save our lives. Basically the team is still a work in progress, but the system looks like it's a lot more uptempo & fun to watch than previous years. I do think there is some talent on this team, some of which should also fit this system. The first couple months are going to be a little rough, but the team should hopefully grow as the season goes on. Everybody has to remember that this system is like a complete 180* from what we've been doing the past 10 years, they're not going to just pick it up instantly overnight.

[Falconboy]

The game had some nice moments but overall we underachieved big time in this game that should've been a 20-25pt blowout. Wayne St had one guy over 6'4 and that was it, most being around 6'2 or so and a plethora of 5'10 and under guys.

I don't know what our pts in the paint were but it must've been atrocious. We frankly should've dominated in the paint and we didn't. I HOPE this is just us playing a new scheme for the first time vs a real opponent and all cuz we just didn't look all that great.

Having said that we have some players. Jacubowski is definitely a PG and should start. He looks closer to 6'3 to me , was long and rangy and handles the ball very well. A major upgrade athletically I'd say over what we've had not counting Hamblet. Clements started the game at PG and it didn't look good. Knight is the real deal , tons of athleticism , needs to work on not going for every pump fake but has tons of talent. I thing I liked about CK was that he has a nice inside game with a turnaround jumper. If he gets that going he'll be extremely hard to stop. He's also pretty good handles , something we've missed in someone his size.

Whoever said Polk found Ben Wallace's body greatly exaggerated. He does look a bit quicker than last year but not by much to really stand out to me. I was disappointed we couldn't get him the ball deep in the paint more cuz WSU had absolutely no one even near his size.

We need to work on passing though, too many passes tipped and stolen by smaller Wayne St defenders. Foul shooting was meh. Ryan Sims looked to have gotten even quicker than last year which was a surprise. Didn't get to see much from Dusan. Fouls were a bit too much, but these were CAA officials so take that FWIW.

Really tough to grade from this game how we'll be vs D1. opponents but we've got a lot of work to do. The O didn't look very polished , which is to be expected I guess. But we did show flashes of what could be a much smoother and electric offense that what we've seen over the DD years.

[Falcon137]

Give the kids time 137.

Sry hammb I wasn't trying to bash anyone, but that summary was so short I didn't know what to make of it.

[ZiggyZoomba]

Whoever said Polk found Ben Wallace's body greatly exaggerated. He does look a bit quicker than last year but not by much to really stand out to me. I was disappointed we couldn't get him the ball deep in the paint more cuz WSU had absolutely even near his size.

I said that about OP... obviously a bit of hyperbole, but he's still got the best basketball body in the MAC.

Did you stay till the end? There was a stretch where OP was pretty dominant in the paint in the mid to late second half.

Remember what exhibition games are folks... they're testing beds in front of a crowd. Coach was trying out lineups, trying out schemes... trying out trying out trying out... he's only had this team for a few months... a few WEEKS of real practice time.

I'm worried about Marschal...

[Falconboy]

Whoever said Polk found Ben Wallace's body greatly exaggerated. He does look a bit quicker than last year but not by much to really stand out to me. I was disappointed we couldn't get him the ball deep in the paint more cuz WSU had absolutely even near his size.

I said that about OP... obviously a bit of hyperbole, but he's still got the best basketball body in the MAC.

Did you stay till the end? There was a stretch where OP was pretty dominant in the paint in the mid to late second half.

Remember what exhibition games are folks... they're testing beds in front of a crowd. Coach was trying out lineups, trying out schemes... trying out trying out trying out... he's only had this team for a few months... a few WEEKS of real practice time.

I'm worried about Marschal...

Most of Polk's pts in the 2nd half were garbage put backs but whatever. Yeah, I must remind myself that this is a new scheme and it'll take a while to completely gel, I just had a little bit of a buzzkill when I saw how small Wayne St. was and thinking that we should've been scoring easier at least in the paint that we did. Anyway I'm not alarmed or anything.

You mentioned the subbing or the lineup experiments. I don't know if that style of subbing is what we're gonna be expecting from Orr or not but it might keep guys fresher some in the long run.

Yeah, this season will take a lot of patience indeed.

[BGGrad01]

I'm worried about Marschal...

For those of us that couldn't get to BG, could you explain? No playing time? Ineffective? Hurt? In the limited number of times that I have seen us play in the last couple seasons, I have been impressed with Erik's offensive abilities. I was hoping he would have a breakout year with OP in the frontcourt.

[Falconboy]

I'm worried about Marschal...

For those of us that couldn't get to BG, could you explain? No playing time? Ineffective? Hurt? In the limited number of times that I have seen us play in the last couple seasons, I have been impressed with Erik's offensive abilities. I was hoping he would have a breakout year with OP in the frontcourt.

Marschall was in street clothes. I still have no idea why. He definitely didn't look injured.

[The Niz]

Marschall wasn't even in uniform tonight. I couldn't tell if he was hurt, suspended, or otherwise.

[jmillerbg]

Here is the white uniform the team wore tongiht - looks good to me.

http://sentinel-tribune.com/default.asp ... d=&rebath=

[Falcon137]

Here is the white uniform the team wore tongiht - looks good to me.

http://sentinel-tribune.com/default.asp ... d=&rebath=

Like 'em a lot thanks for the post. For somone at the game what was the attendance like?

[BGSU33]

First thing is first, it’s always good to get a win. I don’t care what sport it’s in or if it’s an exhibition contest or a conference championship game, I always want to see a BG victory.

That said, two things jumped out right away to me about this game, and Orr touched on one of them in his post-game comments. The 19 turnovers we had are way too many. I know this was our first game and that we’re getting used to new sets, schemes and player rotations and all. But considering we were playing a D-II school at home, it’s was a lot. Second, our free throw shooting – or lack there of. We were 7-for-18 from the line. I mean, we only shot 41% from the floor for the game which was poor, but less than 39% from the line? There’s a reason these shots are called “free” throws. That’s almost inexcusable because you can practice free throws anywhere, anytime. We’ve gotta hit our charity tosses, especially when we went 5-14 in the second half. Heck, the fans we pull out of the crowd for halftime contests that can barely dribble a ball let alone shoot one can likely hit 1-4 from the line. Same thing from Wayne State, they were 8-21. Did Dakich install smaller rims at Anderson Arena before he left?

Also, I didn't see the game and I'm not calling him out, but I was disappointed to see Polk was strapped with 4 fouls in 16 minutes. Foul trouble was a big problem for him last year and I don't know if any came on moving screens tonight like he picked up time and time again last year? But we'd be better off having him camp in the lane with his arms straight up in the air than picking up foul after foul and being forced to sit on the bench this year again. We need him on the floor.

Again, I don’t mean to harp on an exhibition game, but you can learn some valuable things about a team from playing in one or two early on, and those are areas we can certainly improve in.