Game 15 - at Evansville - Jan 4

[BCPanther]

Any updates on Smith?

Felt something in his calf. Could've played if they were in a different game. Averted disaster it appears.

[kochrab]

Yeah, we definitely didn't need him today if he was possibly cramping or whatever it was. Better to play it safe in a game that we didn't need him. We will definitely need him on Wednesday.

[MVCBeat]

Made the wrong choice and watched the Bears instead of this one. Hope
we didn’t lose another dude with Smith.

We haven’t played the toughest slate in league play but we’ve got four wins in the bank. We’ll learn more about ourselves in the coming weeks.

[BCPanther]

Made the wrong choice and watched the Bears instead of this one. Hope
we didn’t lose another dude with Smith.

We haven’t played the toughest slate in league play but we’ve got four wins in the bank. We’ll learn more about ourselves in the coming weeks.

League did a pretty awesome job with the schedule. The top of the league has a chance to bank a bunch of wins and create separation before they start beating up on each other in late January and February.

[1994grad]

It looked like Smith hurt his hip or back while boxing out. He was holding his hip for a play after injuring it and then went out and I don't think I saw him on the bench the rest of the game. Last game I saw Smith wearing a sleeve on his shin so thought he may have been struggling with shinsplints, but after rewatching the first couple minutes of the game, it was his hip or lower back that was hurt. I hope he heals up quickly.

It was great to see the Panthers get out to a decent lead. We don't see that often, even when they should be able to. Also, the three point defense is so much better than years past. It is great to see Ben playing more aggressive.

[sevelev711]

Held Evansville to the lowest point total in a half this season. Their lowest score before was in the last game against the Redbirds, with 19 points in the 2nd half. Counts for something I suppose.

We have an insanely good defense this year, which is the theme of our best teams. Fourth in the country, according to Torvik, only behind Michigan, UConn, and Arizona, and 12th in Kenpom. Only problem is that we pair it with an offense that's in the mid 200s. Our defense is UConn, our offense is Bethune Cookman.

[06panther10]

We have an insanely good defense this year, which is the theme of our best teams. Fourth in the country, according to Torvik, only behind Michigan, UConn, and Arizona, and 12th in Kenpom. Only problem is that we pair it with an offense that's in the mid 200s. Our defense is UConn, our offense is Bethune Cookman.

The offense has to get better, that is for sure. Even yesterday, it was not good. If we did not get hot from 3, this game might have been a different story.

[PantherAlum09]

I'm a little worried about Tristan. He started wearing that sleeve on his calf the last game and now he exits this game with a leg injury. A lot of times these calf strains can become long term issues and possibly effect the achilles tendon, too. I hope we don't push it too much with him and cause a bigger problem.

[orangetennis]

Evansville is obviously not great, but this still felt like a big confidence win in a state that weird things tend to happen in. If we shoot the three this well all the time we are really really hard to beat. Huge game coming up, keep the hot streak going.

I wouldn't count on it

[orangetennis]

Still missing some bunnies down the lane & trying some passes down there that are NOT going to get through.

16 turnovers! Against these guys! Obviously, you are not going to win on the road unless you shoot like we did. Even then, it seems like we missed plenty of wide-open ones in the second half. (Greedy?)

Well, we have now gone 4 - 0 against the lower teams in the conference. (SIU coming up shortly.) Time to start going up against a few of the better teams.

Ya, we gotta cut out the bounce passes in traffic. Sure, it looks pretty when it works, but more often it results in a TO. And UE's defense wasn't exactly the most aggressive we've seen. No excuse for 16 TOs against that team.

['70 Grad]

I enjoyed their TV (student?) announcers discussing the long tenure of Ben Jacobson in Cedar Falls, having been a player there too. (Honest mistake.)

What was worth a chuckle was when they were discussing our defensive prowess and whether we would hold them to our previous conference best. They were pretty sure that they would be able to avoid our season-best defensive effort, which was against "C.- O. - E."

Wondering what C. O. E. stands for? College of Elephants? Need help from Panther Nation. Your suggestions?

[BobCat]

I enjoyed their TV (student?) announcers discussing the long tenure of Ben Jacobson in Cedar Falls, having been a player there too. (Honest mistake.)
They were pretty sure that they would be able to avoid our season-best defensive effort, which was against "C.- O. - E."

I heard and wondered about both of those things too!

[QCPanther05]

We have an insanely good defense this year, which is the theme of our best teams. Fourth in the country, according to Torvik, only behind Michigan, UConn, and Arizona, and 12th in Kenpom. Only problem is that we pair it with an offense that's in the mid 200s. Our defense is UConn, our offense is Bethune Cookman.

That’s incredible. Doing one thing really, really well can take you a long way. Even if our offense can improve marginally, we should be able to compete for a league title.

[PantherAlum09]

We have an insanely good defense this year, which is the theme of our best teams. Fourth in the country, according to Torvik, only behind Michigan, UConn, and Arizona, and 12th in Kenpom. Only problem is that we pair it with an offense that's in the mid 200s. Our defense is UConn, our offense is Bethune Cookman.

Our defense is elite in part because we have slowed down the tempo to a rate we haven't played in a long time consistently. If we sped up our offense to start scoring at a higher rate, I have some concerns the defensive efficiency would be affected negatively as well. That's ok if we are scoring enough points however. I'm just not sold we are shooting the ball well enough yet.