We played a Great Game... Until we didn't.

[KansasCityCats]

Agreed that Love's minutes should be reduced by ~10, unless he plays like he did in the first half. 5 of 7 from inside the arc is stellar. It also led to some nice kick-out opportunities.

If he loses minutes, they should go to Awaka and Martinez. As much as I love Townsend, he's a defensive liability and hasn't been the same since conference play began.

The staff drew up a nice game plan for Saturday. Arizona came out with open looks against arguably the best defensive team in the nation but in the second half, guards starting throwing up prayers. The good news is that this team won't shoot 20% from deep forever.

Make 1-2 more shots in each of the past two games and we would have been in great shape to win a deep Big-12. Bummer...but at least we have the postseason.

[arxpert]

Agreed that Love's minutes should be reduced by ~10, unless he plays like he did in the first half. 5 of 7 from inside the arc is stellar. It also led to some nice kick-out opportunities.

If he loses minutes, they should go to Awaka and Martinez. As much as I love Townsend, he's a defensive liability and hasn't been the same since conference play began.

The staff drew up a nice game plan for Saturday. Arizona came out with open looks against arguably the best defensive team in the nation but in the second half, guards starting throwing up prayers. The good news is that this team won't shoot 20% from deep forever.

Make 1-2 more shots in each of the past two games and we would have been in great shape to win a deep Big-12. Bummer...but at least we have the postseason.

I think of 10min, 3 can go to Del Orso, 3 to Carter, 3 to KJ Lewis and maybe 1 to Townsend

It is more so, I don't want to see 4-12 from the field. I would prefer to see 4-8 and those other 4 shots spread out 1 to each of whoever is actually open.

If Love is under 10 shots or at a max of 10 shots a game, the damage he can do to us offensively is limited. If he is hot, he can chuck them quickly.

[TooStonedCat]

I think this was the best showing this team has had vs anyone of circumstance, but this is why you can't afford to drop a game like we did to KSU.

I don't buy our circus shot on Iowa State. If we can beat them @Ames, then I will be a believer.

Tommy lost control of the game around 7 minutes to go or whenever that cheap foul was put on Henri to get Henri and Awaka both at 3 fouls.

Tommy played it scared. We had all the momentum and all the vibes with Henri out there. He had an extra Timeout to attempt to stop Houston's run after they went about 5-0 and we were still up by 2 points. Enough to get everyone a breather and reset things where drawing up a "gotta have it" type offensive play would have been easier. Then we maintain the momentum and they still chase us.

Tommy really should have rode Henri into the ground. Houston would have kept coming at him inside and we would have known exactly how to defend them. Sure, there were some calls we didn't get. We missed too many clutch FTs down the stretch, but we can't expect to be perfect from the stripe every game. We "had this" and let is slip away.

I think Tommy should learn from this one. It is too easy of a lesson this time. Houston made some clutch buckets and we just went completely cold. In fact, Carter Bryant was basically the "Brave One" on Offense down the stretch and he didn't get enough actions drawn up to get his 3ball corner pocket. He is the 1 guy who doesn't really need to be open to make a shot. Elite Length. I respect him for being a very good teammate. I don't see how he doesn't go Lottery, but I hope he stays next year just to watch his game and I hope Henri stays too. We have something special brewing in the desert.

That said, we probably lost the Conference Banner today, but we played about as well as we could, until we didn't.

Didn't like Love's shot selection at all in the 2nd half. Yes he was playing good defense, but if Love (in THIS particular scenario) was just going to chuck random deep balls, then Tommy might has well taken him out for a few minutes and went with Bradley, Lewis, Townsend, Carter, and Henri. Love was actually making all the same floaters that Houston made against us down the stretch in the first half. I don't know why he stopped. Even if they clogged the lane on him, he could have found an open shooter.

A team with No Confidence... that is what I saw once Houston closed that 7pt lead.

Tobe Awaka really wasn't "in the game" mentally vs that "Dale Davis NBA looking 90s PF"

Just needed to be Beefy in this one. Obviously Houston has some guys that I would want to check their Birth Certificates.

They look 32 years old with 2 kids and a Mortgage..

However, Henri was Mean Enough for this one. Even if he fouled out with 5 minutes to go it would have been worth it and the way the Refs were calling (and NOT calling fouls), I don't think they would have put a 5th on Henri over Houston just barreling into him. Tommy could have mitigated it by taking Henri out of the lane and letting Carter guard that 32 year old man in the low post with Lewis/Bradley hedging to steal the ball or tie it up.

Many ways to navigate that Coaching scenario. Tommy will want it back. I think he knows he didn't make the right calls.

I think there are a lot of positives from this performance even if I didn't write much about them.

They played great defense. This was an Elite 8 level game or a Final 4 style game. Can't blame Arizona for folding. This is what we do most of the time.

If no one wanted to step up and even try a 3 besides Carter (and "Chuck" Love), then I think we have a bigger TEAM-wide problem to explore. Even Henri could have taken a 3. They dared him. Townsend made one. Del'Orso again sort of disappeared when we had leads. That's when he should be getting in and trying to take a 3 for a heat check and if it's not there, put him back on the bench. Tommy has to be willing to use his tool belt and not just accept that a team is "coming back" against what we are doing, but "we should probably level out and punch back".

We didn't punch back. I think it was a 16-2 run before we had a little punch back. Tommy has to call Timeouts and stop those runs before they get started.

The best Coaches never let it get out of hand. Sampson never panicked, but if our 7pt / 9pt lead became 12pts I guarantee he would have called multiple timeouts and gotten his guys right. He wouldn't have waited for us to get from 12pts to 18 nor 20 without at least 2 timeouts.

Classic experience (Kelvin) vs inexperience (Tommy)

Again, I think this particular game was one that Tommy can look at, dissect pretty easily and be able to move forward with our New Found "Defensive" mentality which is a bright spot and very good thing to lean on down the stretch.

That's a good and extensive breakdown. I think it's much simpler than that, though. 
I've said over and over, too many 3's.  If we had only taken ten 3's we'd have probably made 2 instead of 5. We'd have had 15 more 2's and, based on our 2 pt shooting %, made 7. That's an 8 point increase. Use the same math against KSU and it was a 12 point increase.  Of course, there's no way to know exactly how the points and the flow of game work out in reality, but reality has shown that we're awful from outside the arc and very good from inside it.  If we're going to give away 8 & 12 points a game by playing to our weakness, then we aren't going to beat most good teams. This is a potentially excellent team, but they need to know who they are and just as importantly, who they aren't. They have surprised me by figured out that they are a hard nosed, tough defensive team.  They have figured out that they get the ball inside well, but they still haven't figured out that they suck from 3. Until they figure that out their ranking will be 15 or lower. If they do figure it out the sky is the limit.

@CatInFL.. I love your point you made about taking 10 less 3s, but instead we should be driving the basket, or even shooting it from inside the arc, where we actually have a edge..Good stuff Champ! 🏆