Since I'm usually called one or the other, depending on who I am arguing with, here we go:

1. The ugly truth is that this loss will most likely come back to bite us on selection Sunday. Ever since the 2006 season, my personal belief for Memphis is that we can't lose to non-tournament teams when we play in a one bid league. If you do that, then you can't complain when the committee sticks you with a 8-12 seed.

This Xavier squad is most likely a non-tournament team, barring some super-duper late season run.

2. It seems like our squad was buying in to their own hype coming into this game, just like the VCU game and just like the SLU game. They let a less talented A-10 squad impose their will on us for the first half. I give them credit for coming out to play in the second half, but by that time, it's almost too late.

I put this on the coaching staff as well as the veteran leaders of this team. Come ready to play from tip to whistle, and come ready to play likes it's the conference tourney finals, every game.

3. All in all, I can't really fault individual players in this loss, aside from Shaq Goodwin. If Shaq is going to be the "bad boy", getting T'd up and jawing at opposing crowds, then he needs to make sure he doesn't get out-rebounded by a depleted frontline of runts and D2 transfers. Collectively, our front court is better than they showed in the first half of that game. Shaq can give more consistent effort than he did last night.

4. The FTs were unfortunate, but sometimes they don't fall. We're not a bad FT shooting team overall this season.

5. With all the semi-negative out of the way, take a second to think about the perfect storm of events that culminated in our loss last night:
- By my count, we missed at least 6 points off of 3 missed layups/dunks.
- We had the rebound in our hands, with the chance to tie off of a missed Xavier FT and we lost it out of bounds off of DJ/Crawford.
- Crawford had a wide open look from 3 with seconds left, and we couldn't connect.

I may be a homer, but I think if we play that game in Cincy 9 more times, the Tigers win 7 of those games.

5. All in all, this is not the end of the line. Florida lost on the road to UT last night; it's not the end of the line for Florida. Memphis has to refocus, continue the sweep of C-USA and hope for the best on Selection Sunday. The real purpose of the season isn't to win as many regular season games as possible, it's to perform in March. This loss doesn't change our ability to do that. Just don't let Xavier beat you twice.

Fair report for sure. I think Shaq getting 2 fouls early seemed totally throw our gameplan out of whack. As soon as he went out Tarik came in and looked like a deer in the headlights and then they just punished Deej with bigger stronger guys. Jason Smith brought up a good point too that all year we had been fronting the post and for some reason in the first half we didn't at all. That's when they just starting backing Deej down or just blowing by Tarik. I love Ferro's energy but he didn't really provide much of anything at all last night. I did think Damien came in a played pretty well though.

(02-27-2013 09:31 AM)MemphisCanes Wrote:  Since I'm usually called one or the other, depending on who I am arguing with, here we go:

1. The ugly truth is that this loss will most likely come back to bite us on selection Sunday. Ever since the 2006 season, my personal belief for Memphis is that we can't lose to non-tournament teams when we play in a one bid league. If you do that, then you can't complain when the committee sticks you with a 8-12 seed.

Only because of the lack of quality wins. If we win this game, it doesn't really pump us up any except continuing a streak of beating non-NCAA tourney quality teams.

Quote:2. It seems like our squad was buying in to their own hype coming into this game, just like the VCU game and just like the SLU game. They let a less talented A-10 squad impose their will on us for the first half. I give them credit for coming out to play in the second half, but by that time, it's almost too late.

This is my real concern. Did the coaching staff including Josh Pastner properly prepare the team for this showcase game? We have better talent that Xavier. Were we prepared for anything Xavier would throw at us? Xavier has beaten Butler and Temple, and almost beat VCU. Why would Xavier be rattled by us?

Quote:I put this on the coaching staff as well as the veteran leaders of this team. Come ready to play from tip to whistle, and come ready to play likes it's the conference tourney finals, every game.

I agree with this. The clawed themselves back into position to win the game, and really shouldn't have lost. But they looked sloppy, unorganized, and undisciplined during much of the game.

Quote:3. All in all, I can't really fault individual players in this loss, aside from Shaq Goodwin. If Shaq is going to be the "bad boy", getting T'd up and jawing at opposing crowds, then he needs to make sure he doesn't get out-rebounded by a depleted frontline of runts and D2 transfers. Collectively, our front court is better than they showed in the first half of that game. Shaq can give more consistent effort than he did last night.

Getting out muscled early is on all of the front-court players, but our frontcourt guys have been not been playing to their full abilities for several years.

Quote:4. The FTs were unfortunate, but sometimes they don't fall. We're not a bad FT shooting team overall this season.

I cannot remember the last time I saw a team shoot that far below 50% on FT. But the misses were by the guys who got to the line the most, Tarik and DJ. Everyone else hit their few free throws.

Quote:5. With all the semi-negative out of the way, take a second to think about the perfect storm of events that culminated in our loss last night:
- By my count, we missed at least 6 points off of 3 missed layups/dunks.
- We had the rebound in our hands, with the chance to tie off of a missed Xavier FT and we lost it out of bounds off of DJ/Crawford.
- Crawford had a wide open look from 3 with seconds left, and we couldn't connect.

The perfect storm was a squandered first half. Xavier slugged and the Tigers were lethargic. Xavier has inferior talent than Memphis. Xavier gunked up the works in the first half and our team did not know what to do.

Quote:5. All in all, this is not the end of the line. Florida lost on the road to UT last night; it's not the end of the line for Florida. Memphis has to refocus, continue the sweep of C-USA and hope for the best on Selection Sunday. The real purpose of the season isn't to win as many regular season games as possible, it's to perform in March. This loss doesn't change our ability to do that. Just don't let Xavier beat you twice.

We would have had to do that even if we beat that team barely in the RPI 100.

Like I said, if we play that game 9 more times in Cincy, Memphis wins 7 of them.

Our guys got punched in the mouth in the first half for sure, but it took a quirky FT shooting night, multiple missed layups, a miss at a wide open three, etc. for Xavier to get the win.

My advice is don't get so high after a win, and don't get so low after a loss. The latter goes doubly for you Lattileon. Life is not that bad, rap game Eeyore.

The worst thing about this and why it was so important because going from a 4/5 seed to a 8/9 is a really huge difference. We had many of opportunities to pull ahead and everything was going against us.
After everything that happened, if CC would have hit that wide open 3 in the corner, we would be singing a different tune.

Still it's certainly not the end of the line but the main problem with that is that Indiana and Florida have both beaten good quality teams several times this season, and when you do that it is perfectly acceptable to have a off night now and again especially on the road. It happens to everyone.

(02-27-2013 10:27 AM)HiTiger Wrote:  The worst thing about this and why it was so important because going from a 4/5 seed to a 8/9 is a really huge difference. We had many of opportunities to pull ahead and everything was going against us.
After everything that happened, if CC would have hit that wide open 3 in the corner, we would be singing a different tune.

Still it's certainly not the end of the line but the main problem with that is that Indiana and Florida have both beaten good quality teams several times this season, and when you do that it is perfectly acceptable to have a off night now and again especially on the road. It happens to everyone.

A major point often overlooked in the hurry to somehow favorably compare us losing to those guys losing

Fair points, but I predict for this thread:

I'm a sunshine pumper and I thought that the loss was a disaster; but for very different reasons than the miserables. It wasn't a big game against a good team. It was a Tuesday night game against a very mediocre opponent that was shorthanded. We played poorly in every phase of the game. It was a pure stinker having nothing to do with our opponent being very good; the game being a big game, or the game being on a particularly big stage.

It was pure suckage against a bad team, and it is going to sink us from a 5-6 seed to an 8-9 seed.

(02-27-2013 10:27 AM)HiTiger Wrote:  The worst thing about this and why it was so important because going from a 4/5 seed to a 8/9 is a really huge difference. We had many of opportunities to pull ahead and everything was going against us.
After everything that happened, if CC would have hit that wide open 3 in the corner, we would be singing a different tune.

Still it's certainly not the end of the line but the main problem with that is that Indiana and Florida have both beaten good quality teams several times this season, and when you do that it is perfectly acceptable to have a off night now and again especially on the road. It happens to everyone.

We knew this back on December 16th though; nothing but landmines ahead until the C-USA tournament. The best case scenario is that we avoid all of them. Our margin for error is non-existent, fair or not.

But like Florida or Indiana, a loss on the road like this to a desperate team doesn't change what Indiana or Florida is capable of in March.

I don't think Xavier has inferior talent.

Go ask DJ and Tarik if they think Xavier has inferior talent. They got owned in the first half.

(02-27-2013 01:21 PM)mapdude Wrote:  I don't think Xavier has inferior talent.

Go ask DJ and Tarik if they think Xavier has inferior talent. They got owned in the first half.

I would guess DJ and Tarik would both admit that Memphis has talent far superior to Xavier, but they didn't come to play in the first half.

Xavier is not a talented team, they just out-gritted us.

(02-27-2013 10:35 AM)dan o Wrote:  

(02-27-2013 10:27 AM)HiTiger Wrote:  The worst thing about this and why it was so important because going from a 4/5 seed to a 8/9 is a really huge difference. We had many of opportunities to pull ahead and everything was going against us.
After everything that happened, if CC would have hit that wide open 3 in the corner, we would be singing a different tune.

Still it's certainly not the end of the line but the main problem with that is that Indiana and Florida have both beaten good quality teams several times this season, and when you do that it is perfectly acceptable to have a off night now and again especially on the road. It happens to everyone.

A major point often overlooked in the hurry to somehow favorably compare us losing to those guys losing

A major point often overlooked in the hurry to somehow unfavorably compare us to other teams

(02-27-2013 09:31 AM)MemphisCanes Wrote:  3. All in all, I can't really fault individual players in this loss, aside from Shaq Goodwin. If Shaq is going to be the "bad boy", getting T'd up and jawing at opposing crowds, then he needs to make sure he doesn't get out-rebounded by a depleted frontline of runts and D2 transfers. Collectively, our front court is better than they showed in the first half of that game. Shaq can give more consistent effort than he did last night.

- We had the rebound in our hands, with the chance to tie off of a missed Xavier FT and we lost it out of bounds off of DJ/Crawford.

I agree with most of your points, but to these two:

Shaq hardly got to play in the first half bc he was stuck with a bogus first foul (that gave him two quick ones)

He was grabbing the ball when the Xavier player fell on his butt, with no contact from Shaq on anything but the ball. (should have been a tie up or a travel, but no way was it a foul).

He had to go out of the game when he got what should have been his first foul, and when he was back in he was having to protect against #3.

Call it bad luck but it wasn't anything he did wrong and it had a big impact on the game



As for DJ and CC I know you werent criticizing them but the only reason that play went screwy was because DJ was shoved... hard