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Left at halftime to take the kids to festival of lights as the weather was great. Good decision by me.

2 true road games, two terrible performances. Desperately need to get the game at Wichita

Well, we just got out a$$es handed to us by a team that's lost to Wagner, Maryland Eastern Shore and to mighty Penn by 20.

The Wes show is starting to leave a rash.

(01-01-2023 07:14 PM)Bear Catlett Wrote:  Well, we just got out a$$es handed to us by a team that's lost to Wagner, Maryland Eastern Shore and to mighty Penn by 20.

The Wes show is starting to leave a rash.

They also beat Villanova and Rutgers (19 kenpom). They are a weird team that is wildly inconsistent.

But yea, horrible performance. Two true road games this year, both were disasters.

This team still needs to visit the Wizard for heart, brains and courage on the road. Way to crash the boards.

I caught only the second half. I thought they battled pretty well for the first 10 minutes or so out of the half. Rebounding was atrocious though, and when they kept giving up second-chance points they seemed to stop running the offense, took bad shots, and just blew it. Winning on the road in conference is hard. Frustrating showing.

(01-01-2023 05:03 PM)DownOnRohs Wrote:  We are a mediocre AAC team. PLAY THE YOUNG GUNS

The UC bench scored a grand total of 2 points on 1-9 shooting. The “young guns” are young for sure but there’s a reason they are on the bench.

Outrebounded 46 to 28? Gracious.

(01-01-2023 10:05 PM)levydl Wrote:  Outrebounded 46 to 28? Gracious.

It was really bad. Particularly when vik was out of the game with foul trouble.

(01-01-2023 09:55 PM)vabearcat Wrote:  

(01-01-2023 05:03 PM)DownOnRohs Wrote:  We are a mediocre AAC team. PLAY THE YOUNG GUNS

The UC bench scored a grand total of 2 points on 1-9 shooting. The “young guns” are young for sure but there’s a reason they are on the bench.

The idea that playing overmatched freshmen a bunch of minutes so that they will somehow get better while getting run out of the gym seems pretty unfounded to me.

Dedicated to Rath...

This is a NIT team at best...like most on here said....I'm not saying that as an attack on the coaches or current players, but we had a team last year with obvious deficiencies, and we didn't do much to change that. The effort has been good, and the offense has certainly been improved in regards to ball movement and general motion, but they are still lacking talent.

I was concerned by this team being overloaded with guards. It definitely is showing now. Coach Miller needs to re-evaluate his recruiting strategy especially when we start playing in the Big 12 next season.
Our 6'7 guards aren't really hitting the boards to help with this. Next year could be about as bad as it was for West Virginia in their first year or so in that league. We are less prepared with the current roster.

(01-01-2023 10:08 PM)levydl Wrote:  

(01-01-2023 09:55 PM)vabearcat Wrote:  

(01-01-2023 05:03 PM)DownOnRohs Wrote:  We are a mediocre AAC team. PLAY THE YOUNG GUNS

The UC bench scored a grand total of 2 points on 1-9 shooting. The “young guns” are young for sure but there’s a reason they are on the bench.

The idea that playing overmatched freshmen a bunch of minutes so that they will somehow get better while getting run out of the gym seems pretty unfounded to me.

Do they get any better sitting on the bench while getting run out of the gym?

I don't think Skillings and Reed look overmatched. At least no more overmatched than watching Davenport try to defend. Reed got 13 minutes which is more than I thought. Hensley only 4 mins. I predict those to increase dramatically starting Feb 1.

I admit it would be silly to play them a ton at this point in the season, I just think that's where we're headed and I'm frustrated by it. It feels like it's only a matter of time before this thing goes down the tubes and Nolley, Dejulius, and Davenport start playing for themselves. I hope for everyone's sake I am wrong.

(01-01-2023 03:16 PM)BearcatMan Wrote:  Forgot how horrible it is watching games at Temple on TV...good lord I can't wait to not have to deal with this bush league conference anymore.

Not just the camera angle either; the arena floor just doesn't seem properly illuminated along the perimeters for TV. And those Temple fans dressed as empty seats don't bring much energy either.

Watching it, I sat there annotating my AAC farewell tour checklist. Just as with the Temple football game in November, I can now check this one off--last time ever having to play at Temple.

The team had covered 7 straight games before the true road game. They had shown signs of playing good ball. Failing so miserably on the road is disappointing. They really need to get the Wichita game this week.

It's not so much the losing - we are getting used to it. It's how they lose games like these.

I'm tired of watching guys that only want to shoot and don't want to defend or rebound. I'm tired of watching guys that think they can do it all and don't pass the ball.

I'm tired of long stretches of no scoring where the offense looks no better than a bunch of guys in the gym or on the playground instead of a team that is supposed to have been coached.

If I were Miller - I'd tell some of these guys - if you don't want to rebound then you are not going to play. Have a seat and stay there unless you can convince me otherwise.

There was one play where Temple missed a shot and one Temple player was in the middle of 3 or 4 UC players under the basket. None of them jumped and the lone Temple player easily grabbed the rebound. I think some of them think rebounding is just being lucky enough to be in the right position and have the ball bounce to where they are standing.

Lahkin has missed numerous shots the past two games right around the basket. Ones that he'd been making in recent weeks. Had just a few of those dropped in it might have changed the Bearcats' overall performance before the roof caved in late. DD also is missing shots now that he had been making in recent games. If those two aren't hitting at a reasonable rate, this group is hard pressed to overcome that. JD? What we see is what we get at this point. And Skillings just seemed too amped up playing in front of family and friends on ESPN, to deliver some of the great "off the bench" work he's displayed in past weeks.

It's a work in progress and the progress isn't happening very fast. They need some road wins in the AAC to accomplish improved results over last year and some hope for next year.

(01-02-2023 08:59 AM)bearcatfan Wrote:  If I were Miller - I'd tell some of these guys - if you don't want to rebound then you are not going to play. Have a seat and stay there unless you can convince me otherwise.

The two guys who most need to hear that message are Davenport and Nolley. Miller seems unwilling to send the message. Miller is making it pretty clear that despite what he says, he cares more about offense than defense/rebounding. Which is fine if it leads to wins, but he needs to get more out of these guys to get wins. It's doesn't help that his press and run philosophy requires good defense to get the offense started.

This is about the same time last year when the book started to get passed around about how to play UC. Hopefully it's not a replay at double the salary.

I understand the limitations of this roster and god help be there are a couple of the Brannen guys I hope do not take the Covid year here next year but I still never see anything from this staff that even vaguely resembles changing things up to prepare for a game let alone changing things ip to react to what is going on during a game. Our playbook is 1 page long.

I said before the season we'd be better offensively just due to Nolly when he was on but same guy syndrome would mean we would be about the same overall as last year.

(01-02-2023 10:03 AM)rath v2.0 Wrote:  This is about the same time last year when the book started to get passed around about how to play UC. Hopefully it's not a replay at double the salary.

Part of that book seems to be ramping up the physical play vs. Vik, and causing him to get into foul trouble or tweak his balance enough to make him miss.