Back from the SUU game

[Tony (admin)]

Well that was a strange game. We were half asleep defensively it seems. The lane was wide open and we didn’t fill it. I’m a bit surprised how unprepared we seemed to be. Zero fast break points. I guess that’s because SUU shot so well, which is also surprising.

Anyway, we got the win and have some work to do. If we play like that Monday we will be 1-1 on the season.

Taylor was getting pretty mad/frustrated and started forcing it more and more as the game wore on. With a couple minutes left I found myself secretly wanting him to miss his last shot or two so he would score NO points in the game. I figure he’ll be mega-hot in some other game. He took one more three and missed badly, but not as bad as the one that got stuck between the rim and the backboard. LOL.

[RedLine]

Just got back from the game too. Don’t know what to think about that game. In the second half I wondered if Utes were playing vanilla tonight but haven’t ever heard of good bball teams playing vanilla against easier competition. The other thought I had was that maybe SUU was better than expected. Not sure if either is thought is true. Quick turn around to next game. I think K3 will have plenty to work on with the team, but not much time until our next game which will be a big physical game. Go Utes!

[Staples]

Easy to overreact after the first game. Saw some good things and saw some bad things. Offensively our starters looked great and that’s taking into account the fact Taylor and Wright didn’t hit a shot. Poeltl, Kuzma, and Loveridge all had monster games, which is what should happen against a smaller team. And even though Taylor and Wright shot horribly tonight, those were good shots with a couple of exceptions. They won’t miss that many every night. Think about it: we scored 81 on a night that our starting back court went 0-16.

Defensively the first half was worrisome. Some of it was Southern Utah shooting lights out, but we gave them some easy looks too. In the second half there was a noticeable raising of the intensity level and while they still hit some shots, very few of them were uncontested. My worry all along was how much we would miss Delon on the defensive side of the court and tonight might have shown how much he did for us.

You do have to wonder if perhaps we have already been preparing for San Diego State with the short turnaround time and didn’t prepare quite as much for Southern Utah. Let’s hope that’s the case, because we’re not beating the Aztecs on Monday with that same effort.

[RedLine]

Agree with your thoughts. But if we were overlooking SUU in preparation for the Aztecs, I would have thought we’d see much more physical, defensive minded play. Like you said, don’t want to overreact to a game we won but going into the game I thought this would be a typical ‘pre-season’ warm up game. Was a lot more competitive than I would have liked.

I still have big hope for the name Wright. Can’t replace Delon, but I truly think Isaiah will be needed in a much greater role than he’s had to this point.

[Tony (admin)]

In the second half there was a noticeable raising of the intensity level

…probably because coach had a word or two with them on that at halftime.

In the post game they said the prepared the WHOLE week for SUU, so that throws out the not preparing for them theory.

I hope (and think) we’ll be more crisp and smarter on Monday. We’ll need to be.