I haven't kept up much w/ Tulsa basketball this season. I know you guys always have good players and a good coach. Always tough to win on the road, especially against a good squad. Saw you just scored 60 in the first half against Tulane........what should Southern Miss players (and fans) expect in Sunday's game??

(01-10-2014 09:48 AM)TTT Wrote:  I haven't kept up much w/ Tulsa basketball this season. I know you guys always have good players and a good coach. Always tough to win on the road, especially against a good squad. Saw you just scored 60 in the first half against Tulane........what should Southern Miss players (and fans) expect in Sunday's game??

We might be missing our 2nd leading scorer. He's out with (probable) concussion and wasn't at the thursday night game probably to limit light exposure.

Player for player we stack up very well with most teams athletically with the advantage usually falling in our direction. It's lack of focus, missed FT's, and poor refereeing that have led to the majority of our losses.

I read another post saying USM likes to play a good deal of zone. That, and our performance against you last year, lead me to believe that we're going to give you some trouble. We definitely have shooters to bust zones when the 3 ball is falling and we have postmen to muscle man defenses while our perimeter guards slash.

The deciding factor in the game should be if we can limit easy assists and contest 3's from your 2 smaller pgs/sgs (Brooks & Watson???)

As far as what your fans can expect traveling... I think we're a nice enough bunch. We're cordial if you start up conversation. Tulsa's got some good stuff to offer (food especially) Hope we have a good game!

Going to be a tough place to win with Tyndall's zone defense. Going to have to be able to play man in certain situations at least to be any better than we are now. Opinion of course.

Having watched very little Tulsa basketball, I'd say the keys to your success on Sunday will be shooting the ball well from outside and rebounding at an even (or close to even) pace with the Eagles.

From USM's standpoint, we'll need to do a better job of limiting unforced turnovers and take advantage of our opportunities at the charity stripe.

(01-10-2014 11:46 AM)nastybunch Wrote:  Going to be a tough place to win with Tyndall's zone defense. Going to have to be able to okay man in certain situations at least to be any better than we are now. Opinion if course.

We won't play man. In a year and a half, I can't remember us starting a single half-court defensive possession in a man defense. We've occassionally switched mid-possession when the offense did certain things, but it's been rare. ECU hit 15 threes against us in Greenville last year, and we never switched out of the zone. Louisville hit 3 threes in their 1st 4 possessions and we never switched. Tyndall wants you taking long range shots. Most will be contested, but several a game will be wide open. There's always a chance that a team will have a good shooting night and it will come back to bite you, but DT bets on the zone being the best option over the long haul and with a 41-12 record after a year and a half, so far at least you'd have to say he's been getting it right a lot more than he's getting it wrong.

If we are satisfied with where we are, we stay with zone only. If we want to take the next step up, gotta be able to play man also..

To quote one of our former players who I was playing a pick up game the other day with...

I love carving up a good zone. It's better than Christmas Turkey.

(01-10-2014 02:07 PM)invisiblehand Wrote:  To quote one of our former players who I was playing a pick up game the other day with...

I love carving up a good zone. It's better than Christmas Turkey.

According to our coach he wants you to fire them up! Bombs away!

(01-10-2014 03:18 PM)nastybunch Wrote:  

(01-10-2014 02:07 PM)invisiblehand Wrote:  To quote one of our former players who I was playing a pick up game the other day with...

I love carving up a good zone. It's better than Christmas Turkey.

According to our coach he wants you to fire them up! Bombs away!

Looking at Tulsa's season stats and their biggest weakness appears to be rebounding. Getting out rebounded by almost 3 per game. We'll need to crash the boards and limit their 2nd chance points.

(01-10-2014 03:18 PM)nastybunch Wrote:  

(01-10-2014 02:07 PM)invisiblehand Wrote:  To quote one of our former players who I was playing a pick up game the other day with...

I love carving up a good zone. It's better than Christmas Turkey.

According to our coach he wants you to fire them up! Bombs away!

Haha it's going to be fun!

I expect USM to win, but won't be shocked at all if Tulsa pulls the upset.

If Tulsa can come out and fire it from the out side like we did against Tulane I say stay in zone the entire game ;-) for USM. Only problem with that though is Tulsa is still a very young team. More experienced than last year but still very young. That means we see a lot of inconsistency from the players. They can light up a team one game then not show up the next. They should know by now though that USM is one of the teams they need to show up against for sure. If they hope to have a chance in the conference tourny.

I don't know what the discussion is with USM playing/not playing a zone. I would venture to say you could count on one hand how many times DT has had a defense play man in his head coaching career.

When executed correctly, it's a very physical/tough defense to play an entire game against.

Sometimes an opponent will play a good game against USM. It happens to every team. Doesn't mean you should abandon your identity. You just tip your cap to the other team. Don't really see anyone discuss if Jim Boeheim (sp) should play man when a team is hot from the three, nor Pitino.

USM's last two head coaches have both been diffense oriented, but in completely different ways (outside of the rebounding aspect). Eustachy's defense was more "ugly" to watch, but it was effective. Part of that was he didn't really have the talent and he just got great effort from everyone....very tough teams. Couldn't do much offensively, but they were a scrappy man-to-man defense.

(01-11-2014 02:51 AM)southernmiss4ever Wrote:  I don't know what the discussion is with USM playing/not playing a zone. I would venture to say you could count on one hand how many times DT has had a defense play man in his head coaching career.

When executed correctly, it's a very physical/tough defense to play an entire game against.

Sometimes an opponent will play a good game against USM. It happens to every team. Doesn't mean you should abandon your identity. You just tip your cap to the other team. Don't really see anyone discuss if Jim Boeheim (sp) should play man when a team is hot from the three, nor Pitino.

USM's last two head coaches have both been diffense oriented, but in completely different ways (outside of the rebounding aspect). Eustachy's defense was more "ugly" to watch, but it was effective. Part of that was he didn't really have the talent and he just got great effort from everyone....very tough teams. Couldn't do much offensively, but they were a scrappy man-to-man defense.

I actually agree with all of you USM guys. I do like zone a bit better than man. I'm just sayin' the only way to beat a zone is to either get the ball in low position and work on drawing fouls from the other team, or shoot the other team out of it. With our FT shooting, I'd bet that we're not going for the former.

Here's a question, what has your team looked like against teams that like to change up defenses?

(01-10-2014 01:42 PM)nastybunch Wrote:  If we are satisfied with where we are, we stay with zone only. If we want to take the next step up, gotta be able to play man also..

I disagree. As long as the defense is played well it doesn't matter what you play. Plus, the matchup zone that we play is really a hybrid man-zone defense. The ball is covered as man (with the ball handler passed off to another player as he leaves that part of the court) and the rest of the court is zoned.

IMO, when it is played to perfection you can't do better than a matchup zone.

(01-11-2014 08:27 AM)Funslinger Wrote:  

(01-10-2014 01:42 PM)nastybunch Wrote:  If we are satisfied with where we are, we stay with zone only. If we want to take the next step up, gotta be able to play man also..

I disagree. As long as the defense is played well it doesn't matter what you play. Plus, the matchup zone that we play is really a hybrid man-zone defense. The ball is covered as man (with the ball handler passed off to another player as he leaves that part of the court) and the rest of the court is zoned.

IMO, when it is played to perfection you can't do better than a matchup zone.

Opposing coaches love it when a team that plays them has a one track mind, easier to practice and prepare for. By the way for another poster above, we don't have the players that Syracuse and Louisville have, so your example is apples to oranges.

With us having a one track mind, and I think our coach is very good by the way, Tulsa gets hot and kills us from three point land to squeak out a three point victory over us, only to go on the road their next game and gets beat by 15.....The history of youth. Certainly hope I am wrong, and if we are going to be in contention for an at large , if we do not win the tournament, we must win this game.

SMTTT. CUSA needs the top teams to win these games.

Considering our next game would be Charlotte... I could see that... but I hope that's not the case.

the game is being broadcast on fox sports 1, fwiw.