No doubt everyone is disappointed in how this season has played out. Considering all the expectations of this team coming into the season, but just maybe the bracket God’s may have shined some hope on us.
We could all talk about what we saw in some negative light but the reality is despite what a lot of people who thought we would see and early and quick exit from this year tournament might want to take a look at the just who is in line for us to play.
Starting off Wednesday at 7 pm PT against San Jose is like pick at low hanging fruit. San Jose isn’t just the bottom dweller of the conference they only have 1 conference win so I certainly see this game as an opportunity to gain some confidence for what will be a quick turnaround for a 6pm PT start to round 2 against Nevada. Hopefully the boys can find that killer instinct and put San Jose away early allowing for some rest. I just don’t see the guys dropping a game to San Jose and if they do I will join the cascade of call for coach’s head.
Nevada is a streaky team with a couple of guys who can shoot, in some ways they remind me of La Salle not big and not overtly fast but streak shooters. Plus Nevada is a team we know certainly spotting them a large lead at home didn’t help us but in the same way we took them down at their place pretty well and a year ago we blew them off the court. What this team has struggled with all year has been in my opinion not slow starts but lazy starts playing over confident not worrying about what the other team is doing to them believing full well they have the ability to get it back.
That’s all well in good in the regular season having confidence in your play but come tourney time this is a whole other ball game this is sudden death and certainly there have been time this season when faced with sudden death come backs they have done it while other times when blowing leads late in the second half they have shown that same lazy play. With their backs against the wall and there being no tomorrow this team with all it’s experience and skill can make it happen if they can just do 3 things.
1. Go for the throat against San Jose early and often and develop a killer instinct.
2. Play even consistent ball to start against Nevada and make a couple big runs while not surrendering any to them.
3. Develop new habits in these first two games of playing constantly from the start and executing a killer instinct.
If they do that then I have no doubts we see a game 3 against NM and there is a team we have beaten once this year already
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The Key to beating Nevada is putting a lid on Burton he is their spark everything flows through him. Burton leads that team in assist, steels and points. To do that I would put Mikey Thompson on him like a glove. Mikey is fast a foot and I would pinch his passing lanes. On defensive side of the ball for him I would run him ragged whoever he man’s up with I would work to screen and block him deep into the shot clock. Run him off one pick after another with the goal of just physically draining him and maybe even picking up a couple cheap fouls. UNLV’s big mistake last night was the fact they got away from doing just that as they built their second half 17 point lead, so when he finally got under control he had his legs with him to hit all those 3’s to lead the comeback. I would also institute the Pistons Jordon rules. Burton likes to go hard to the hole just as much as shooting 3’s so I would have Nick Duncan and Thomas Bropleh and anyone else whose name are not Drmic, Marks and Watkins go hard to the hole with the full intention of not allowing him a single easy layup.
Coach should be ready to help out as well so if Burton starts to get some kind of flow going call a time out get him out of the fire zone and cooled down some. My plan would be all ball possession with each time down the court the first half of the shot clock would be devoted to making Burton run and run some more all the while getting chipped. Once have made him fight through a couple pick and do a few laps then settle down and run a play to get that high percentage shot.
No matter what the score by the time you get down to those last critical 7-8 minutes in the second half after running Ali on him he will be like George Forman nothing left to shot with. Burton is your mark you don’t give him time to breathe let alone think an you will have this game and then and only then can we talk about next steps and NM.
I’ve watch a lot of MW Basketball this year and I will say it is the most underrated conference there is in college basketball. None of us expected to be this god this year but make no doubt it is. Frankly all the preseason expectations we right about this team and they certainly end up running into much stiffer competition then they expected in conference this year but now is the time to prove that all the competition made this team an even better team than we thought it was going to be but here we are boys 4 games to turn it all around with I for one know you can do, see it and take it!
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