What I saw last night

emmitt01 · February 10, 2003

A lot of these things have been said already but here is what I observed.

*Western Kentucky had no fear of our perimeter defense. This was evident when we trimmed the lead down to six (it had been at or around 13 for most of the night) and they come straight down the court and pull up for three...in transition! If they had any fear of us legitimately stopping their shooters they would have slowed the tempo w/ the momentum seemingly in our favor. They didn't. Why? Because that shot, even if they had missed, would be there aaaaalllllll night.

*We play a perimeter passing style offense. I can't count the number of times I saw us set screens just to get somebody open to take a pass at the top of the arc or somewhere above it. Then what did we do? Pass the ball around the arc some more. Chris Davis had 30 points last night for one reason...he went to the line. Against a better team how do you expect to get points unless you attack them? CD was the only one I saw doing this (and Rogers on occasion).

*We are a donut style team...their's nothing in the middle. Boyden took whomever he wanted, whenever he wanted to the rack. And if they missed they had the rebound. The offensive board, the defensive board, the chairman of the board, the chalkboard, the shuffleboard, all the boards.

*We don't think out there. I counted at least 4 balls that were thrown to the peanut vendor (I know we don't have them at the pit but work with me) because of miscommunication on passes.

This team is more than a good recruiting class or a healthy squad away from being competitive night in and night out. They need an attitude change. They looked, played and seemed to think "soft."