Just an ugly 20 minutes of supposed basketball. As usual a slow start and Owls down 7-0 before scoring. That’s followed by a 2 pt game until Mullins goes on a tear and Rice goes up 10 with about 5 min left in the half. Then Rice doesn’t score until a FT with 3 seconds left and take a 1 pt l ad at the half.
Same old problems we have seen all year. Pera needs to play Mullins and Moore in the backcourt for the bulk of the minutes. They are the only 2 who can create and score.
Not surprised at slow start after finals but at 30-20 they should have increased that to 15 or more at the half but instead went into their tentative offenoplay and failing to play tighter on the 3 pt shooters.
4 layups and a 3 for St Ed’s to start the 2nd. No one is ants to shoot except Aiko and Williams. Mullins back in and instantly drives and scores.
45-44 Owls 15:46 to go
We are playing so much more tentative than at the start of the year.
Good thing the weight of finals is off of them so we can focus on basketball!
If we had played like this vs UH we would have been beaten by 40.
Well, looks like we'll pull this one out
Rather unimpressive win. ummm, make that extremely unimpressive
(12-13-2018 02:06 PM)owlatheart Wrote: [ -> ]Rather unimpressive win. ummm, make that extremely unimpressive
The good- Mullins
The bad-Everyone and everything else.
Note:Williams did make two big plays in the final seconds. Defensively down low forced a bad shot and then had a great tip in on a Mullins drive.
At least we won. Don't think we'll be seeing many more of those the rest of the year
A couple of interesting observations from this game. Agree with Tiki Owl that Mullins was a very positive contributor. There were a few other people/events worth mentioning. Jack Williams decided to show up offensively in the 2nd half, although he still got beat on the base line defensively several times during the game. You could see it in his eyes and body language. He was not going to quit without a fight. During several of the timeouts, you could see Robert Martin acting as a leader and talking to his fellow players while the coaches were huddling during the time outs. I would have thought this would be the role of Parrish, Williams or Adams, but it was Robert who commanded their attention. Payton Moore is earning more and more playing time as well. He played well defensively at times but showed consistent high energy. I hate to say it but Drew Peterson did not play well again. He seems to have lost some of his confidence and attitude on the court. Drew may not be responding well to the grind of college hoops and the tough love that the coaching staff shows when he makes mistakes. He really needs to have a good game to regain some of that early season swagger. Rice's offensive adjustments at half time forced the ball in the lane much more than in the first half, (with the guards all driving to the bucket) ended up being the right formula to beat St. Edwards. It was also great to see a key steal and solid defensive possession being the difference maker in the game. St Edwards is 9-1 and beat UTSA out of the gate this year, but this should not have been a contest. The Owls were stronger and faster but played sloppy defense and St. Edwards was pretty well coached, at least offensively. Rice getting 21 points from the free throw line (21-26) and the Hilltoppers only shot 8 times from the charity stripe.
First game I've seen in person since the opener. Offensive flow in the half court much improved, but we continue to miss gimme baskets down low with regularity (Mullins appears to be the only guy on the team who can finish), and we missed a ton of wide open jumper. The most frustrating part of our offense is that Mullins is the only one who aggressively looks for his shot. Everyone else get the pass and immediately looks to pass the ball rather than see if they have the shot themselves.
Turning to defense, ugh. Not much more to say. It was non-existent. Embarrassingly bad. Wide open jumpers time and time again. And opposing teams drive on us with ease, oftentimes resulting in uncontested layups.
Mullin saved the day-- both offensively and defensively (his steal and layup all but sealed the deal), and I thought Martin played his heart out. Adams also played well, IMO.
Nearly as rare as an Owl win ... a Parliament thread with the final score.
(12-13-2018 06:16 PM)Almadenmike Wrote: [ -> ]Nearly as rare as an Owl win ... a Parliament thread with the final score.
Nyuk nyuk. 78-73 Owls.
I agree thought - score updates are helpful. Parliament is a relatively low bandwidth site, which means I can follow here vs elsewhere when the inflight wifi is terrible.
Mullins needs to start over Peterson. The slow starts at the beginning of halves is a bad pattern. But more than that, I think we aren't fast enough with Peterson, Williams and QMB all in the lineup at the same time.
Hopefully we'll start playing better soon. In addition to the win over UTSA, St. Edward's also hung tough with SFA on the road.
Well the last 5 games haven’t been pretty... but some positives.
We’re 4-6... at this point I thought 5-5 or 6-4 was the best we could do so if we get the ship righted things aren’t too bad.
Robert Martin has really made big strides since his first 2 years both in gameplay and it appears leadership.
Mullins has really emerged as a scorer. He was a D1 defender when he stepped onto the court game 1 but he seems to have realized he can drive on college players just like in HS. Reminds be of Hunter figuring it out last season but Chris has done it much quicker.
Moore seems to be finding his shot a little bit and is solid on defense.
FTs were much better today.
QMB has shown touch inside that we haven’t had in 6+ years. Solid footwork but still very young.
To round out the freshmen... Peterson and Murphy have shown they can score just need to be more consistent with their shot but more importantly on defense.
Looking ahead for the rest of ooc...
UCSB- L. Their best player is supposed to be back Saturday. 7-2 without him so I think we’d have to play our best game of the season to win.
UTRGV- I want to say W but I think a close L.
Omaha- W, their schedule hasn’t been impressive.
In conference... 4 wins before “bonus play”. 4 wins after.
13 win season is better than most people predicted on here.