SMU

[#BearcatNation]

Mick's best teams have always won despite him. I hope at some point he will embrace offense as a critical part of the game of basketball, because I promise you if he doesn't this team will not live up to it's full potential.

This is a good team, anything less than a run to the Sweet 16 will be an epic failure. Emphasis on toughness and defense alone and minutes for Quadri Moore and Trey Scott aren't getting us to the Sweet 16.

Dramatic. If we get a 4 or 5 seed, and lose in the 2nd round, I'll be pissed, don't get me wrong...but "epic failure"? Get outta here.

The example I just used is, unfortunately, relatively standard for us in the last 20 years.

 

[waterhead]

it was way too early. you don't need to shoot with a chance at a putback before the half, especially against a team that's pounding your face in on the glass.

i was ready to say very nice things about kevin after the first half until the final 10 seconds.

Not a good shot...but it is what it is. Interesting coach called Troy and Evans over to the sideline right before that play. I guess the message didn't get out to the rest of the team. We should have just kept the ball in one of their hands if they were in on something the others were not.

 

[UCBearcats]

Dramatic. If we get a 4 or 5 seed, and lose in the 2nd round, I'll be pissed, don't get me wrong...but "epic failure"? Get outta here. This, unfortunately, is relatively standard for us last 20 years.

Possibly worded a little too strongly, but you get the point.

 

[2bearcatdad]

Mick's best teams have always won despite him. I hope at some point he will embrace offense as a critical part of the game of basketball, because I promise you if he doesn't this team will not live up to it's full potential.

This is a good team, anything less than a run to the Sweet 16 will be an epic failure. Emphasis on toughness and defense alone and minutes for Quadri Moore and Trey Scott aren't getting us to the Sweet 16.

The fact that Jacob Evans, Kyle Washington, Cane Broome, Jarron Cumberland and Keith Williams have all been added to this team demonstrates that Mick understands that his teams needed more offensive firepower than those he built in the past.

It's a progression, but this program is trending in the right direction. Mick deserves a lot of credit for that.

 

[jacobkdoyle]

Yeah but we all wanted to hug him when he drained those 3's. We are never going to have the perfect game. We just need to keep playing harder and smarter each time out.

HUGE shots by Johnson early. We're up to 35.7% as a team from 3. Even after a rough start. Not bad...Almost 3% higher than last year.

 

[jacobkdoyle]

You guys are ridiculous. You're actually making an argument that this team is successful despite Mick. Mick built this team. He coaches these kids on both the offensive and defensive sides of the ball.

I think it's perfectly fair to say that this substitution should have been handled differently or we should've played more zone or whatever.

But I've got news for you guys who constantly rip on Mick. When the team is really talented, is ranked, has a top 50 (ish) offense and a top 5 defense, and is 14-2 - that all exists because of Mick - not despite him.

It might be time you rethink your "Mick sucks" narrative, but your arguments are looking more pathetic all the time.

We had a 19 to 4 AST/TO ratio and hit 12 3s last night. I understand concerns about execution when closing teams out, but overall I'm not going to complain about out offense. We scored over 30 in each half in a tough conference game. I'll take 14-2 any day. Win you home games and win your conference. Last night was huge for both. I was impressed by SMU. They have really good players and they are well coached.

 

[jacobkdoyle]

it was way too early. you don't need to shoot with a chance at a putback before the half, especially against a team that's pounding your face in on the glass.

i was ready to say very nice things about kevin after the first half until the final 10 seconds.

Yeah you're playing with house money so it MUST be you score or nothing 10 times out of 10.

 

[Bearcat_NTS]

We had a 19 to 4 AST/TO ratio and hit 12 3s last night. I understand concerns about execution when closing teams out, but overall I'm not going to complain about out offense. We scored over 30 in each half in a tough conference game. I'll take 14-2 any day. Win you home games and win your conference. Last night was huge for both. I was impressed by SMU. They have really good players and they are well coached.

There were glimpses of a team that could be really special. There were also glimpses of a typical Mick Cronin team that does nothing in the postseason. This team still has not played a complete game or reached its full potential and with Mick as the coach I don't know if they ever will the season.

 

[Jon Rycek]

EYETEST: FAIL

This was a good resume win as SMU will likely be top 50 RPI by end of year. But other than that, still nothing that shows me we can make a deep tourney run.

We should have beat this team by 10-15 pts. Coach puts in Quadri Moore the "ZERO" aka Rusty Wallace and we crap the bed for 5 minutes giving up an otherwise comfortable lead.

That's a nascar driver. If you're gonna come here to just hate on the team at least try and know what you're talking about.

 

[indydoug]

Well, after reading some of these posts, if MC is ever fired, we have a plethora of qualified candidates to replace him right here on this board....

 

[Jon Rycek]

I'm not saying we couldn't have played better defense in the 2nd half, but going into a shell and relying on defense alone to hold your lead is not an effective strategy. We see this team do it time and time again and we see Mick make the same comments in the post game time and time again.

When you have a team on the ropes like we did there's no reason to suddenly go into a shell. Keep the pressure and keep the intensity on defense AND offense. You can't take out Kyle Washington and Gary Clark because you're not happy with their perceived effort on defense and replace them with Quadri Moore and Trey Scott for an extended stretch in the second half. In what world is Quadri's best production better than half of Washington's production? That's not the time to try to teach a lesson to your players, it's the time to try to win a basketball game
We're not tough enough, we don't play hard enough, our guys fall in love with scoring and BLAH BLAH BLAH BLAH..........at some point Mick needs to realize that scoring the basketball is a critical part of the game. The reason why this team is better than any other that Mick has had is because we have 5 guys who are all legit scoring threats. It's time for Mick to start embracing his players offensive talents.

You really think that's why Clark and Washington from sat in the second half. Think they're machines? Maybe they just needed a breather so they could finish the game. I don't like bringing quadri in but you can't get mad that your stars have to sit for a few minutes, especially big men.

 

[Bearcat_NTS]

Well, after reading some of these posts, if MC is ever fired, we have a plethora of qualified candidates to replace him right here on this board....

He really needs someone to handle substitutions for him. Anyone on this board would do a better job...

 

[Jon Rycek]

did we really go into a shell in the second half? i thought we kept our foot mostly on the gas until the final few minutes, when we resorted to clock bleeding, iso shitball.

if the d would have held up during the stretch beginning with 5 minutes left in the first half through 10 minutes into the second half, we would have run them out of the gym.

I know everyone keep saying we took our foot off, I was watching it looked like we just starting missing while smu was making everything towards the end. We still pushed and tried to score it just wasn't happening. Last couple minutes we grinded it out, but we won, smu was making a run why wouldn't we limit possessions.

The real problem I haven't read not once was rebounding, had this been an even game on the boards we would have won by ten. I don't know the exact second chance points off the top of my head but I know SMU had quite a few more than us.

 

[jacobkdoyle]

He really needs someone to handle substitutions for him. Anyone on this board would do a better job...

Alright. Fine...I'll do it.

 

[Jon Rycek]

Jumped back up to 5 in bracketology, after tough conference schedules for everyone else, we finished with the same record we've started with I don't think a 3-4 is out of the question by any means

 

[coachpipe]

You really think that's why Clark and Washington from sat in the second half. Think they're machines? Maybe they just needed a breather so they could finish the game. I don't like bringing quadri in but you can't get mad that your stars have to sit for a few minutes, especially big men.

There was a point in the game where there was a very large stretch without a whistle. From like 17 minutes until 11 minutes. So 6 minutes or so happened without a whistle. You could see Gary and Kyle were dead. Gary made that 2nd dunk and you could tell he was about done. When they finally got a whistle they had the under 16 minute media timeout. Mick needed to give them both a break as they were both dead tired. He knew that after the next whistle there would be the under 12 media timeout so it was the best time to take Gary and Kyle out because once the next whistle happens its a timeout and they would be able to rest atleast 3 minutes or so.

 

[waterhead]

HUGE shots by Johnson early. We're up to 35.7% as a team from 3. Even after a rough start. Not bad...Almost 3% higher than last year.

Interesting that someone mentioned we shot 15% above our average for the year last night...but I think we are something like 43% in conference and over the last 7 games now (we can add Troy in) Caupain, KJ, and Cumberland are shooting 50% from deep. That's more than double their % in the first 9 games. Troy has been shooting much better from 3. The 3 guys we need knocking down 3's are absolutely killing it lately.

 

[CHEER CINCY]

That's a nascar driver. If you're gonna come here to just hate on the team at least try and know what you're talking about.

Hey bro, its an inside joke for a few folks on this board. Quadri = Rusty. Get out the WD 40. Hes the Tinman out there on the court

 

[STKohls]

Hey bro, its an inside joke for a few folks on this board. Quadri = Rusty. Get out the WD 40. Hes the Tinman out there on the court

It's "Rasheed". lol

 

[Bearcat_NTS]

Hey bro, its an inside joke for a few folks on this board. Quadri = Rusty. Get out the WD 40. Hes the Tinman out there on the court

I thought it was funny.