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catseye · Joined: 30 Nov 2005 Posts: 1432 Location: Greenville, NC

Purdue is very good. They shoot well. They move the ball well. They hustle, hustle, hustle. They're an NCAA tournament team and there is no shame in losing to them.

But here are the things I don't understand:

1) When teams jump our passing lanes and extend the defense to the three point line, we make back door cuts and take the easy layups. Why didn't we see that tonight?

2) For a team that is supposed to be chock full of shooters, we have yet to have a good shooting night. Is that a function of getting our legs? Is there some other explanation? Lots of open looks tonight that didn't fall down.

3) We are usually a good guard rebounding team, but this is the second night in a row that it seems like we got none of the long rebounds.

4) Finally, Grady has to be able to take his man off the dribble if they are going to guard him 1v1 at the three point line with the no help defense behind. He is great at this and we've seen him do this a bunch. Wonder why he hasn't done it much the past two days. He had some tonight but it was a little too little too late.

I still think that we are off to a decent start. A win on Sunday against Northeastern and you'd have to consider it a successful tournament. But we have a bunch of stuff to work on.

Still love our Cats.
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"He scores 30 points and he thinks he can call me Bob."

BDF · Joined: 24 Jan 2012 Posts: 4137

When they missed a shot, we got the rebound 24 times. They got it 18. I understand the 7â€™3â€ guy getting some. I donâ€™t understand when he gets the rebound that hits the floor.

We were also upside down on assist to turnover ratio.
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This is a post by BDF, not BDL.

bvgerd · Joined: 17 Jul 2012 Posts: 2783 Location: Anchorage

MrMac · Joined: 10 Jul 2010 Posts: 8254 Location: Greenwood, SC

BDF · Joined: 24 Jan 2012 Posts: 4137

wildforthecats · Joined: 30 Nov 2005 Posts: 18388 Location: Matthews NC

Luka will get there. He a very nice arc on his foul shots.

GoCats · Joined: 01 Dec 2005 Posts: 2227 Location: North Carolina

Purdue is very good. I was impressed by their D and passing. Edwards is a legit All-American candidate. Davidson looked tired. Despite not playing well in the first half the game was close. The Davidson offense is struggling. Purdue kept their big man in the paint when our bigs received the ball on the perimeter. Dusan was the only big that shot a 3. In the Davidson offense, the bigs need to shoot the 3 (or at least be a threat) bc it otherwise allows the defense to pack the paint and makes backdoor cuts less effective. The best way to hurt a 7 footer is to make him play on the perimeter - we couldn't do that tonight. The Davidson defense was actually decent. Still need to get closer to the shooters but Purdue only shot 41.8% from the field. Late in the second half, Davidson fell apart for a few minutes, panicked, and Purdue put the game away.

The game was very physical and very few fouls were called (at least against Purdue)- advantage Purdue. The lack of rebounding is a problem. Too many times, Davidson was out of position. One guy would get beat, another was trying to cover, both were out of position. Rotations were not good enough.
The lack of assists in the last two games is a concern. The ball movement is not great. Too much standing still and holding the ball - guys look like they want to go 1 on 1 instead of letting the system work. Overall, I am not surprised at the outcome, saw some good things too. Carter improved. Luke hit some shots, Grady rediscovered his shot albeit a little late. Dusan was our best big tonight. Bob is playing his bench which is a good thing. I think this team has a lot of potential. I bet our guys wish they had a do over.
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"That wasn't an upset tonight," Kansas coach Bill Self said glumly. "They controlled the game," Self said. "They whipped us."
Davidson 80 Kansas 74

catnhat · Joined: 14 May 2007 Posts: 6397 Location: Asheboro, NC

Our bigs catch the ball at the top of the key, swing it to the other side and screen away. If the other team's big camps under the rim the man our guy screens for will get a bunch of open shots. Our offense works best when the 5 can make a three, but it is not completely dependent on it. How many 3s did Thomas, Boris, and Andrew take in the 2nd half of the '08-'09 season?

Luka will be a 1000 point scorer- maybe 1500. Did you see his back door pass to CC last night? We'll be fine.

CatsUpNorth · Joined: 18 Oct 2015 Posts: 1402

Luka made and shot threes in Europe, but not at a great clip and still has an awkwardish motion, but over time he should earn the green light.

Just some perspective: we just lost to a team where the first-team All American star was hitting well-contested deep shots that also had more size than us, and we are a team with one senior that is still clearly figuring things out. The process of how it happened isn't great, and JAG looked (understandably) tired after his Herculean effort the prior day. It's our first loss of the season, and I hate to break it, but we weren't going to go undefeated or play great every game, and we are undoubtedly going to lose a game we really shouldn't going forward, the question will then be how to we bounce back and grow.

Right now, our offense isn't clicking and everything is difficult. We shouldn't have to just give the ball to JAG or Kellan and say "get us a bucket." We had the same issues last season early on before developing more balance, where Kellan and Peyton were able to thrive in the concept of the offense instead of just giving them the ball and hoping for the best.

I'd like to see Kellan make some more shots, but remember last year 1) Peyton had a bunch of early season struggles when we asked him to be the guy and we weren't running our offense smoothly at all and 2) we lost to freaking App St. and Hawaii.

We obviously need to improve, and Northeastern will be a tough two games. But sometimes we forget that it is a long season and we have a tendency as a program to play a lot better at the end of the season than the beginning. Our guys are playing their tails off right now and we should be proud, but we should be reasonable and expect it to take some time.

MikeMaloy15 · Joined: 26 Feb 2006 Posts: 11345 Location: Salisbury, N.C.

Agree with most and maybe all of that.

"But sometimes we forget that it is a long season and we have a tendency as a program to play a lot better at the end of the season than the beginning."

We forget everything in the immediate aftermath of a big loss (or a big win). This board exists in part to allow us to say really stupid things in the heat of the moment, secure in the knowledge that those statements will disappear into the ether in a few weeks and never be seen again.

BDL · Joined: 04 Dec 2016 Posts: 1261

CatsUpNorth · Joined: 18 Oct 2015 Posts: 1402

Think Coach made a bunch of great, objective points in his postgame, stuff that has been said here but didn't sugarcoat it: https://static.davidsonwildcats.com/custompages/mbball/2018-19/Radio/McKillopPurdue.mp3

He/we clearly know what we need to improve, which is step one to getting better.

tennis08tarheels · Joined: 09 Dec 2006 Posts: 3443 Location: Dallas, TX

MLC67 · Joined: 14 Sep 2016 Posts: 1183 Location: Camelot

MM15's wise words should be enshrined in the HOF, but then they would be untrue, so nah.
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All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is for men of good will to do nothing. Eddie Burke

Esse Quam Videri

BDF · Joined: 24 Jan 2012 Posts: 4137