Status of Ball State Game

[Globetrotter]

Brutal down the stretch. Fouling a 3 point shooter. Falling out of bounds. Failing to box our on a missed free throw. Man...bad loss. Yeah, both of those calls could've gone either way, but they didn't, and we didn't make any plays.

Real disappointment was that Gordon and Curtis had done well down the stretch up until those major gaffes.

He got fouled twice on the play he fell out of bounds. I have never seen a call that bad.

[Globetrotter]

That was the biggest rob job I have seen since we were at BSU in the 90's.

That was fu**ing criminal.

Ignore the fact that the referees were in love with Sparks all game long, I had a post in mind detailing 4 different plays that they called wrong that all benefited Sparks.

The end of that game was putrid. Complete phantom call on Curtis on the 3 pointer by Bumbalow gives them 4 points.

Then, they knee Gordon in the back of the thigh and knock him out of bounds and instead of free throws, they get the ball.

I am pretty sure the hand is considered part of the ball so that is not a foul.

It was nuts....and Huger did nothing!

[Globetrotter]

Huger what in the world happened to him today
1. Joe Reece played 14 minutes....our second best player played 14 minutes. The first half was fouls but the second half wasn't
2. Instead of Joe Reece-Chandler Turner was playing. He took 2 terrible shots at the end and didn't box out on a free throw that cost the game. I like Chandler Turner. I like Chandler Turner playing next to Joe Reece.
3. With 7 seconds left and I think 2 timeouts.....he doesn't call timeout and run a play.

[guest44]

Reece sat the entire first half and BG paid the price for it because he had 2 fouls. When BG needed a rebound in the final minute, Reece is on the bench with three fouls. Explain the logic? If the guy is so important you feel the need to sit him 15 minutes to prevent a 3rd foul in the first half, then he must be important enough to play at the end of the game. Huger had atleast 10 chances and two timeouts to insert him. Just didn’t. Not a single assistant sees this? At the end of the game with 2 timeouts, Huger had Plowden (who had left the game earlier after turning his ankle) as the biggest player on the court. Thankfully for all, Reece left Muncie with 2 fouls to take home, and Huger still has 2 timeouts to take home. Pathetic coaching a middle school coach could manage better.

[BPardonMyTake]

Brutal down the stretch. Fouling a 3 point shooter. Falling out of bounds. Failing to box our on a missed free throw. Man...bad loss. Yeah, both of those calls could've gone either way, but they didn't, and we didn't make any plays.

Real disappointment was that Gordon and Curtis had done well down the stretch up until those major gaffes.

He got fouled twice on the play he fell out of bounds. I have never seen a call that bad.

Gordon got absolutely trucked but plowden cannot be throwing it there leaving Gordon open to the easiest trap in basketball. At the same time, how did we not have 1 more guard helping to get the ball in? Wtf was diggs doing on that same inbounds play trying to seal off his defender not even moving ? Why is Gordon the only person trying to get the ball? Wtf sort of inbounds play is that in general where you literally just need to not turn it over? After already calling 1 timeout cause they couldn’t get the ball inbounds ! Remember that turnover somehow came after huger drew up an actual play!!!

The refs Were trash, that goaltending call was the worst thing I’ve ever seen. But if we’re pretending we lost cause of the refs then we have issues of our own. We should have beaten the brakes off this insanely average BSU team and instead we’re on here saying the refs took this game from us? Just because we are fans of a painfully frustrating basketball program doesn’t mean we need to play that card. And those 3 free throws bumbalough had late in the game were questionable, yes. But Samari HAS to give him space to come down after the jump shot.

Joe Reece is the best player we have right now and he’s on the bench watching chandler turner take his minutes in crunch time? Is there anyone on the planet who thought Joe Reece shouldn’t have been out there? Maybe BSU doesn’t get that offensive rebound off the missed free throw if that’s Reece and not turner trying to box out. Myron Gordon plays 4 minutes all game then coach decides he needs to be out there for the final 5 minutes? Samari with double digits in the first half then brenton mills takes majority of his minutes in the second? Chandler turner and brenton mills go 1-7 from the field and both get more run than Reece. Turner and Gordon are great pieces and two vital players if we’re going to compete, i like both of those players. But i can’t imagine there’s a soul on this board that agreed with Reece being locked out of this game at turner’s expense. In Gordon’s case, it just didn’t make sense. He plays 4 of the first 35 minutes then huger plays him cold off the bench to finish out a close game? What are we doing with these rotations?

And the grand finale of it all. I would love for someone to explain the final 10 Seconds! You know, the part where we had 2 timeouts and Curtis got the ball over Half court with plenty of time, CLEARLY LOOKING OVER TO THE BENCH WAITING FOR HUGER TO CALL ONE OF SAID TWO TIMEOUTS. Only to realize huger wanted no part of a logical timeout. So we inevitably throw up some garbage that has no chance and we lose. We lose after leading for 39 minutes of a 40 minute game.


I will say, it was great to watch diggs find his shot again. It’s been a long time since I’ve watched a game and assumed a 3 ball he launched was going to go in. That little back to the hoop fade away game plowden is working on was pretty tasty too last night. He hit some really tough shots. Team plays hard, we’re still fun to watch at times, but the ways we lose is starting to get old. Still early, still plenty of ball and i mean shoot, central went 1-10 OOC and beat Kent. Anything could happen, we just cannot afford to lose games where we are the better team. We were far and above the better team last night for most of the game.

[hammb]

I'm in agreement with you BPardon...

Yeah, the calls were awful, but there was zero reason to let it get to the point where those calls mattered. The foul on the 3 ball was ticky tack, but one replay looked like he might have gotten a piece of his hand on the follow through. Like it or not that gets called. And the dude bricked the 3rd FT, but we failed to box out. Which, if you were paying attention, Turner did the exact same thing on their PREVIOUS set of FTs, but the guy made the 2nd one. Why would you not have your best rebounder out there for that situation!?

Again, the inbounds play was a foul, but why the hell is the ball going to a lightly used guard on the sideline!?!?

Then on our final possession, we completely wasted it because our players didn't know that Huger wasn't going to call a timeout. As soon as they start looking over you should call the damned timeout anyhow because any "surprise" you might get has been squandered. The players clearly didn't know they weren't calling a timeout...

It's the same as it's always been. We're a poorly coached, if talented team. Eventually that catches up with you.

[Diemilkweed]

Anybody else kind of over Matheny? What does he bring aside from some nice hustle? After the first 10 games or so of his career, he has not been good.

Of our 5 rotations guards, I would put Curtis, Gordon and Fulcher above him in terms of positive impact on the floor. Mills cannot make a shot to save his life and does not get any assists. He drives and plays hard. So does Matheny. Neither of the m actually seem to contribute to winning at this point in time.

Hell at this point I would legit rather run 3 guards primarily, with Elsasser when we need a shooting boost.

In no particular order

40% FG, 36% 3pt. 3.75 assist to TO ratio. Rebounds like a wing.

37% FG, 18% 3pt, rebounds like an uninterested guard. 1:1 assist to TO ratio

30% FG, 20% 3pt, rebounds like a guard, 1.1 assist to TO

45% FG, 42% 3PT, rebounds like a solid wing, 1.7 assist to TO

41% FG, 46% 3pt, rebounds like a legit big, 1.7 assist to TO ratio

And a guy who can shoot the lights out but doesn't have enough time to show much else (4 steals in limited minutes is nice)

Which one starts every game?

[guest44]

Matheny like all our guards lack consistency. Some of that is injuries, a lot of it is rotations. I believe Fulcher might have the most upside of all of them, but he is usually stuck on the bench. Talk about a player who just got screwed on opportunity. He would have played 30 minutes for Ball St on Saturday, he played 4 for BGSU. Elsasser should not be on the court in a meaningful game ever. Those stats he racks up are mostly garbage time and it doesn’t matter.

[hammb]

Elsasser is absolutely garbage. He has no business on the team let alone on the floor. I don't care what his stats say. The only time he can be on the floor and not look lost is when we're playing a Huger special.

Our issues at guard are the same as ever. Matheny is a fine player. But Huger anoints him the best guard on the team and asks him to be Steph Curry. Go look at Turner's numbers. He was one of the best guards in BGSU history, but his stats were garbage because we asked him to do everything for everybody. Same thing we did with Dylan Frye, comes in as a freshman and shoots over 40% from 3 then never sees 37% again. Kid didn't forget how to shoot, they just asked him to make shots that were impossible to do with any efficiency.

We're seeing the same with Matheny. He's battled injuries for sure, but when he's on the court he's being tasked with finding shots for everybody else while also being asked to score at a high volume. And he's just not good enough for any of that right now, and isn't doing either.

I really like Matheny's game, but he looks completely discombobulated out there. Curtis is definitely playing better at this time, I'd give him some more PG mins and let Matheny play off the ball and make some catch and shoot looks. At this point if you want to play one of the other guys more and Matheny less I have no issues with it, but anybody that has watched this coach and program for the last 5 years should just know going in that whoever plays the most mins is going to see their efficiency go down. Part of this is also the fact that Huger loves combo guards then asks them to play like point guards. He's done a far better job getting guard talent in here than his predecessor(s), but we never have that guy that can actually orchestrate an offense (of course we don't have an offensive identity anyhow...)

On the whole our guard position sucks for the exact reasons I feared it would going into the season. You cannot play 5 guards for 15+ mins per game and expect any sort of efficiency/chemistry to develop. Huger just cycles through them hoping to figure out who's hot that particular game, they never play with the same people. Then you get the end of the ball state game where Curtis & Gordon had been your best 2, but neither have been asked to play in crunch time yet and they both make big mistakes to cost you the game.