Game 12 - at Saint Mary's - Dec. 22

[pnthr53]

27 to 4 in free throw attempts….23 to 11 in fouls….thats what makes life on the road so difficult and tough to win away from home.

[pnthr53]

College basketball games are way too physical to have foul and free throw discrepancies like that. Wasn’t that long ago I remember a game we lost and never shot a free throw.

[GarretW1797]

I'm usually not one to criticize Jacobson's offensive gameplan, but playing passive protecting a 1 point lead instead of trying to score and put them away at the end was really really dumb.

[Panther Fan]

SMC shot 93% from FT line. That would tie Desmond Bane of Orlando for highest % in NBA. Steph is currently at 91%. And it’s not like SMC didn’t shoot many. It would feel different if they were on fire from 3, but that was crazy. And to think one of their two misses we didn’t rebound and they made a FG on the possession. Frustrating that we could have made plays to win but I’d be curious how many D1 games have a +/- of 22 from FT line when it’s not a Coe vs UNI type game.

['70 Grad]

t the fact of the matter is we lost to the three best teams we played this year. All winnable games.

So close to a tremendous non-con. Ends up a little better than usual. Defeats on the road.

Game was closer than I expected.

We are not a tall team. Have to shoot pretty well.

My opinion: Trey is doing well. Ben could do so many things, but is not having a senior/break-out year. Leon is not scoring 17-20 ppg like I thought he would.

[PantherAlum09]

- Saint Mary's size really bothered us on the glass.
- Izzy gave us a huge lift tonight.
- Trey was great but had a couple big turnovers towards the end.
- I loved Geon's ball pressure on Dent tonight.
- We rebounded much better in the 2nd half.

The fouls definitely showed a huge discrepancy, but it did feel like we fouled most the time they were called. There were a couple I definitely did not agree with. I do think we probably earned a couple that didn't get called as well.

We are still really struggling from 3 as a team. We had a lot of open looks especially in the first half that we just didn't connect. We could've put them in a really tough spot by halftime. We need Kyle and Ben to really get it going again. When Max comes back, we need him to be the 40% shooter he was last year, too.

Even with the rebounding and free throw discrepancies, we had a legit shot to beat a top 25 level team on the road. We are really good and terrific on defense. I can't wait for next week and conference play to begin.

[sevelev711]

One of the things about having a horrible work schedule is that I don't often get to watch UNI games, which sometimes sucks, but sometimes works out. Like, here, I can just go "Oh, I expected us to lose by a lot, we only lost by five? Good game!" and not have to worry about the brain aneurysm I would've gotten from seeing us lose like that in real time.

[BCPanther]

We made up the rebounding disadvantage by turning them over a bunch and actually took more shots than they did.

We're good. Can't wait for league play to get going in earnest.

[1994grad]

I was super impressed with how well we played. It wasn't perfect, but it never will be. We were around a 12-13 point underdog coming into the game and we were the better team last night. Our defense was fantastic against a good team. It is very encouraging to continue to see our team develop.

[BCPanther]

Metrics liked it-

Net from 81 to 73
Torvik from 82 to 71
KenPom from 98 to 91 (super weird that once his metric got added to the selection criteria that it got harder on mids)

NET headed into league play:

50 Belmont
63 Illinois State
70 Murray State
73 UNI
121 Bradley
130 Southern Illinois
167 Drake
214 Indiana State
229 UIC
240 Valpo
269 Evansville

[Mudrafan]

Just a lot of positive things. I love we are playing a challenging schedule. Especially tough games on the road. That pays dividends. We are building quality depth, even if unintentional through tough injuries through really bad timing. Again, awful to deal with now, but tends to be beneficial in multiple levels down the road.

I’ve been critical of Diof, but we should really be encouraged what we saw last night. His offense is a bonus. We need him defensively on the interior & on the glass. An unexpected benefit here is the better Diof gets, the more Hornseth gets pushed to get to his upside. And it helps stretch his fouls out the more minutes Diof gets.

I really want to see more minutes in both halves from Hutchins. He’s multi talented & presents an all around player with length & upside we normally don’t see. Love his ability to slash, shoot, defend & rebound.

At the end of the day, we are going to go as far as Bond, Schweiger & Campbell will take us by taking over the end of games. As seniors, it’s their team. They need to step up the “winning time” mode for us to convert games on the road that will be critical in conference

[krusej23]

Go back and watch the rebound after Trey's three at the end. Pock definitely fouled him on the rebound but the ball went off the St Marys player but they called it St Mary's ball. It was a bad call all around. I was yelling at the tv when this play happened. The picture of the situation is linked here. https://ibb.co/m5B9xg6s

[BCPanther]

Just a lot of positive things. I love we are playing a challenging schedule. Especially tough games on the road. That pays dividends. We are building quality depth, even if unintentional through tough injuries through really bad timing. Again, awful to deal with now, but tends to be beneficial in multiple levels down the road.

I’ve been critical of Diof, but we should really be encouraged what we saw last night. His offense is a bonus. We need him defensively on the interior & on the glass. An unexpected benefit here is the better Diof gets, the more Hornseth gets pushed to get to his upside. And it helps stretch his fouls out the more minutes Diof gets.

I really want to see more minutes in both halves from Hutchins. He’s multi talented & presents an all around player with length & upside we normally don’t see. Love his ability to slash, shoot, defend & rebound.

At the end of the day, we are going to go as far as Bond, Schweiger & Campbell will take us by taking over the end of games. As seniors, it’s their team. They need to step up the “winning time” mode for us to convert games on the road that will be critical in conference

We've never agreed on much, mudra, but this is spot on.

I like this side of you and want to see it more!

[Wxcpanther]

We've never agreed on much, mudra, but this is spot on.

I like this side of you and want to see it more!

I thought the same thing lol

['70 Grad]

Metrics liked it-

Net from 81 to 73
Torvik from 82 to 71
KenPom from 98 to 91 (super weird that once his metric got added to the selection criteria that it got harder on mids)

NET headed into league play:

50 Belmont
63 Illinois State
70 Murray State
73 UNI
121 Bradley
130 Southern Illinois
167 Drake
214 Indiana State
229 UIC
240 Valpo
269 Evansville

Thanks for the work, BC.

A view without purple-tinted glasses. Good thing we got out of Chicago with a (close) win. Beating UIC doesn't look really impressive on that list. Lots to do in the next couple of months.