Halftime thoughts:

Welch is good. Very good.

Braden's minutes are going to be an issue. He had a few bad turnovers. Would be nice to get him some breathers.

Gave up too many offensive boards and easy second chance points. I can see why Golden had such low rebounding numbers despite being a multiple year starter at center. Just not aggressive for boards.

4-17 from deep. Notably, Braden 0-2 and Schwieger 0-3.

This team is going to have some growing pains and will likely drop a few games to inferior nonconf opponents.

I miss Lucas.

Yeeshhhh... defense is bad. Careless with the ball.

Is Saint OK? He always looks like he's winded... was the same in the exhibition.

We need to go inside more. We have a height advantage, and inside baskets will open the perimeter.

But the big thing..... defense. Lots of missed assignments on switching.

[quote="JCT"
Is Saint OK? He always looks like he's winded... was the same in the exhibition.[/quote]

He had a non covid illness the last couple weeks, wasn’t practicing before the exhibition. Could be that. I also think he took a shot to the stomach or groin after those two threes

I saw Alston limping coming out of tunnel at halftime and don't see him on the bench as 2d half started.

Hard to watch this defense after what we have had the past few years.

He’s been noticeably absent. Both Golden and Hutty haven’t exactly stood out tonight.

Chucking up bricks from deep. Need to go to the hoop.

Whew

The good:

- We won
- Tom Welch, what a first game and off season improvement from him
- Sheldon Edwards, he played great as well and hit big shots wen needed.
- Jalen Quinn, he looks like the real deal. Ran the point well, drives well, had some defensive errors/fouling but for a true freshman he looks fantastic and can be a difference maker
- Phil Alston - Great physical and inside presence from him, we looked like a different team without him, hopefully he isn’t too injured or something that lingers as we will need him down low.

The bad:
- Hopefully Drew practices beating a press for days in end, we were completely unprepared for it and you can bet we will see a lot of it moving forward with how terrible we looked against. Practice those long throws and not getting boxed in.
- Defense - way too many errors, missing assignments, think Saint game up about 10 pts on back door cuts alone; communication needs to be better. Obviously not expecting to be Porter level defense overnight but the effort needs to be better.
- Rebounding - Very soft outside Welch on the defensive glass and they cleaned up on offensive boards.
- Conditioning? Saw someone post that Thomas was ill, I hope so for his sake, his conditioning looked poor if he wasn’t.
- 3 point shooting. We don’t look to be particularly skilled at it, we need some bread and butter plays to get points if the 3 isn’t falling. Chucking up 3 with no one there to rebound is a recipe for disaster. If something isnt working, don’t continue to keep doing it; change it up, do the extra pass for a better look. We know that’s successful.

Overall, a win is a win; happy the pulled it out. Ecstatic with how Tom looked, he was playing big boy basketball tonight. Regroup, put in some work this week and let’s go smoke UIC.

It's going to take some time for this team to gel but lots of promise here.

As usual, we really miss Kennedy. I hope he is better soon.


In other news, our old friend Porter may be on the hot seat already. When he was hired, I said OU wouldn't be as patient with him as we were and it's looking to be true. Hindsight is always 20-20. But I hope he turns it around and the fans cool down.

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Cigarboy sucks!