Game 14 - 1/3/24 - at Missouri State

[BCPanther]

A road win against a 9-4 team in a more defensive game where we had to make plays down the stretch should feel better than this

Just a very sloppy game from both teams. Take em where we can get ‘em and hopefully shore things up going forward

I actually don't think it was that sloppy. We only turned the ball over 10 times and significantly outrebounded a team that's leading the league in rebounding margin. If we'd have shot the 3 ball at our normal clip, it's a double digit win.

No such thing as a bad win, especially on the road.

Twitter has killed gamethreads but I still enjoy this place.

[unipanthers8907]

The guys don't win this game a month ago. Hell, they didn't win this game a month ago. This was the USF game to a T. Fast start offensively, other team settled in defensively, we couldn't hit a 3 for anything. We lost that game by double digits, this one we get the win. Biggest difference is the guys had no interest in settling for 3s, forced the ball inside and it worked beautifully.

I said the exact same thing last night. Reminded me of that USF game - road game, started off strong then an offensive lull to end the first half. We scored 65 points in both games - we just played better defensively last night and we stopped settling for 3's that weren't falling. UNI was 3/15 on 3's last night but 5/28 against USF. I think our offense will be fine most nights, but if we can defend well and continue to pound the ball inside when we're not hitting our outside shots, we'll be in good shape.

[sivert]

I was very pleased to win a game in which we didn't rain 3s. 3/15 from 3 will usually be a loss for us.

That was a very stressful game. It felt more like the old defensive days.

Trey's steal from Clay right after Bowen's 3 at the end was the dagger. All season (at least the games I've seen) he has been driving to the bucket at will. I think we need to work on exactly that type of play on defense. The days of staying in front of your man are probably over. The NCAA has changed the calls so you will generate too many fouls trying to do what we used to do. Need to pressure the ball on the dribble more instead of just impeding the player.

[Wxcpanther]

The thing with Nate is that he didn't force things last night. His shot wasn't falling, and that's ok. Force the ball inside, draw fouls, and convert at the line or in the lane. Guys did an excellent job of that. Ironically enough getting Benson in foul trouble might have actually helped the Bears stay in the game because Edwards was a far more difficult matchup for Hutty due to his ability to space the floor and drive. It's also worth mentioning that I love that we kept going inside, even though they blocked a lot of shots. The guys trusted the game plan, and kept going inside. That's why we won the game.

[PantherAlum09]

I said the exact same thing last night. Reminded me of that USF game - road game, started off strong then an offensive lull to end the first half. We scored 65 points in both games - we just played better defensively last night and we stopped settling for 3's that weren't falling. UNI was 3/15 on 3's last night but 5/28 against USF. I think our offense will be fine most nights, but if we can defend well and continue to pound the ball inside when we're not hitting our outside shots, we'll be in good shape.

I think the big difference between last night's game and the USF game is that we really didn't have many open looks at 3 last night. We had a ton of great looks against USF and just couldn't shoot. That was when Bowen was still in his funk. I don't mind us shooting threes when we have the looks. We have the shooters to hit them if they are open.

[OhNewby]

Suggestions from a fan going forward:

1. More Duax and little more Pock, less Henry (even if you play undersized) and less RJ (this seems obvious in the eye test and is backed up by analytics). Even if you look at it from a player development point of few, frankly, I think Pock and Duax have a lot more potential than RJ and Henry is not going to change at this point.
2. Let's run more plays where Born, Tytan and Heise have the ball in their hands, it puts more pressure on the opposing D. Having Hutson or Henry have the ball up top is fine, but not all the time, it gives the opposing D too much of a break.

[7YrsOfCollegeDownTheDrain]

Great Road win...nice to see this team grind out a win on a night they didn't shoot it well.

[UNIdad]

Was I the only one that about had a heart attack on that three ball at the end by the bears? Holy crap... Gritty win.

I was with you. Hated it when I saw him get such a clean look.

[UNIdad]

Bowen single-handedly won this game for us at the end.

How did he end up with that rebound? And how did he have the presence of mind to take such a good shot after the rebound?

[kochrab]

How did he end up with that rebound? And how did he have the presence of mind to take such a good shot after the rebound?

I have no idea how he got that rebound. He was surrounded by significantly taller players, but as we've seen, that doesn't matter to Born

[Wxcpanther]

I will say, I was surprised that Mike didn't get more run last night. I felt like when he was out there his energy was very good, had 2 points with 2 boards, no fouls or turnovers, but only got 7 minutes. I will say in general the bench did not play well last night, but I didn't feel like that was on Mike specifically.

[unipanthers8907]

One last question/comment from me on this game. They initially said Edwards hit a long 2 with about 5 minutes to play in regulation. Then went back and reviewed it and changed it to a 3. After seeing that replay on TV I have no idea how you can definitively say that his foot still wasn't on the line. I didn't see anything clear that showed a gap between his shoe and the line, but maybe I'm blind. Just glad that 1 point difference didn't come back to bite us.

[BCPanther]

One last question/comment from me on this game. They initially said Edwards hit a long 2 with about 5 minutes to play in regulation. Then went back and reviewed it and changed it to a 3. After seeing that replay on TV I have no idea how you can definitively say that his foot still wasn't on the line. I didn't see anything clear that showed a gap between his shoe and the line, but maybe I'm blind. Just glad that 1 point difference didn't come back to bite us.

They don't use the TV angles for review. There are DV Sport mounted cameras all over the buildings that TV doesn't have access to. They must have had a good look at it because that crew isn't guessing. Those 3 could do a Final Four game and no one would bat an eye.

[UNIpanther99]

Yep. They really should have a feed direct from the DVSports monitor the crew is looking at tied into TV so that we can see what they are looking at, and maybe even a mic. Same for football, more transparency in the review process would be better. The NBA does it to an extent, and the XFL is totally transparent.

[unipanthers8907]

They don't use the TV angles for review. There are DV Sport mounted cameras all over the buildings that TV doesn't have access to. They must have had a good look at it because that crew isn't guessing. Those 3 could do a Final Four game and no one would bat an eye.

Gotcha. Thanks! I was not aware that the officials had additional cameras aside from the TV cameras.