Well, this LSU team indeed did go "toe to toe" with a solid UConn team, as it did with a solid Ohio St and W Virginia team as well. IF--big if--LSU goes at least 10-6 in conference, they should get a reasonable seeding, thanks to a better than last year's RPI (or, at least, one would think it to be a good RPI). IN other words, they better start hanging Ws on the wall in conference play, as moral victories don't mean squat to the NCAA selection committee if you only have, say, 15 wins come late February.
reading between the lines, id bet katz thinks these losses will carry more weight than 20-point blow out wins against directional teams. on the last play---- i was disappointed that dmitch took a 3. i guess its a good shot because he got a good look and he's THE shooter. if he passes it, it could be deflected or fumbled, and, by the way uconn played the second half, blocked. how much bitching would there be if dmitch had passed it to tt for a 15 foot jumper only to have it go off his knee. btw, he took the shot with 3 sec left not 6 or 7. for this team to exceed expectations tmitch must start asserting himself a bit on O. opponents will put an athletic G with 6 inches on dmitch and double (or triple) team GD to keep them in check. teams that know how to block out will keep TT from getting much. more points need to come from somewhere---and temple and voogd will not shoot the ball. this game was a good example of brady's capabilities as coach. continually got great shots against one hell of a defensive team. LSU would have won easily if the freshmen werent so timid. keep GD for two years and this will be a very good team (better than 00).
I think our basketball team is a very good and solid team and i like how we stay in the game against these good and high ranked teams. I dont like how we have pretty much been leading in every game we've lost at some point in the second half. I hope that we can start finishing games stronger and stop making these mistakes that cost us in the end...
To the play the devil's advocate here... (and I'll give you some credit since you were there). With 7.4 seconds to take it the length of the court, Darrell Mitchell (the Tigers' lone senior, a shooting guard who leads (or close to it) the Tigers and the SEC in three point shooting percentage) has the ball in his hand, dribbles the length of the court and launches a wide open pull up three. He had been the Tigers leading scorer with 21 points, and had been hitting his shots. He has also won games on similar shots before. I'm pretty sure if you go back and take a look at the tape, he was wide open, and there was maybe 2 seconds or less left on the clock. Hard to say whether there was enough time to pass the ball to Glen Davis or Tasmin for a post up shot. You can second guess whether he could have driven the ball for a closer shot or dump off, but when your 5'11" PG drives into the lane, you may not get a better open shot. Here's where having another dependable outside shooter might have helped, so D.Mitch could have brought the ball up, drew defenders and kicked it to an open jumpshooter. But, we don't have that, so D.Mitch took the shot. I wasn't upset with D.Mitch on the last play. I was more upset that he missed his first free throw out of 3 which would have tied the game, and I was more upset with G.Temple, who is supposed to be one of our better perimeter defenders (and he is), ticky tack fouling UConn on a three pointer with us up by 2 with less than 2 minutes to go. Good article by Katz though. Pretty close to right on, and much better than the article buzzed about on this board some week ago after the Ohio State loss. I'm going to have to give my Kudos to Katz....
Brady's quest for Shooters Not to leave Brady unscathed after this article, I will say that I'm a little annoyed that Brady chooses to talk about how he wished he had another outside shooter... 1. I'm somewhat retracting on my position initially on Ross Neltner. I was one of the folks that said his loss might not really be felt. But that was assuming that Tack was playing and Tasmin would be playing slightly better. I'm annoyed b/c this team desparately needs someone who can stick a 15 footer to 3 pointer when the big guys are doubled, and Ross actually could shoot a 3 (not sure how good of a mid range player he really was, but as a junior he could have helped this team). This isn't a complete cow-tow to the Brady bashers, because it still would have been a lot of "forwards" to split PT on this squad, but I do think now Ross Nelter would have been helpful to this team, especially if Lazare doesn't start playing better. That said, Ross is a big boy, and he made his own decision and it's not completely Brady's fault. I'm not sure Vanderbilt is a better option for him, b/c if he had stayed, I believe he would be getting a lot of key PT as a SF splitting time with Tasmin or having Tasmin shift to SG. We won't know for sure until the end of the season... after the Vanderbilt game and after we see if Vandy or LSU are NCAA bound. 2. If Brady's acknowledging this lack of shooters, DAMN, recruit and sign one! Of course, I know Butch and Brady are not idiots and they have been trying to, but we've lost out on Shane Foster, Zeno, T. Martin, DJ, Ryan Francis, Oliver Lafayette, etc., in the last few years. I'm also annoyed that in our last year's #6 ranked signing class, we sign 4 forwards (one of them, Kentrell, probably should have not gotten a schollie) and one PG. I'm of the mindset that Brady and Butch have to sign someone in April (A GUARD) even if he's someone that has to "grow" a little into a good player--let's see what real recruiting talent these guys have. Can they find someone who has a decent shot, a pretty good athlete, with some upside (they tried this with Alex Farrer last year... the jury's still out on that one)? According to DD today, Brady and Butch ARE looking to sign a guard... probably a PG, which I'm fine with, if the kid can shoot... :geauxtige Still a lot of ball to be played this season... P.S. Should Chris Johnson (who actually has an ok outside shot and is 6'11") start to see some PT?
It's always easy to second guess, but I was yelling at the tv for dmitch to take it all the way to the rim. I believe he had more than enough time to do so. There is a chance the shot may have been blocked, but often times you see defenders back off in these last second situations to avoid the foul. I'd like to see a replay to see how much time was left on the clock when he shot it. But either way, we had the right guy with the ball.
I was saying the same thing...they either back off and let him in or he draws the foul...either way I think he should have driven the lane.
3 sec. +/- a few tenths. that leaves time to make a move and/or a pass,but with offensive rebounding being a team strength, you probably want the shot to be taken with no less than 3 sec. the ball took a hard bounce off the rim preventing a quick put-back. neltner would have been a major contributor. tasmin would be getting a lot less pt, unless at the 2. its very possible that with him lsu would be undefeated, because he would be adding a few points that lsu isnt getting now. anytime you hear a players father start bitching about pt its bad news. i'd bet his dad hated brady for giving neltner too little pt and kept harping on him to transfer.
