In all seriousness, I did draw a significant conclusion from Sunday's loss: The Bearcats have to get better guard play to beat the elite teams in the Big East.
Villanova has two McDonald's All-American point guards who play at the same time in Corey Fisher and Maalik Wayns. Against Cincinnati, they combined for 36 points and 8 assists (7-for-16 shooting, 4-for-8 outside the arc). UC's starting backcourt of Cashmere Wright and Dion Dixon combined for15 points and 0 assists (3-for-17 shooting, 0-for-6 outside arc). Villanova puts as much defensive pressure on the ball as any team in the country and the Bearcats guards struggled to handle it.
"They do an unbelievable job - and TV doesn't do it justice - of taking you out of what you want to do on offense," Coach Cronin told me. "They speed your guards up and we never could get settled on offense. When we were tough enough to do it, we got the shots we wanted. But initially, when they took us out of our first option, Dion and Cashmere put their heads down and took off dribbling. That's when we got in trouble. You can't take the bait when you're being pressured. We have to be able to stay in our offense and make them guard us.
"In fairness to Cashmere, he's had issues with his shoulder and knee and has been pretty banged up. He really hasn't been himself since the St. Francis game (12/23) to be honest with you. It's at a point where he either needs to practice full-go or take a week off. He elected to practice on Monday and he's been trying to fight through it. He didn't really practice the day before the Villanova game because his knee was really sore and I think it affected his performance."
The stats back that up. Since leaving the St. Francis game early with a shoulder injury, Wright has gone 4-for-22 (18%) from the floor and 0-for-8 from 3-point range.
Another huge factor in the Villanova game was fouls . . . and please note that I didn't say bad officiating. Sure there were a few lousy calls, but the Bearcats took too long to adjust to the way the game was being officiated.
MORE....
http://www.gobearcats.com/blog/2011/01/my-brilliant-conclusion.html
Villanova has two McDonald's All-American point guards who play at the same time in Corey Fisher and Maalik Wayns. Against Cincinnati, they combined for 36 points and 8 assists (7-for-16 shooting, 4-for-8 outside the arc). UC's starting backcourt of Cashmere Wright and Dion Dixon combined for15 points and 0 assists (3-for-17 shooting, 0-for-6 outside arc). Villanova puts as much defensive pressure on the ball as any team in the country and the Bearcats guards struggled to handle it.
"They do an unbelievable job - and TV doesn't do it justice - of taking you out of what you want to do on offense," Coach Cronin told me. "They speed your guards up and we never could get settled on offense. When we were tough enough to do it, we got the shots we wanted. But initially, when they took us out of our first option, Dion and Cashmere put their heads down and took off dribbling. That's when we got in trouble. You can't take the bait when you're being pressured. We have to be able to stay in our offense and make them guard us.
"In fairness to Cashmere, he's had issues with his shoulder and knee and has been pretty banged up. He really hasn't been himself since the St. Francis game (12/23) to be honest with you. It's at a point where he either needs to practice full-go or take a week off. He elected to practice on Monday and he's been trying to fight through it. He didn't really practice the day before the Villanova game because his knee was really sore and I think it affected his performance."
The stats back that up. Since leaving the St. Francis game early with a shoulder injury, Wright has gone 4-for-22 (18%) from the floor and 0-for-8 from 3-point range.
Another huge factor in the Villanova game was fouls . . . and please note that I didn't say bad officiating. Sure there were a few lousy calls, but the Bearcats took too long to adjust to the way the game was being officiated.
MORE....
http://www.gobearcats.com/blog/2011/01/my-brilliant-conclusion.html
