It will be interesting to see if the Loyola game at 9 pm local time (when my neighbors in Normal were turning off their lights to go to sleep) got more fans in attendance than Ole Miss, BYU or the other games ISU had at home.

Personally, I am sick to my stomach. We gave a really weak effort in this game, worse than 2018, 2017 or 2016. This may have been the worst effort we've made at ISU since we joined the league.

Also, if Dan Muller is going to send a letter to the league asking how to defend against Krutwig, why doesn't Moser send a letter to the league asking if a hit-and-run driver, assaulter, etc. is someone who we can safely play against without risking physical harm.

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We had a bad showing here. I expected them to be fired up and ready to play hard against us. I didn't expect us to be so passive and terrible.

I would agree that when teams have come out and punched us in the face we have not reciprocated. I don’t think the team is soft. We just don’t have those kind of players this year. We have Krutwig and Townes, now that Lucas is out. Uguak is not as tough as Ingram or Jackson were. Skokna has tried the last two games. I think it would help to play Negron/Agunane with Krutwig the next time it happens.

I really respect you, Blers.... You are right on top of things with recruits. But their threes were not "circus" threes. They were made threes. There was one three that was a low percentage shot at the buzzer that went in. That does not make their 9 other threes "circus".

Yes, we missed Williamson, yes it was no good that no one hit threes.

But bad teams use those excuses when their only other options fail. Good teams never use those excuses because they have 2nd, 3rd and 4th options.

I was thinking about this today as well. We saw Krut/Negron out there together a few times earlier this season and, from what I recall, it was decently successful. Not sure why it was abandoned. We clearly don't have the the guys for the 4-and-1 we ran last year--might as well change it up here and there.

Unfortunately this year without Lucas we have 3 options, 2 lately with Custer MIA, because after that we’re relying on freshman and Uguak who is not much past a freshman in terms of game experience.

That was our Boise.




I kid, I kid.

S’all good. Agree to disagree. Maybe “well contested” 3 is better than “circus” for Evans but he hit shots, if you disagree some of his makes were well defended then idk. Also not sure if you’re just arguing we’re a bad overall team?

We lost but I’m just not willing to say it was worse than New Year’s Day game a few years back or say we’re a “bad team” full stop. We’re 7-3 in conference and split the season series with the second place team. Our second best win total in the valley is 8 wins. We have 7 10 gamss in despite a whole lot of struggles.

I’ve accepted this is going to be a real up and down year, not trying to be flippant. I’m just on to Drake!

I recorded the game and went back to look at Custer’s shots. Two of them were “contested.” The rest were wide open looks that just didn’t fall. He also didn’t get credited with shot on the one that he just tossed out of bounds when it slipped out of his hands.

I get that he doesn’t have to be a scoring machine, but we need him for 12 or 13 and 4 assists if we are going to win big games. 0 assists for our point guard is more alarming than 0-10 from 3. I’d rather have cooper playing the point at this point to give Custer some rest. Cooper no longer looks afraid to drive at the basket, and maybe he would get some more open looks from three at that position. Maybe even better would be to put Marcus at the point and work a screen up high to get him a running start at the basket. He could start finding Krut on the run or kick to Cooper. The problem is teams now know how to beat us - don’t rush shots, run the shot clock down, and don’t let us run. When other teams are gonna hold the ball as their game plan, if we get down early, this running around setting screens, making five passes stuff is just wasting time for us. This worked last year in the tournament to slow better teams down for us to stay in the game. It’s not working for this years’ team when we are down by 12 and taking 28 seconds to get a shot off.

The tape is in on Krut - teams are gonna try to hold him and get away with it when he doesn’t have the ball, and collapse on him with three guys when he gets it. If we see that defensive plan, we need to adjust and play Krut and Negron down low and Uguak, Townes and Kaifus around the arc. I say those three and not Custer because if we can get Krut the ball and he kicks it out, I like the odds the best of any of those four immediately driving at the basket and drawing fouls when the guys that went to help out on Krut are out of position. We draw fouls, their starters go out with trouble, and hopefully we can go back to doing what we do with a lead.

Negron should be able to draw some pressure off of Krut, and if left alone, has proven he has some nice moves of his own in the paint. We might as well try it because it’s gonna have to be our game plan all of next year with Townes and Custer gone. We will probably have to go:
5 krutwig [Agunnane]
4 Negron. [Welch]
3 Uguak [Tate Hall]
2 Williamson. [kaifus, Wojcik]
1 Kennedy. [Budjoso, Skokna]
I guess at this point I want to see Negron in the game just to see what we have and give him the confidence that he will have a future role so that he’ll want to come back. We are gonna be a little short on bigs next year and I don’t want to see him leave, sit a year, and go to the horizon where he will be a starter.

I still have confidence in this team, but the pattern of first half points in the 20s is starting to get alarming. What is Porter gonna do to fix it?

We lost...but I feel extremely confident about our chances to win before and in St Louis. Which is really all that matters.

I deleted a couple of posts this morning. It is JCT's board, so if he wants them back, I will repost them, but I propose we stick to what makes the board fun which is basketball and wordplay.

As for the game, I don't think we played that terribly. If we have a normal shooting game, it is close all the way, which is what you would expect.

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