First game that a plan actually worked

[arxpert]

Tommy went into his deep meditation with his long layoff to formulate a game plan and it actually worked even with the Refs destroying us in that first half then looking the other way throughout the 2nd half.

We barely survived, but we also executed what appeared to be a "strategy" tonight.

If we do this again tomorrow that would be known as a "Win Streak".

Caleb Love played his best game of the season in my book. He could have went unhinged when the game got tight and chucked up 3's to a detriment, but he trusted his teammates and dished out some assists.

X's and O's were called for a change.

Not sure if there is a magnet in the ball and the rim, but every team is hitting 3's in this Arena.

Tommy didn't let this team hang their heads low when we gave up 2 or 3 10pt leads / couldn't extend a lead out to 15-20pts when playing basically the best ball I've seen us play this year in the 1st half for about 12 minutes.

I do hope this carries over. We needed this win big time. A loss would have confirmed what we are and would have been absolutely crushing.

We have a team that plays hard and it finally paid off tonight.

Kansass is nothing special this year, but it was a hostile environment at times and in the end the UofA Chants prevailed from the crowd. Kansass fans should actually be ashamed. They pulled a "McKale" as I call it where they got pretentious and only cared when the game got within 3 to 5 points.

This team is a bad matchup for us and it was navigated with Heart and Grit somehow.

Footnote: If this team is willing to leave it's feet on a close out on the perimeter we should be fine. Almost every time we get lazy closeouts where we put a hand up, but don't actually get vertical it seems like the opponent will make the 3. They stopped hitting those 3's when we jumped off the floor.

I don't want to see Teck's Ass Tech raining 3's on us tomorrow by virtue of us playing lazy. Run them all off the perimeter, make the rotations preemptively so they don't Alley Oop on Henri all game, and sometimes we need to do a Reverse Uno card and make the opponent have to earn their 2 points by making 2 shots (planned free throws). That is usually the strategy our opponents deploy with us.

Ownward and Up

Beardown

[|ᴘ|ʀ|ʏ|ᴍ|ᴇ|]

Footnote: If this team is willing to leave it's feet on a close out on the perimeter we should be fine. Almost every time we get lazy closeouts where we put a hand up, but don't actually get vertical it seems like the opponent will make the 3. They stopped hitting those 3's when we jumped off the floor.

The problem with that is that we have certain dudes who jump straight into guys and foul them instead of contesting the shot on a fly-by.

[arxpert]

Footnote: If this team is willing to leave it's feet on a close out on the perimeter we should be fine. Almost every time we get lazy closeouts where we put a hand up, but don't actually get vertical it seems like the opponent will make the 3. They stopped hitting those 3's when we jumped off the floor.

The problem with that is that we have certain dudes who jump straight into guys and foul them instead of contesting the shot on a fly-by.

I know, but maybe there is a deep stat somewhere about this - it was completely evident that when our players got off the ground to contest a 3pt shot, the shots didn't fall much. Del Orso got off his feet on a few. Carter tried hard and did it. Love, Bradley tend to not jump. KJ can be erratic, but that dude only played 19 minutes tonight, got 11 Field Goal Attempts and 7 Free Throws. He maximizes his worth to the team.

One thing I always notice is we are athletically challenged. Our guards love to Show Time, but they get rejected by the rim a lot and most everyone else can't perform a standing dunk. We just have to continue to be fundamental with layups and put-in's.

[Naterade]

Crazy to think that you could say Love played his best game and only scored 11 points, but you can definitely make argument. His court vision and playmaking were on full display. Del Orso started out playing great on ball defense, fighting over the top of screens and almost made an incredible play by stealing the ball and tossing it down the court for a would be fast break dunk. Townsend was obviously the hero tonight. His best two games of the year were these last two, if he can keep it up that adds a whole new dimension to our offense. It allowed Awaka to not contribute much and still we got the win. It was great to see us increase the lead late and control the game. And of course KJ had a classic whiffed wide open layup only to make an incredible steal the very next play. Henry stayed balanced and went up strong against Dickinson and that was freaking awesome. My favorite play of the game was Carters block in the fast break layup. That was an incredible difficult thing to do without fouling.

[Bear]

Was Tommy in the huddle telling them the key to winning down the stretch was breaking their momentum by leaving Mayo wide open? Not sure but it turned out to be brilliant.

[arxpert]

Was Tommy in the huddle telling them the key to winning down the stretch was breaking their momentum by leaving Mayo wide open? Not sure but it turned out to be brilliant.

Same thing was happening again tonight.

The way I see it is we are the epitome of "sus".

If we can snap off 1 more win tomorrow then the ENTIRE season will be a success in my eyes.

Can we lose and then go on a magical run? Most likely not. If we lose tomorrow we likely have 1 game left, maybe 2 if we are lucky. 3 if something crazy happens. I personally don't see it.

Henri is playing great ball, but we all know what happens when this team is presented 2 6'11" Skilled Bigs. Even if they are small school.

We also know what happens when we are faced with some 6'8" 250lb stronk bois vs Henri. Tobe is just not that much of a Himothy to shut that down. He has moments, but isn't that coordinated.

We are consistently getting these 10pt leads and then blowing them. Tonight was 15 and then we imploded. A little bit of wonky behaviors.

Refs literally hate us. Never seen anything like it.

Tommy has been able to navigate it and this post really is all about giving Tommy some credit.

I hope he can earn his flowers tomorrow. He consistently has been a Conference Tournament Coach.

These 3 games are stronger to win than say "Liberty", "Illinois", then going out to Auburn. Or even if we were to make the Elite 8, there is no real meaningful banner for that. None that anyone besides Me and maybe a couple others give credit for around here.

It is pretty obvious that if Tommy can get this team to the Elite 8, but lose, that he is dog shit that can't get over the hump to a Final 4 ---- Which I vehemently disagree with. It would be very cool to not be sent home on Day 1 to "Liberty" flaming out.

[arxpert]

Crazy to think that you could say Love played his best game and only scored 11 points, but you can definitely make argument. His court vision and playmaking were on full display. Del Orso started out playing great on ball defense, fighting over the top of screens and almost made an incredible play by stealing the ball and tossing it down the court for a would be fast break dunk. Townsend was obviously the hero tonight. His best two games of the year were these last two, if he can keep it up that adds a whole new dimension to our offense. It allowed Awaka to not contribute much and still we got the win. It was great to see us increase the lead late and control the game. And of course KJ had a classic whiffed wide open layup only to make an incredible steal the very next play. Henry stayed balanced and went up strong against Dickinson and that was freaking awesome. My favorite play of the game was Carters block in the fast break layup. That was an incredible difficult thing to do without fouling.

Townsend has had his 2 best games these last 2. I don't know if he can make it 3 in a row, but Dell Orso's style can translate in the catch and spot-shoot role. Tommy saved his best for last in my opinion. We are rolling with it.

Caleb Love had his 2 best games back to back as well.

Basically everyone has.

These are the "wins" that this team should have been able to claw to achieve throughout the regular season. We were just Jekyll and Hyde.

This is why I really hope we can Finish Our Story this Season with a win tomorrow. It may not mean that much to a couple people here. Houston has never won a Conference Title in the Big 12. Obviously neither have we. I think they want it as much as we do.

We played our best game of the year vs Houston in McKale and came up short. The wheels fell off after that. Had we finished that game the way we finished Kansass and Teck's Ass Teck, I think we would be staring down the barrel of a 2 seed right now.

However, we are here and this is Now.

SO WHY NOT TRY TO WIN THE WHOLE FUCKING ENCHILADA?

A Big12 Banner will Validate us as having a Great season all things considered and then we can let the chips fall as they may.

I truly do want to give Tommy his flowers for this season and now it is up to Tommy and the players to grab the Brass Ring vs a Houston team that has been a bugaboo since Year 1 of Tommy's tenure taking us out as a 1 seed when they were a 5 seed.

It's time we give them some payback and then see what happens come the Madness.

This is the LAST thing we have full control over.

[|ᴘ|ʀ|ʏ|ᴍ|ᴇ|]

Footnote: If this team is willing to leave it's feet on a close out on the perimeter we should be fine. Almost every time we get lazy closeouts where we put a hand up, but don't actually get vertical it seems like the opponent will make the 3. They stopped hitting those 3's when we jumped off the floor.

The problem with that is that we have certain dudes who jump straight into guys and foul them instead of contesting the shot on a fly-by.

Right on cue, JB Smoove chipped in lol

[arxpert]

Footnote: If this team is willing to leave it's feet on a close out on the perimeter we should be fine. Almost every time we get lazy closeouts where we put a hand up, but don't actually get vertical it seems like the opponent will make the 3. They stopped hitting those 3's when we jumped off the floor.

The problem with that is that we have certain dudes who jump straight into guys and foul them instead of contesting the shot on a fly-by.

Right on cue, JB Smoove chipped in lol

To be fair, I don't have a problem with 1 foul like that per game early on. Not late/down the stretch in a close one, but if we are rolling early we should establish a toughness and grit that says to opponents that we are going to contest what you do today, not just slide our feet and put an arm up. 9/10 of those you just jump like a wild man right by the player - not into the player, but if someone the size of Carter for example is leaping out at you maximumly extended it is going to be hard to trust your muscle memory or you will get run off the 3pt line. We seem to be able to trade 2pt shots with the best of them. It is when we let a team get the confidence and go off for crazy 3's that usually gets us rattled most.

[arxpert]

The team has Heart and Determination, but there is a certain type of fear that creeps in when we play teams that bring the same toughness and intensity.

There was a moment around the 13min mark in the 2nd half where Caleb Love did his patented "walk to defend" and just let the Houston player take his wide open 3 and swish it. Like the many times we have seen Love not wrap up someone and allow an easy layup and the countless times this team refuses to leave it's feet to force the opponent off the 3pt line.

KJ Lewis had some give up moments as well. It was tough to watch us fall apart in that small stretch where we went down 10pts or whatever because if we just didn't get mentally broken we would have punched back enough to keep control. We did chase down the deficit and with 5 minutes left we acted like that was all we needed to do. Get a few stops, convert a few buckets. We missed some valuable Free Throw opportunities. You just cannot beat the best teams when you aren't on their level in the game within the game aka the mental fortitude portion of the matchup.

We typically lose to teams that have good 3pt shooting performances whether it is all game or in a Half.

We played our hearts out, but when the chips were down and we took that lead with 5 minutes to go, we got lured into some bad choices, stopped working the ball inside. Let Houston get away with everything they do defensively and it started with unnecessary 3s and bad floor spacing which really speaks to not having the correct players on the court.

I get it, we got tired. Tommy refused to put Dell Orso and Townsend in the game (Townsend could have handled the physicality), but I will never understand why he refused to have Carter in the game opting for Awaka and Henri. It disabled any chance we had of a Mismatch offensively and especially when considering no one could stop Carter's 3pt shot on Houston it crippled the options we had.

And if you have a few plays drawn up for a spot shooter like Dell Orso you need to at least try them. Getting scared because he couldn't keep up defensively isn't an excuse. All Delly needed to do was make sure no one took a 3pt shot on him. Getting banged into with an elbow is an offensive foul in every game except this one. He didn't try to flop to his credit, but at the end of the day that's a lack of Heady IQ

We had the lead and momentum at the Half. We figured out how to play them. They adjusted. Then we actually did adjust back, but there was no point in starting the 2nd Half the way we started the First Half. Definition of insanity right there.

Again, we got tired... They were tired too. No excuses.

Our mental lapses were worse than theirs.

IF you want to know why we don't have what it takes, just look at how hard we played for this result. This was our Superbowl and Houston was shorthanded, but they were coached better and beyond that, they just refused to quit.

Hopefully we can win our First Round game. Carter and Henri have likely played their way into the First Round of the NBA Draft.