Nova Game Thoughts

[Thegreatone]

1. They played better and I think they are the better team.
2. We shot really poorly today. 2-20 from three I think. 15-25 from the FT line.
3. We never ever quit. They played very hard the entire game.
4. A couple tough calls against the cats pushed the Nova lead from about 8 to 15 or 16.
5. Corey Fischer went nuts and hit a lot of shots that he usually doesn't hit.

When you put that team on the line nearly 30 some times your gonna have a tough time winning. We fouled a lot and got a couple of calls that didn't go our way. When we played basketball we are were every bit as good.

 

[JeromyM]

First half killed us. We just didn't play very well in the first half, and the refs weren't doing us any favors. The second half we kept fighting but just couldn't get over the hump. Larry didn't come to play, Bishop shot too many 3's, and Nova did a good job of keeping Gates out of the paint. How often is Dixon, Davis, and Bishop have bad games? Because of the Pollsters who hate us, we'll probably fall out of the top 25 now.

 

[TheLivingLegend]

Single handedly the worst first half officiating I have ever seen... The second half was better. Nova still shoots 35 free throws.

We shoot the three decent this is a different game. 2-20 is so piss poor its not even funny. 10 freakin percent. what a joke.

Larry shoots 1-2 and has shot very well from deep all year. get the man some shots.

 

[Thegreatone]

You can't give up 28 points from the FT line.

 

[bearcat18]

I don't know of many teams that would have beat Nova today with the way they shot in the first half. When Fisher and Wayns are shooting like that, good luck.

I didn't think the officiating was bad until Yancy picked up his second foul on a VERY questionable call. The thing I didn't like about the refs is they would call a ticky tack foul on us (foul on Gates), then our next trip down Dion got fouled 3 times, and there was no call. Same thing closer to the end of the game when it looked like Jackson got shoved and they proceeded to call a foul on Cash. Way too inconsistent.

Love the way they fought back. They were a bounce away on a SK floater from being down 5 with around 10 minutes left.

Also a huge swing was before half with 10 seconds left. We were down 14 with Cash shooting 2, and he missed both. We get the ball back, turn it over, foul, and hand them 2 easy points. Should have been down 12 at half instead of 16. HUGE difference.

 

[TheLivingLegend]

Terrible officiating in the first half. Beyond bad.

Rashad needs to not shoot 9 threes.

Whats up with cash!? He has played poorly the last few outings imo.

 

[ralph1950]

The Bearcats are good and deserve to remain in Top 25.

However they will probably fall out. Beat USF and Syracuse this week and they will be back in.

The good times are back for UC BASKETBALL!

 

[Thegreatone]

Cash has not looked good. When he is pressured at half court our offense seems to stall. Need Yancy got get touches closer to the hoop.

I think we are about the 25th ranked team in the country.

 

[JeromyM]

I think we stay at #25. A lot of teams lost that were in, but our loss is probably one of the better losses. If we fall out and Michigan State stays in with 5 losses, I'll be pretty upset. Vandy lost to an unranked team and will probably fall out, that will probably help us stay in. UNLV is close to us but went 1-1 this week with a loss to BYU at home.

 

[anbuc88]

Any loss is disappointing, but the likelihood of winning this game given that officiating crew was almost none. The technical on Mick was after obvious foul against Parker was ignored. The Villanova player blocked his shot from behind while mugging him. There is no way that is a no call. Atrocious. The loser announcers, especially the ex-Villanova player Celestand, after seeing the replay, still went on to say how this was a good block. What a joke. The foul on Thomas at the end of the first half was a non call, there was no advantage gained. The free points given to Villanova at the end of the first half sealed the game. The 2 fouls on Thomas within a 20 second span were ridiculous, but there is no excuse for him to get a technical. The second half comeback was nice to see, and the Cats never gave up. They will learn from this and will but a beatdown on SF. But to beat Syracuse, they have to be able to hit some threes. Gates must also stay on the blocks, rather than take 18 footers. I thought he took some ill advised shots in the second half when the deficit was single digits. Most of all though, this officiating crew cannot be calling the SU game or any road game, otherwise they again have no chance.

 

[ready2go]

Cash has not looked good. When he is pressured at half court our offense seems to stall. Need Yancy got get touches closer to the hoop.

I think we are about the 25th ranked team in the country.

Cash needs to understand his strengths and weeknesses. He is in the game to run the point. Usually pg have lots of assists and dont always score the points.

He gets in trouble when he tries to dribble drive to the hoop. He turns it over or puts up a crazy shot nearly every time he gets too deep in the paint.

He is the best ball handler on the team. Just take care of the ball. Hit the open jumpers. Instead of taking the ball in by the trees, spot up at the free throw lane.

When he was good earlier in the season he was doing this

 

[JasonS]

Cash needs to understand his strengths and weeknesses. He is in the game to run the point. Usually pg have lots of assists and dont always score the points.
He gets in trouble when he tries to dribble drive to the hoop. He turns it over or puts up a crazy shot nearly every time he gets too deep in the paint.

He is the best ball handler on the team. Just take care of the ball. Hit the open jumpers. Instead of taking the ball in by the trees, spot up at the free throw lane.

When he was good earlier in the season he was doing this

This is a very old way of thinking about the PG position. When UC teams of the last 20 years have been at their best, they have had scoring threats at the PG position. Van Exel, Logan, Satterfield, Flint to name a few. If Cash doesn't try to take the ball to the hole or shoot the three he is a detriment on the floor. His penetration can create problems for the defense. He didn't have the best game today but he will be fine.

 

[Juliepitzer]

Cash needs to understand his strengths and weeknesses. He is in the game to run the point. Usually pg have lots of assists and dont always score the points.

He gets in trouble when he tries to dribble drive to the hoop. He turns it over or puts up a crazy shot nearly every time he gets too deep in the paint.

He is the best ball handler on the team. Just take care of the ball. Hit the open jumpers. Instead of taking the ball in by the trees, spot up at the free throw lane.

When he was good earlier in the season he was doing this

I do agree with this poster. Far too many drives into traffic.

 

[Ryno99]

Ok, here goes my thoughts.

Yes the refs were terrible, but I think it went both ways. Cahill is one of the worst in college basketball, last year he wasn't allowed to ref the BEast tourny because of bad games. Hightower used to be one of the best, but I think it got to his head now he is one of the worst. Just a badly officiated game all around.

As for the Cats, this was the first battle they've had and I think it smacked them in the face early. They eventually recovered, but it was far too late. Shot way too many 3's when they weren't falling. It seemed to me in the second half Mick may have said no 3's and that's when they made their run. Dixon's shot has been flat from 3, he needs to slash and not worry about the 3 right now. I have to disagree about Cash driving. I think we need that, when we don't we end up just passing around the perimeter and shooting a 3, we need to get 3's off the drive by dishing to a wide open shooter. I was impressed with the no quit attitude and how they stayed in the game. Hopefully they learned a lot about BEast play and themselves in this loss. It's by no means an embarrassing loss losing to a top 10 team on their home court that they have a 40 some game winning streak on. Yancy needs to establish closer to the basket and Thomas needs to lose the attitude. Wilks was just horrid he makes some passes that make me bang my head against the wall. Davis getting in foul trouble early hurt I think.

Ok that was a big jumble, but there is plenty to work on and plenty to take away from that game. Have to be better from the FT line and if the 3's aren't falling go away from them quicker, no reason to shoot 20 when you're shooting 10%.

 

[Not Guilty]

Ok, here goes my thoughts.

Yes the refs were terrible, but I think it went both ways. Cahill is one of the worst in college basketball, last year he wasn't allowed to ref the BEast tourny because of bad games. Hightower used to be one of the best, but I think it got to his head now he is one of the worst. Just a badly officiated game all around.

As for the Cats, this was the first battle they've had and I think it smacked them in the face early. They eventually recovered, but it was far too late. Shot way too many 3's when they weren't falling. It seemed to me in the second half Mick may have said no 3's and that's when they made their run. Dixon's shot has been flat from 3, he needs to slash and not worry about the 3 right now. I have to disagree about Cash driving. I think we need that, when we don't we end up just passing around the perimeter and shooting a 3, we need to get 3's off the drive by dishing to a wide open shooter. I was impressed with the no quit attitude and how they stayed in the game. Hopefully they learned a lot about BEast play and themselves in this loss. It's by no means an embarrassing loss losing to a top 10 team on their home court that they have a 40 some game winning streak on. Yancy needs to establish closer to the basket and Thomas needs to lose the attitude. Wilks was just horrid he makes some passes that make me bang my head against the wall. Davis getting in foul trouble early hurt I think.

Ok that was a big jumble, but there is plenty to work on and plenty to take away from that game. Have to be better from the FT line and if the 3's aren't falling go away from them quicker, no reason to shoot 20 when you're shooting 10%.

Not sure I agree with this. A lot of the threes they took were wide open, set shots. I don't think we need to be passing those up.

 

[Ryno99]

Typically I would agree with you, but in this game, we were settling for them early in the shot clock, this team plays better when they get the ball inside and go inside out whether that's a pass to the post or a drive and dish. They start settling for 3's and shooting that many, especially on a cold day like yesterday scoring is going to be tough. Look at what happened in the second half when they didn't shoot as many and drove and dished or got the ball inside. They made a huge come back. I fear if they settle for 3's as they did early yesterday they are going to have a tough time.

 

[JeromyM]

Nova kept Gates out of the paint. We didn't try to get it to him much either. Gates can shoot that 18 foot jumper, but he needs to not shoot it so much. Bishop forced a lot of threes, I think he was trying to lead his team back, him being a senior, but I think he should drive more. Pump fake that three, and drive. We needed Thomas' rebouding, really hurt us with the foul out. Thomas and Cash are going through a rough stretch right now, they'll be back. I look for the Cats to run South Florida out of the building on Wednesday, or we could have a let down reeling off the loss to Nova.

 

[ervins84]

Typically I would agree with you, but in this game, we were settling for them early in the shot clock, this team plays better when they get the ball inside and go inside out whether that's a pass to the post or a drive and dish. They start settling for 3's and shooting that many, especially on a cold day like yesterday scoring is going to be tough. Look at what happened in the second half when they didn't shoot as many and drove and dished or got the ball inside. They made a huge come back. I fear if they settle for 3's as they did early yesterday they are going to have a tough time.

on the year uc's 3pa/FGA is 33.7%

vs nova it was 20/61= 32.78%

i couldnt find the final tally for pts in the paint either, but i know during the game at one point they flashed the # and it was 32 to 8. No clue what the final score was.

I do know that at halftime the #s were UC 16-2 pts in the pt...and i think UC was around 1-8 or 1-9 from three. So realistically there wasnt a distinct difference between halves in that area.

 

[ervins84]

and honestly they didnt get to the FT line at hardly any diff rate than they have all year

fta/fga av on year is 41.4%

vs nova 25/61= 40.9%


biggest thing that really was off/jumped out to me
assists/field goals made on season= 59.3%

vs nova it was 9/22= 40.9%

and really i think thats nothing more than a product of them being unable to make any form of jumpshots and getting a lot of points on stickbacks/offensive rebounds than an indicator of selfish play or anything

 

[Ryno99]

But see the assist stat supports what I said, they need to get more three's off of drives and dishes to wide open guys behind the line than the shots they were taking yesterday. Yesterday they were shooting off of just passing around the perimeter. I don't have a problem with shooting them if they are being generated the right way, our offense seems to run so much better when the ball gets inside whether a pass to the post or a drive. The driving opens up so many options when the defense collapses.