Aggies are an odd group, but always fun to watch a game with. Even when it was very apparent we weren't going to win tonight, many of them had an Auburn-esque pessimistic attitude, which made me laugh. Hayden Hefner played at the same school as me and I coached against him for four years, in addition to being friends with his dad so it was pretty cool to watch him play on his senior night. On to the game...
We didn't stay in front of the ball tonight and, when we did enough to force bad shots, we didn't close out possessions with defensive rebounds. Phelps, Taylor, and even Garcia with his pump fake got into the lane tonight and hurt us. As to the rebounding, both bigs were low energy tonight and our guards weren't much better. Johni is a positional rebounder that ball watched instead of working to the backside tonight. Dylan rebounds with athleticism and physicality and just didnt tonight. Chaney got pushed around. The only guy who rebounded above his norm was Jahki Howard. Our guards did not do a great job of blocking out their man and never rotated to block out the help man when they got beat. Great effort and physicality can sometimes negate poor execution. We had neither on the defensive end today at Reed Arena.
Our offense was choppy and disjointed tonight. Part of that is because Tahaad played so many minutes at the 1. It will be overshadowed by his fantastic shooting in this one, but he just doesn't run offense as fluidly as Denver. CBM was a positive as a facilitator and shooter, but not a lot of other bright spots. Credit to the A&M defense, but we did not get the ball to Broome in the right spots enough. He also needs to fight for and hold position on the block. He didnt get enough touches and the ones he got were too far out. He has to be tougher. Good game plan by Buzz to sit in the soft press all night. It didn't turn us over, but bled off 10 seconds every possession before we got into offense and really slowed the game down. Denver Jones is a huge piece for us and everything in all three phases looked off kilter without him. He'd have taken some points off the board for them and added some for us. Doesn't matter, though, as he was unavailable. A&M threw numbers at the glass and we never pushed the ball to make them pay. We left points out there by not taking advantage of this and running more.
The emotional swings after games are always exaggerated. Are we soft? Is Broome overrated? Do other teams have our offense figured out? The answer is a resounding no, but these things might have been true today. After 30 games, we are 27-3 and are the best team in the country most of the time. We are simply not invincible. Saturday is a tough one and you'll see a response to tonight's effort. It will be fun to watch.
We didn't stay in front of the ball tonight and, when we did enough to force bad shots, we didn't close out possessions with defensive rebounds. Phelps, Taylor, and even Garcia with his pump fake got into the lane tonight and hurt us. As to the rebounding, both bigs were low energy tonight and our guards weren't much better. Johni is a positional rebounder that ball watched instead of working to the backside tonight. Dylan rebounds with athleticism and physicality and just didnt tonight. Chaney got pushed around. The only guy who rebounded above his norm was Jahki Howard. Our guards did not do a great job of blocking out their man and never rotated to block out the help man when they got beat. Great effort and physicality can sometimes negate poor execution. We had neither on the defensive end today at Reed Arena.
Our offense was choppy and disjointed tonight. Part of that is because Tahaad played so many minutes at the 1. It will be overshadowed by his fantastic shooting in this one, but he just doesn't run offense as fluidly as Denver. CBM was a positive as a facilitator and shooter, but not a lot of other bright spots. Credit to the A&M defense, but we did not get the ball to Broome in the right spots enough. He also needs to fight for and hold position on the block. He didnt get enough touches and the ones he got were too far out. He has to be tougher. Good game plan by Buzz to sit in the soft press all night. It didn't turn us over, but bled off 10 seconds every possession before we got into offense and really slowed the game down. Denver Jones is a huge piece for us and everything in all three phases looked off kilter without him. He'd have taken some points off the board for them and added some for us. Doesn't matter, though, as he was unavailable. A&M threw numbers at the glass and we never pushed the ball to make them pay. We left points out there by not taking advantage of this and running more.
The emotional swings after games are always exaggerated. Are we soft? Is Broome overrated? Do other teams have our offense figured out? The answer is a resounding no, but these things might have been true today. After 30 games, we are 27-3 and are the best team in the country most of the time. We are simply not invincible. Saturday is a tough one and you'll see a response to tonight's effort. It will be fun to watch.
