FAU (12/29/22)

GrandGreen · December 30, 2022

7 minutes ago, L Ron Studdard said:

0 points at home after the 5:24 mark in what is likely their biggest game of the season. They say Hodge runs the defense--so what exactly does Mac do? These kinds of scoring droughts have crippled every team of his entire tenure.

Are you really questioning what Mac does?

Scoring droughts happen and without the strangely refereed game, I don't think this would have been a NT loss. Multiple fouls early in the game against NT's two essential players had an effect.

I really think refs are swayed by what is best for the conference, they work for. Keeping a highly ranked team winning seems to be an objective, whether intentional or not.

Give some credit to FAU, they have a much deeper team.

Outside of Perry and Ousmane NT has little offense. Huntsbury has turned into a liability lately, instead of being an integral part of the team. Eady has shown little offense, Scott likewise is seldom an offensive threat, and Stone playing defense against much taller players is definitely a problem.

aztecskin · December 30, 2022

There is a difference between using the clock, and beating the buzzer with a good shot in rhythm that comes late vs running terrible offense, and chucking it up at the buzzer.

https://meangreennation.com/where-is-the-offense-north-texas-46-fau-50/

GrandGreen · December 30, 2022

13 minutes ago, p_phelps said:

Stone shouldn't be on scholarship. I've literally never seen him score. Never. He has that walk on try hard mentally, so maybe that's what he should be

How about the other players that never see the court. Practice will be difficult with a squad less than 10.

Stone is a good defensive player, but tonight he was playing defense against a player 9 inches taller.

In high school he was a record scorer, his time may come but right now; Mac obviously doesn't want him shooting multiple outside shots.

keith · December 30, 2022

40 minutes ago, Greenrex said:

All three phases

I think it’s “three sides of the ball” now.

2020 Sucks · December 30, 2022

Gut wrenching loss. Awful officials. Kids (for both teams) shot the ball like they’ve been on Christmas break.

Gotta bounce back and start a new streak on Saturday. Sometimes the tough losses teach the best lessons!

herewego · December 30, 2022

This one hurt, that's all I got. it's definitely cusa tourney win or cbi/nit for us this year. Absolutely no way we get an at large now.

Side.Show.Joe · December 30, 2022

20 minutes ago, GrandGreen said:

Are you really questioning what Mac does?

Scoring droughts happen and without the strangely refereed game, I don't think this would have been a NT loss. Multiple fouls early in the game against NT's two essential players had an effect.

I really think refs are swayed by what is best for the conference, they work for. Keeping a highly ranked team winning seems to be an objective, whether intentional or not.

Give some credit to FAU, they have a much deeper team.

Outside of Perry and Ousmane NT has little offense. Huntsbury has turned into a liability lately, instead of being an integral part of the team. Eady has shown little offense, Scott likewise is seldom an offensive threat, and Stone playing defense against much taller players is definitely a problem.

Only the last paragraph in your post matters, and it is spot on. Mac has to get more out of every player not named Perry or Ousmane. FAU only scored 50 points. Regardless of the refs, this is a game we should have won. Time for some of those role players to grow up and contribute when they step onto the court in the big games.

Edited December 30, 2022 by Side.Show.Joe

CMJ · December 30, 2022

40 minutes ago, p_phelps said:

Stone shouldn't be on scholarship. I've literally never seen him score. Never. He has that walk on try hard mentally, so maybe that's what he should be

He had seven against UTSA just last week.

Big Z · December 30, 2022

1 hour ago, p_phelps said:

Stone shouldn't be on scholarship. I've literally never seen him score. Never. He has that walk on try hard mentally, so maybe that's what he should be

100%

TheColonyEagle · December 30, 2022

Man I almost feel like I felt after La Tech at Apogee in 2018.

Can’t believe we lost that game

UNTLifer · December 30, 2022

Just got home from the game. Much better turnout than I expected. I hope they all return Saturday. Fun atmosphere and a real battle.
I don’t like to complain about the refs but this crew was not even high school worthy. Inconsistent calls, late whistles, soft calls and then ignoring the same in the other end of the court, and terrible charging/blocking calls. They literally took Abou out of the game. I don’t know how Max kept his cool. I would have gone Bobby Knight on them if I was coaching tonight. Ridiculous is too mild a description for those three.
We have got to hit open shots. We back rimmed 80% of our FG attempts. We did shoot 78% from the line but our misses were at inopportune times. Too much reliance on Abou and Perry. Huntsberry drives into the lane and then gives up. Would love to see him go the rim and draw fouls. Eady, Martinez and Stone need to camp out in the gym and just shoot. They don’t shoot in rhythm. It’s like their first thought is that it may get blocked and they double clutch prior to going up. They need to shoot with confidence and in rhythm as mentioned earlier.
FAU is a good ball club but we should have won. Nobody is going to run conference this year like we did last year. If you are close to Denton Saturday night, go to the game. Same deal again, by one and get up to four free. I expect this team to bounce back in a big way and this program deserves 5,000+ at every game. Wish I lived closer. I hated the result but it was a good ballgame.

greenminer · December 30, 2022

1 minute ago, UNTLifer said:

Much better turnout than I expected.

And, in good Old Denton fashion, we crapped the bed in front of them.

GMG_Dallas · December 30, 2022

1 hour ago, p_phelps said:

Stone shouldn't be on scholarship. I've literally never seen him score. Never. He has that walk on try hard mentally, so maybe that's what he should be

Stone is arguably our best defender so far this season. The amount of hustle plays he makes is incredible. What Scott is on offense in terms of hustle, Stone is on defense. Just today I counted several plays where his hustle prevented a basket, such as the FAU fastbreak where they missed a layup (he sprinted the length of the court and got a hand in the way of a clean gather), prevented a clean pass in the paint that resulted in a turnover, getting positioning to prevent any entry pass at all, and just overall solid defense. Not everybody will contribute scoring. That's not his strength yet. It's his defense that's been worthy of the scholarship so far.

GMG_Dallas · December 30, 2022

Back home following the hour and a half drive from the Pit. Great game overall. Shame we couldn't buy a bucket late in the game. Couldn't buy a 3 nearly all game. Huntsberry needs to get back to attacking the rim. MAKE THEIR BIG GUYS PLAY DEFENSE. Had we taken their 7 footer out by way of foul trouble, we'd have won. The best way to do that is attacking the paint. Of course, the end of game scoring drought didn't help. We played well enough to win but couldn't close it out. Officiating was odd with the late calls but they were bad on all ends. Our biggest issue is relying on the 3 ball.

I'll be back Saturday with 12 other folks.

Edited December 30, 2022 by GMG_Dallas

greenminer · December 30, 2022

4 minutes ago, GMG_Dallas said:

Stone is arguably our best defender so far this season. The amount of hustle plays he makes is incredible. What Scott is on offense in terms of hustle, Stone is on defense. Just today I counted several plays where his hustle prevented a basket, such as the FAU fastbreak where they missed a layup (he sprinted the length of the court and got a hand in the way of a clean gather), prevented a clean pass in the paint that resulted in a turnover, getting positioning to prevent any entry pass at all, and just overall solid defense. Not everybody will contribute scoring. That's not his strength yet. It's his defense that's been worthy of the scholarship so far.

Stone scored over 1500 points in HS. It's wild how little he contributes on offense now.

UNTLifer · December 30, 2022

One other comment, we beat ourselves. FAU is good, but we are a better team. There is nothing we did wrong tonight that can’t be corrected. Still love this team.

GMG_Dallas · December 30, 2022

Just now, greenminer said:

Stone scored over 1500 points in HS. It's wild how little he contributes on offense now.

Absolutely. Helps to get the shots up too. He's clearly not a focus on offense which is fine but he's not going to score double digits shooting twice per game either. He struggled early in the season, as did most of the team. The way the offense is being ran isn't conducive to scoring for any of them. It's not necessarily the pace, it's the endless dribbling and passes around the 3 line without attacking the paint until late in the clock. Outside of Perry and occasionally Rubin, I didn't see anybody try to break down the defense. Need more of that.

Big Z · December 30, 2022

1 hour ago, greenminer said:

Stone scored over 1500 points in HS. It's wild how little he contributes on offense now.

Peaked in high school and his defense is average

Matt from A700 · December 30, 2022

Those are the best games to win and absolute worst to lose, especially when the game was in the bag and there are rowdy opposing fans in the building, too. All the flop calls made me sick. Then the ticky tack offensive fouls but not receiving anything on the other end when #50 moves on the screen. Note in the second half when the Owls stopped throwing themselves to the ground on every 3-point shot, we took the lead and got some separation. Their last 3-point attempt with 10 seconds left almost made me throw up by how their shooter threw himself forward into the defender, I was shocked that we actually got the call.

Yes, we missed a free throw at the worst time possible, but I will generally take 78% FT shooting. The issue was we only had 9 attempts, and they had 20.

Really hope we avenge them at their high school gym.

golfingomez · December 30, 2022

11 hours ago, kingwoodgreen said:

Outside of abu and Perry, rest of team was 3-20. Was anybody else impressed by fau?

wow... this stat is nuts... I was only looking at how terrible our three point shooting was.

golfingomez · December 30, 2022

at least we made PSC's youtube page

bstnsportsfan3 · December 30, 2022

3 minutes ago, golfingomez said:

at least we made PSC's youtube page

def the most unique basket I've ever seen live

Edited December 30, 2022 by bstnsportsfan3

emmitt01 · December 30, 2022

I trust Mac, let me just get that out in the open first.

And I have extensive pick-up game at the local rec center experience as my expertise. Let me lay that out there second.

Now, here are my questions about what I watched last night. Maybe someone with far more knowledge can give me answers.

Why do we have nobody who wants to shoot a 12-15 foot jump shot? Our offense, from what I can see, is almost exclusively predicated on passing until someone can get a clean look at a 3 or trying to score from within 2 feet of the bucket. Not real hard to defend for the length of the shot clock.

Speaking of the shot clock, why are we in love with milking it? More often than not it leads to a predictable routine of our students counting down the last 10 seconds and someone throwing up a hurried shot.

Is Sissoko in some kind of time out? Last night Abou got in early foul trouble (eventually fouling out) and we spent pretty good stretches watching FAU's 7-foot clutz tower over everyone for offensive rebounds. Sissoko is 6'9" so I have to think he may have helped some.

FirefightnRick · December 30, 2022

I’ve never seen a shittier officiating crew than last night in the Super Pit. Congratulations to those guys for setting the bar for sorriest inconsistency in reffing for my 35 years watching basketball there.

As for this team, if there’s an up and coming talent that can fairly/regularly hit 8 to 12 foot jump shots not named Tyler Perry we need him to show up and soon.

It’s way too soon to panic but I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t worried.

Rick

MeanGreen22 · December 30, 2022

They were getting open shots. Unfortunately, the only guy that can hit a 3 right now is TP and sometimes Martinez. I need Scott to literally do anything on offense. The defense ignores him entirely. You can’t go 20+ minutes playing 4 on 5 offense. And when Eady is out there, it’s 3 on 5.