UC vs. Syracuse

BearcatTalk

Help Support BearcatTalk:

Damn, 4 losses by 10 total points. If this team could just shoot slightly better they'd be undefeated.
 
bearcat jeff said:
Damn, 4 losses by 10 total points. If this team could just shoot slightly better they'd be undefeated.
Click to expand...

They played their hearts out ad left it all out on the floor today, for sure. If we could just play a better first half, this team would still be undefeated. Slowly, they are starting to pull it together. SK looks great, JJ, Rubles, and Cheikh all played pretty well today. Throw in a healthy Cash, this team is set.
 
JumpinJack5 said:
They played their hearts out ad left it all out on the floor today, for sure. If we could just play a better first half, this team would still be undefeated. Slowly, they are starting to pull it together. SK looks great, JJ, Rubles, and Cheikh all played pretty well today. Throw in a healthy Cash, this team is set.
Click to expand...

I don't know how much of a difference the first half would have made. I think either way that game was going to come down to the wire and those games are always decided in the last couple minutes. Last game against MU, regardless of the first half, it came down to SK making the plays when it counts. This game SU made the plays. SK went missing the last 5 minutes of the game, and Cash took 3 really bad shots to close out the game.

Jason wonders why I question this teams offense when all that matters is if they win. Well now you know. They didn't win and the reason is because they scored a total of 4 points in the last 5 minutes of the game. Their defense was once again good enough to win but their offense lost them the game in the crucial minutes.

Hopefully they remember how they were able to beat the zone for a good chunk of the game. Rubles needs to be in the high post. Team will eventually realize that JJ is zero threat to score from there and will take away his passing lanes. Rubles is a better passer and is a threat to shoot from the high post.
 
Damn, that loss stings! For the second time in three days Syracuse has left a team wondering how in the hell they lost. On a Syracuse board they were talking about how they finished the final 5:44 playing near perfect offense and it still almost wasn't enough! The only shot they missed ended up getting tipped in off of two players. The two turnovers were killers. Have to give Syracuse a ton of credit though. They scored on 7 straight possessions and a lot of them were on tough shots by MCW and Triche.

In a long season I can usually keep it in perspective and say on to the next one, but that felt like a tournament loss. Crushing defeat. Of course now we have to wait 9 more days for another game!
 
This year's squad lacks a killer instinct so far. Once they have the lead, they stop playing to win and start playing to not lose (though awkwardly worded, that makes sense to me). With that said, the improvement is noticeable and, unfortunately for the rest of the Big East, they're only going to get better. I love the Bearcats. My thoughts:

1) If Titus Rubles could improve his release and shoot consistently, he would be the best pro prospect on this team. I'm really impressed with his toughness, confidence, ball handling, and passing. He'll only get better.

2) Justin Jackson showed us some of that promise in the second half. He made some great passes, played with great energy, and showed us some of those decent post moves. He was a catalyst tonight, and I hope he stays dialed in. Stay on the blocks, post up, crash the boards, and look for put-backs. That's his game. Welcome to the party, JJ.

3) Cash didn't look 100%, and I hope that his knee's feeling better. If he needs to rest further, rest him. With Cash at 100%, and with the rest of the players on point, this team is dangerous. We have Rutgers, Seton Hall, and Providence upcoming, so again, if he needs to rest, rest him. We'll need him come March.

4) Cheikh Mbodj was frustrating in the first half to say the least. Early in the second half, he caught the ball on the blocks and noticeably hesitated before putting the ball into the hoop. Once he made that shot, though, he gained some confidence. I'm very happy with his play in the second half, and I'm happy to see that he stayed out of foul trouble. I hope the momentum continues.

5) Shaq Thomas will be a stud in the coming years.

6) The first half was awful to watch. But the second half was a different story. We attacked the zone, penetrated the zone, and made great decisions. The blueprint is there, and hopefully the confidence will be, as well. We can be elite teams, but we can't rely on the outside shot entirely. We have good athletes who can absorb contact; I hope they go to the rim more often starting on January 30.

7) I like the 2-3 zone that Cronin's using, and I think we'll see a lot of it going forward. We have the athletes, the length, and the tenacity to play it well. Defense always has been Cronin's calling card, and the 2-3 adds another weapon to the arsenal.

8) Please don't complain about a 2-point loss AT Syracuse, after an inspired second half, after a team-building display of cooperation, after proving to the rest of the world that the Bearcats can play and beat ANYBODY. This was a great effort, and the Cats will continue to improve. I'm proud of this team and our coach.
 
Last edited:
not sure what has been said, but i am assuming it's filled with the typical moral victory bs.

33 of uc's 55 fga's were threes. that's to many even against a 2-3 zone. no effort to get the ball inside and when they did jj,tr,and cm didn't look to score but to pass it out for another trey.

i'm so sick of watching the bigs do nothing. cm gets a pass in perfect postion to score and he thinks twice before making it. surprised it went in because it gave the defender time to make a play.

wtf was the play out of the time out? down 2...hey let's shoot another three, this time with two guys on me and just to make it extra sweet do a fade a way on the release. ask yourself, is this the best they can come up with? if so, uc won't get out of the first weekend.

well goodbye big east regular season champ dreams, and hello 4-3 in league play. but it's all good, since we are still a program who takes moral victories.
 
westsidecat said:
not sure what has been said, but i am assuming it's filled with the typical moral victory bs.

33 of uc's 55 fga's were threes. that's to many even against a 2-3 zone. no effort to get the ball inside and when they did jj,tr,and cm didn't look to score but to pass it out for another trey.

i'm so sick of watching the bigs do nothing. cm gets a pass in perfect postion to score and he thinks twice before making it. surprised it went in because it gave the defender time to make a play.

wtf was the play out of the time out? down 2...hey let's shoot another three, this time with two guys on me and just to make it extra sweet do a fade a way on the release. ask yourself, is this the best they can come up with? if so, uc won't get out of the first weekend.

well goodbye big east regular season champ dreams, and hello 4-3 in league play. but it's all good, since we are still a program who takes moral victories.
Click to expand...

If you would have heard the post game, the out of bounds play was not what was called. CM was suppose to flash to the high post and the play was to run from there for a kick down or out but CM never flashed. I keep telling you guys that the iq of this team is low and the players aren't always running the designed plays and offense. That's not an excuse, it's a fact.
 
bearcat jeff said:
If you would have heard the post game, the out of bounds play was not what was called. CM was suppose to flash to the high post and the play was to run from there for a kick down or out but CM never flashed. I keep telling you guys that the iq of this team is low and the players aren't always running the designed plays and offense. That's not an excuse, it's a fact.
Click to expand...

i didn't listen to the post game..that makes sense now.

everything else still stands in my post though. uc had control of this game and let it get away.

i love jj but the less he sees the court the better for uc. missing 5 foot shots in front of the basket with a huge travel call. ugh!

this team is so close to being an elite squad..mick has to get better players. bottom line.
 
Wow. Lots of negativity.

Usually I'm discouraged, but I was encouraged after that game.

This team is getting better, believe it or not.

Cash had to be rusty because you know he hasn't been practicing much. I think he contributes more offensively if he's not recovering. Might have even made that close final three pointer, who knows.

Gutsy game on a hostile court against much better players.

If Triche and Carter miss one friggin' shot in the last 4 minutes, it's game over..........but they were superb unfortunately.

I even see improvement from Mbodj and JJ. They'll never be big time scorers, but I thought they were better. And despite our Bigs offensive woes, they do cause opponents trouble defensively.

That game was up for grabs and we lost. Marquette was up for grabs and we won. This team is right there with the best teams in the Big East.

As I said on another thread, if Mick starts getting some impact players, future teams are going to be hard to deal with. Defense is a mainstay and you can tell opposing coaches and players HATE to play UC. I'd even say Cronin's D is tougher than Huggins D ever was.

I'm impressed and I don't impress easily.
 
After letting the loss sit with me for a night here is what I have to say:

It's inexcusable to finish on a 1-9 run by Cuse. We had the game in the bag and should have won. Cuse knows how to finish and honestly we dont. That said, we have absolutely the worst big man trio I have ever seen. JJ, Mbodj and Nyarsuk are terrible. That possession where JJ drove and kicked it to Mbodj and Mbodj kicked it back to JJ and repeat will forever be implanted in my head as bad basketball. Mbodj plays like he doesnt even want the ball or looks like he doesnt know how to play. Grab the rebound at the end of the game instead of that tipping thing that our bigs like to do and it would still be tied. As a team we have no inside presence and when JJ and Mbodj/Nyarsuk are out there its pretty much 4 on 5.

As for the shot by Cash at the end I didnt mind it. If we go for 2 and score and force overtime we would have lost in overtime in my opinion. Cuse had all the momentum and Cash took a shot that he normally makes. It was literally an inch from going in and he made and opening for himself. If he would have made the three we would be talking about the great move by Cash to get open and hit the go-ahead basket.

Overall the team played hard and showed they can play with anyone in the country. I'm not going to hang my head on a loss to the #3 team in the country at their place. Glad we have a 9 game rest because it is definitely needed. Hope the team gets 100% and we are still 4th in the Big East behind a Marquette team that we beat.
 
bearcat jeff said:
If you would have heard the post game, the out of bounds play was not what was called. CM was suppose to flash to the high post and the play was to run from there for a kick down or out but CM never flashed. I keep telling you guys that the iq of this team is low and the players aren't always running the designed plays and offense. That's not an excuse, it's a fact.
Click to expand...

We all know this team has an extremely low bball IQ so you are preaching to the choir. That's pretty much fact. Unfortunately they have done things like this time and time again and eventually the coaching staff has to correct it....Not getting the ball into SK's hands during the last 5 minutes should have been addressed in any of the timeouts but apparently it wasn't....At the same time, your PG is a 5th year senior who took 3 bad shots to end the game. At this point it has to be on the player.

Bearcat91 said:
After letting the loss sit with me for a night here is what I have to say:

It's inexcusable to finish on a 1-9 run by Cuse. We had the game in the bag and should have won. Cuse knows how to finish and honestly we dont. That said, we have absolutely the worst big man trio I have ever seen. JJ, Mbodj and Nyarsuk are terrible. That possession where JJ drove and kicked it to Mbodj and Mbodj kicked it back to JJ and repeat will forever be implanted in my head as bad basketball. Mbodj plays like he doesnt even want the ball or looks like he doesnt know how to play. Grab the rebound at the end of the game instead of that tipping thing that our bigs like to do and it would still be tied. As a team we have no inside presence and when JJ and Mbodj/Nyarsuk are out there its pretty much 4 on 5.

As for the shot by Cash at the end I didnt mind it. If we go for 2 and score and force overtime we would have lost in overtime in my opinion. Cuse had all the momentum and Cash took a shot that he normally makes. It was literally an inch from going in and he made and opening for himself. If he would have made the three we would be talking about the great move by Cash to get open and hit the go-ahead basket.

Overall the team played hard and showed they can play with anyone in the country. I'm not going to hang my head on a loss to the #3 team in the country at their place. Glad we have a 9 game rest because it is definitely needed. Hope the team gets 100% and we are still 4th in the Big East behind a Marquette team that we beat.
Click to expand...

I can't believe you didn't mind that shot. It's one thing to shoot the 3 and go for the win (even though they played the final 5 minutes not going for the win) but it was still a terrible shot. Once again it was shot without any ball movement, no pass to the interior of the zone, etc. He just dribbled around a couple picks and hoisted up a fadeaway with a man in his face. There wasn't really anything good about that shot.
 
mplebanon said:
Wow. Lots of negativity.

Usually I'm discouraged, but I was encouraged after that game.

This team is getting better, believe it or not.

Cash had to be rusty because you know he hasn't been practicing much. I think he contributes more offensively if he's not recovering. Might have even made that close final three pointer, who knows.

Gutsy game on a hostile court against much better players.

If Triche and Carter miss one friggin' shot in the last 4 minutes, it's game over..........but they were superb unfortunately.

I even see improvement from Mbodj and JJ. They'll never be big time scorers, but I thought they were better. And despite our Bigs offensive woes, they do cause opponents trouble defensively.

That game was up for grabs and we lost. Marquette was up for grabs and we won. This team is right there with the best teams in the Big East.

As I said on another thread, if Mick starts getting some impact players, future teams are going to be hard to deal with. Defense is a mainstay and you can tell opposing coaches and players HATE to play UC. I'd even say Cronin's D is tougher than Huggins D ever was.

I'm impressed and I don't impress easily.
Click to expand...

Posted several of the same things earlier. I think by March this team is going to be really good. They don't have to be great offensively. They just need to be efficient. That said, they let this game get away. The last 4 shots were 3s and they had 2 costly turnovers down the stretch and Cheikh failed to execute the last play. Cash hasn't ever played well against Cuse. They are typically bigger and have more length and that seems to bother him. I'm sure inactivity hurt too.
 
TheLongHaul said:
I can't believe you didn't mind that shot. It's one thing to shoot the 3 and go for the win (even though they played the final 5 minutes not going for the win) but it was still a terrible shot. Once again it was shot without any ball movement, no pass to the interior of the zone, etc. He just dribbled around a couple picks and hoisted up a fadeaway with a man in his face. There wasn't really anything good about that shot.
Click to expand...

Its a shot that he has made before and our bigs played decent at best so the only person that I would have passed to anywhere close to the interior was Titus since that worked in the game. Cash has hit threes with people closer to him than that before. I would have wanted him or SK to take the 3 for the win. Like I said, going into overtime would have resulted in a loss.
 
Mark it down, UC 23-8 and a 5 seed in Utah. Breitbart News, that great bastion of sports has decreed it.
 

Similar threads

Q
Merrimack
Replies
7
Views
31K
sedziobs
S
S
Evansville
Replies
9
Views
27K
Queens_NYC
Q
Q
Temple Part II
Replies
6
Views
16K
sirthought
S
Q
Bryant
Replies
11
Views
48K
sedziobs
S
Q
Stetson
Replies
13
Views
40K
sirthought
S
Back
Top