I had high hopes, but it looks like a long year. Maybe the young players will get better.

Travel on Williams (should have been a foul) 20.4 left. Baker fouled shooting one and one for NIU. First good, second good. Game over.

69-64 NIU with 15.2 left

(01-12-2016 09:09 PM)NewMex RocketFan Wrote:  Travel on Williams (should have been a foul) 20.4 left. Baker fouled shooting one and one for NIU. First good, second good. Game over.

Williams should quit forcing everything. It gets old watching him drive to the basket and either miss Layups that lead to buckets on the other end or just flat out turn it over.

Credit Mark Montgomery with a very good coaching job tonight.

My gosh. Williams again. What on earth is he thinking out there

Three point shooting for the Rockets taken away by NIU. Williams called for a charge. 8.5 left. NIU scored the last six points and shooting one and one with 6.6 left. Make one,

FINAL 71-66 Huskies.

Just don't understand why Williams forces so much. He's out of control going to the basket way too much.

Tough loss. Disappointing to lose at home. Sanford and Navigato are shooters. Period. Let them shoot! They have looked less confident of late, and barely shoot when the game is tight. Meanwhile we expect Boothe and Jon Jon to do it all themselves. We won't get better until Sanford and Navi both shoot more than Mosley. This team wins with offense as our D is largely non-existent. Let the shooters shoot.

Won't win many when the bench produces so little on the offensive side of the ball. Wasted effort by Booth. Yes Williams needs to rein it in a bit and play in more control. If Jalen and Nate hit a few shots, we win by 10.

(01-12-2016 09:27 PM)emanoh Wrote:  Won't win many when the bench produces so little on the offensive side of the ball. Wasted effort by Booth. Yes Williams needs to rein it in a bit and play in more control. If Jalen and Nate hit a few shots, we win by 10.

Teams will be willing to give Boothe and Jon Jon a combined 50 every night until we get a consisten 3rd double-digit scorer AND a true 6th man. Sanford and Navigato could fill both of those roles but not when they either lack confidence OR when the offense isn't geared to get them shots--not sure if both factors are at play lately or just one. Yes--their D is not great, even for freshmen--but I seriously doubt that either was recruited for their D. How many shots did they take tonight? How many 3s? I get Mosley took more 3s tonight that the two of them combined. This team isn't going to win the MAC this season. Let the young guys really make the transition.

I also think the X factor is Rogers. In games like this one where Mosley is a non-factor offensively and doesn't run the offense well, we need Rogers to be more of a spark off the bench.

Game Friday against Akron us now a real gut test for the Rockets. Hope they respond well. 1-3 with 2 losses at home is a sizable hole to dig this early.

It's not the reason we lost - but those refs were HORRIBLE. For both teams.

A couple obvious examples - going into a media timeout in the 1st half, when both of the teams were in there huddles, one of the refs tried signaling to the other ref that NIU was shooting 1-1, when UT only had 3 team fouls! The other ref had to point out that it was NIU that had 7 fouls. Then, this same ref tried going to a media timeout early in the 2nd half. There was 8:17 left in the half when he signaled for a media TO while both teams were on the court. HOW DO YOU MESS THOSE THINGS UP???

(01-12-2016 09:48 PM)MidnightBlueGold Wrote:  It's not the reason we lost - but those refs were HORRIBLE. For both teams.

A couple obvious examples - going into a media timeout in the 1st half, when both of the teams were in there huddles, one of the refs tried signaling to the other ref that NIU was shooting 1-1, when UT only had 3 team fouls! The other ref had to point out that it was NIU that had 7 fouls. Then, this same ref tried going to a media timeout early in the 2nd half. There was 8:17 left in the half when he signaled for a media TO while both teams were on the court. HOW DO YOU MESS THOSE THINGS UP???

They also let Montgomery get away with far too much bullsh*t in my opinion. I almost thought Bobby Hurley was back in Savage. Spineless refs. They should have T'd him up at least once. And then, late in the game, with the ball in Northern's half of the court, when Coach K was BARELY on the floor and not even at half court, a ref pointed at him to back off...seriously? When Montgomery spent half the game on the floor, and near half court on several occasions? Bullsh*t.

I love watching Nathan Boothe. What a versatile game he has. I especially like that he didn't get discouraged by his slow start.

There seem to be a lot of evenly matched teams in the conference. NIU is now the only undefeated team after Akron lost to Central tonight. The Rockets have a couple of very good players but not a whole lot else. Needed more from Stuckey and Garber tonight.

What are your thoughts on which team had the better coach tonight and in the Oakland game?

After the first 3 or 4 minutes of the game when Booth missed his first 3 or 4 shots that are usually right on, he put on a real shooting exhibition from all over the court. Unfortunately in the last few possessions he did not get much opportunity for a shot and Williams tried unsuccessfully to take over the game and do too much.

I give NIU's sticky man-on-man defense credit for pretty much shutting down Sanford and Navigato's three point game. They are not at the point yet where they can create their own shot off the dribble so they depend on getting the ball with an open look and that did not happen tonight. Later on when they finally got a look or two, I think they may have rushed the shot or were surprised or something because they missed the very few 3-point attempts they got.

This was a game that could have gone either way but NIU prevailed and it is a tough loss for the Rockets to sustain on their home court----need to win the close ones at home. Oh well, just like football I suppose except I think NIU basketball is the real deal this year.

No real shame losing to NIU. Well coached with a couple real talents and more solid role players than we had tonight. I was more disappointed in Mosley than in the frosh. You're starting pg has GOT to be A leader, if not THE leader, and has to make plays. He didn't. Random comments: why doesn't Sanford get credit for blocked shots? For the third time this year he got a clean block, this time playing one-on-one defense on a fast break, and it doesn't show up in the box score? What happened to Williams in half two-he disappeared, then tried to force everything. Refs were really bad, although the foul discrepancy seemed reasonable: NIU was really hammering Boothe and had several silly fouls on other guys. On the other hand they were aggressive and we weren't. Is there a better player in the MAC at drawing offensive fouls than Lauf? If only he could score.

(01-12-2016 09:38 PM)bcunn3128 Wrote:  

(01-12-2016 09:27 PM)emanoh Wrote:  Won't win many when the bench produces so little on the offensive side of the ball. Wasted effort by Booth. Yes Williams needs to rein it in a bit and play in more control. If Jalen and Nate hit a few shots, we win by 10.

Teams will be willing to give Boothe and Jon Jon a combined 50 every night until we get a consisten 3rd double-digit scorer AND a true 6th man. Sanford and Navigato could fill both of those roles but not when they either lack confidence OR when the offense isn't geared to get them shots--not sure if both factors are at play lately or just one. Yes--their D is not great, even for freshmen--but I seriously doubt that either was recruited for their D. How many shots did they take tonight? How many 3s? I get Mosley took more 3s tonight that the two of them combined. This team isn't going to win the MAC this season. Let the young guys really make the transition.

I also think the X factor is Rogers. In games like this one where Mosley is a non-factor offensively and doesn't run the offense well, we need Rogers to be more of a spark off the bench.

Game Friday against Akron us now a real gut test for the Rockets. Hope they respond well. 1-3 with 2 losses at home is a sizable hole to dig this early.

On a number of mosleys 3 point attempts, if he would have made the extra pass instead it would have given an open look to Sanford or navigato.