It's halftime, and our Dawgs are getting destroyed by 12. Turnover after turnover after turnover. It is just amazing. Cook has been awful. How can someone with his experience turn the ball over like he is? And missing lay-ups.... He's practically handing the ball to A&M over and over. Ingram persists in driving the ball into traffic - taking it into "No Man's Land". Nothing good can come from that. He will likely turn it over when double teamed. Bridges seems overmatched on the boards. We are not playing fundamentally good ball. Watch how A&M spaces the floor. That's why they are shooting 55% from the floor. We have a lot of work to do to get back into this game. We aren't playing with enough intensity at all, particularly on defense. We have to show some fight.

We are playing a bit better early in the 2nd half. A&M started out hot and pushed out to an 18 pt lead, but we got a couple of stops and have pulled to within 11 with the ball.

Getting interesting now. Dawgs within 4. Then a missed FT by Ingram, a 3, a TO and now down 10 again.

Now have pulled it to within 2 on a drive by Oquendo. Playing much better in the 2nd half. Cook is playing much smarter. Baumann has been good from 3 and on cuts. Most importantly, we are playing defense with more intensity and are limiting A&M to 1 shot.

Down to 1 with 5 minutes left. But A&M at the line.

I was all prepared to write that the Dawgs just aren't making the plays down the stretch, and then A&M misses a FT and Baumann hits the game tying 3 with about 24 seconds left! A&M with the ball and chance for the last shot. Coleman, A&M's big man, was posted up on Etter and gets fouled. Hits them both and we have a TO with 11 seconds left. Oquendo on a drive and lays it in with a FT with 5.5 seconds to go. Old fashioned 3 pt play! Come on guys. A&M takes their last TO. Oquendo bangs it in the FT. Oh crap, they hit a 3; nothing but net.... Unreal. Cook gave him too much room. Baumann got off a shot but it wasn't close.... Jeez

To me, there are 2 glaring statistics that stand out as keys to our loss. We had 16 TOs to their 14 TOs, but the scored 25 pts off our TOs to only 12 by the Dawgs. And they had 12 steals to our 7. Surprisingly, for the game we shot slightly better than they did. 51.8% to 50%, but they got 4 shots off more than we did and had 5 more offensive rebs than us. So they had more possessions and made 1 more shot. After getting down as much as 18 pts, I can't say we should have won, but it was nice to see the comeback and to be in it at the end.

Playing tough here in the second half, but they are by far the inferior team. Maybe they can steal this one.

Tough game, they are making a solid push, I really thought we might have a chance tonight. Analytics on KenPom, Torvik, etc., had this game as one of our best chances to get a W this year. Vandy, Ole Ms & SC, all in Athens, are our other decent opportunities.

Okuendo is unstoppable around the basket. If he could get his 3 point % up closer to 30%, he'd be really good. The guys are taking much better care of the ball here in the 2nd half and the defense has improved as well.

Ain't that some ***** That kind of thing happens to teams like the dawgs…

Poor coaching by Crean when it counted the most. Why was there no pressure in the backcourt on that last play? No let him go right down the court. Pathetic.

Tough loss but Baumann and Oquendo are pretty clutch. If Noah had found the dining hall/weight room over the years he'd be something special.

dawg212003 said:

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Poor coaching by Crean when it counted the most. Why was there no pressure in the backcourt on that last play? No let him go right down the court. Pathetic.

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Agree, that was waaaay too soft.

If you look at the replay…. what the hell was Christian Wright doing trailing the play by 15 feet. His lapse was worse than Cook's. Guards have to know to apply some pressure to slow the ball in that scenario. They obviously didn't get the message. Playing up is one thing but 10-12 feet off the player is ridiculous in that situation.

So your good with majority of the defense under the opposing basket? 5 seconds to go and you go one on one? No press or anything? Yea ok.

I would have to watch the replay to see where Wright's man is. He would probably be near his man.

Did I say that I was OK with the whole defense on the play? What is with people on this board misrepresenting my position? You could press, but you are susceptible to giving up a lay-up or open shot if they break your press. A double team always leaves somebody open. It depends on what the coach thinks his team's strengths and weaknesses are. Pressing is not something we have done much, so either Crean just doesn't like to press or he thinks this team is not good at it. Again, Cook should have played up and forced a drive into a help double team and a trailer should have replaced the help defender to prevent a quick pass for a lay-up. You don't let the guy dribble down for a virtually unmolested 3.

Monkdawg said:

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I would have to watch the replay to see where Wright's man is. He would probably be near his man.

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It actually looks like that was Wright's man and that he made zero attempt to stay between him and the goal and never hustled in the least to catch-up. As bad as Cook's D was, Wright's was far worse. We might as well have put 4 players on the floor.

SidViciousDawg said:

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Monkdawg said:

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I would have to watch the replay to see where Wright's man is. He would probably be near his man.

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It actually looks like that was Wright's man and that he made zero attempt to stay between him and the goal and never hustled in the least to catch-up. As bad as Cook's D was, Wright's was far worse. We might as well have put 4 players on the floor.

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I'll look at it when I get home.

SidViciousDawg said:

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Monkdawg said:

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I would have to watch the replay to see where Wright's man is. He would probably be near his man.

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It actually looks like that was Wright's man and that he made zero attempt to stay between him and the goal and never hustled in the least to catch-up. As bad as Cook's D was, Wright's was far worse. We might as well have put 4 players on the floor.

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After re-watching the play several times, I don't think it's as simple as saying that was Wright's man. Actually, Wright got screened off by the A&M post Coleman (I think) at the opposite foul line, so Wright was trailing the play. We had 4 other guys back on defense basically defending 2 guys, and Williams dribbled straight down after the screen to the wing. Etter picked up the screener who was trailing the play down the middle of the floor. And the other 2 A&M guys were on the opposite side of the floor with our guys on them, pretty much out of the play. Bridges and Etter were in the paint. We had everybody boxed out for any rebound. Williams just pulled up when Cook thought he would drive. He would have had help on a drive. Bridges was 2 steps away from a drive, and Etter had him if drove to the foul line. Cook played the odds, thinking he would drive for a higher % shot or to draw a foul. I remember when I was playing having the same situation. The difference was that I knew the guy I was guarding was not a good shooter, so I backed off, and he shot and missed. We got the ball, tied the game and won in double OT. Williams is a good shooter. You gotta play up on him and force the drive. No way you blame Wright for this; he was screened off and Cook had him all the way. He played the drive and Williams just made the shot.

We let them cross mid court in 1.5 seconds!!

Wright was in awful position from the get go. That's hardly a screen, Wright got suckered into playing ring around the Rosie. He trailed that guy the whole time and was never between him and the goal. Just an awful effort. Then he drags up the floor while another A&M player passes him to get to the top of the key where he was open for the pass and 15 footer if Williams passes.

To act like Cook and Wright put forth a good effort on the play and A&M simply made a big shot is not the case. Letting a team cross mid-court in 1.5 seconds, especially in this situation, is either sh;+ execution, sh;+ coaching or both.

And Williams came down the floor in a 3 on 4 situation. 3 offensive players to our 4 defenders.... And pulled up and made a 3. I once made a game-tying shot from above the 5 second line near halfcourt. The clock was counting down, and I made the shot. Sometimes the shot goes in no matter what you do. Wright got picked off. There was no timeout for us to set up a defense (or for them to set up a play - I don't have a problem with Crean not taking a TO there). They took it out right after Oquendo hit his FT. Wright was the only defender under that basket with 3 A&M players. Everyone else got back on defense. We could have had another player back there to help defend the inbound pass perhaps, but I had a play when I coached where we inbounds the ball with a pass to halfcourt who passes to a streaking player down the middle for a shot. That could have worked, too. The last thing Wright wanted to do was pick up a foul in backcourt giving them FTs. He was just there to marginally harass the inbounds pass. I don't blame him. Cook played off too far not wanting to give up a drive and a possible foul. I just think this criticism is just hindsight. If Williams misses the shot, no one says a thing. But he makes it, and Cook is the goat.

I think the point is that Wright should have stayed between his man and the goal. You have to put more pressure on the guy bringing the ball up the court. At least make him change direction once or twice. This is pretty easy to do without fouling. With a tad more defense, that shot has to be taken several feet further away from the basket, decreasing the odds of a desperation 3.

There's more than 1 way to defend the play. If Crean wanted to put more pressure on the ball being inbounded, maybe he should have put someone on the player inbounding the ball. He had an unobstructed view to pass the ball in. Or maybe Crean puts 2 defenders on that end to obstruct the inbounds pass. He put 1 guy down there defending 3 guys. Or Crean could have called his last TO and set up his defense - of course, then Buzz could set up a play. It's easy to second guess when the thing goes wrong. Wouldas, couldas, shouldas are easy in hindsight. It was Cook's job to defend the dribbler, and he made a mistake and played off on a guy who can make the shot, and Williams hit the shot.

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