WSU vs S Dakota St - today at Spokane Arena
- Thread starter COUGinNCW
- Start date
The betting line doesn't seem so low after that first half. Jackrabbits are red hot from the 3-point line, shooting 70% from beyond the arc. Conversely, Cougs shooting 28% from beyond the arc and only 34% for the game. WSU was up 16-8 with the ball and made a couple of lineup changes which seemed to change the rhythm of the game. Cougs got cold, Rabbits got hot. Noah has been awful so far. Shades of when he didn't play vs. EWU. Better crank it up, especially on defense, in that second half.
Glad Cougar
Glad Cougar
No Jackson, Koulibaly, and fouls has messed with the rotation. We haven't been able to get starters on the court together enough.
Noah's been very off.
Noah's been very off.
William knocks down a big 3 after missing first 6 shots. Really needed that one plus Flowers hits a 3 and teams trade 2.
Not seeing us as tourney team. That could change if Noah rights himself and finds his shot, but for now we're a big team that can't shoot ball consistently and that has trouble defending in space. We'll win our share of games, but when we go against well coached teams with offensive skill, we'll get picked apart.
Two separate times in the game the Cougars had a chance to really gain control but took quick stupid 3-pointers which led to a couple of decisive runs by SDSU. First half, up 16-6 with the ball and Roberts hoists up a bad shot early in the clock and Rabbits go on an 8-0 run to tie it up. Second half, up 50-44 with the ball and three straight times the Cougs throw up low percentage 3-point shots and miss each time. SDSU goes on an 18-3 run and it's just too much to overcome. I don't think the team IQ is very high this year. Another non-conference loss that's going to sting.
Glad Cougar
Glad Cougar
Agree on the team IQ and chemistry doesn't always seem the best. Too many players going on their own when nothing develops in the offense. The injury situation hasn't helped but we aren't really grinding through it.
Noah apparently has the flu so that impacted him today. However, when you don't get a call and instead of getting back on defense you argue with the ref that's not the flu. Just a bad decision.
Noah's "I'm too cool for school" attitude on the court is getting old very quickly.
Traveling and didn't see the game but I can already tell by looking at the box score that the guards think they are the sh*t and refused to give the ball to the guys in the paint again.
Efi and Gueye need 10 shots each. Period end of story. And when that happens the guards are going to magically learn how to shoot again and make shots.
Inside out or die with this squad. Coach Smith should be smart enough to figure this out. And if not, Coach Shaw should take him out behind the woodshed and 'convince' him otherwise. 9 for 35 from 3 point range means they literally give no Sh*ts about the bigs.
Efi and Gueye need 10 shots each. Period end of story. And when that happens the guards are going to magically learn how to shoot again and make shots.
Inside out or die with this squad. Coach Smith should be smart enough to figure this out. And if not, Coach Shaw should take him out behind the woodshed and 'convince' him otherwise. 9 for 35 from 3 point range means they literally give no Sh*ts about the bigs.
South Dakota's State just barely by skin of teeth lost to Oral Robert last year at the buzzer that kept them out of NCAA Tourny, despite winning, dominating their league last season.
This season South Dakotah state was ranked as the 3rd best FCS, Big Sky like team in nation, that again is expected to win their league, and make NCAA tourney.
South Dakotah State just barely by skin of teeth lost a fluke loss to Idaho.
South Dakotah State is not a EWU type, and not another EWU type loss. Rather South Dakotah State is more like a UCSB, Winthrop, formerly unbeaten 8-0 weber St, etc. South Dakotah St, was one of the toughest games on schedule so far.
And despite that, WSU just barely lost by skin of teeth, to a DEEP, fall away, hand in face, desperation, throw up 3 point shot at the buzzer, despite TERRIBLE 3 point shooting, where most of the shots were semi open, semi good shots, that went halfway down and pop back out, and where the opponent shot 70% from 3, with many of the 3 point shots, late in clock, well defended, hand in face, etc.
This was a lucky for South Dakotah St, unlucky for WSU, where it took near perfect shooting, combined with unlucky bad shooting from WSU, and despite that South Dakotah State just barely win, almost lost.
If WSU had shot better, or if South Dakotah State hadn't shot near perfect, WSU would have won by 8 to 16 points.
If the roles had been reversed, and WSU had shot near perfect, and South Dakotah St had shot terribly unlucky bad, WSU would have blown South Dakotah out, instead of just barely winning at buzzer on a lucky shot.
So South Dakotah St is a good team. They are not a EWU type. It wasn't a EWU type loss, It was perfect storm bad luck for WSU, good luck for South Dakotah St.
And EWU was, is still a FLUKE loss. And the loss to South Dakotah St was a UNLUCKY loss to a good team, that should have, would have gone to overtime, with about a 63% chance to win, if not for the butlucky buzzer beater.
This season South Dakotah state was ranked as the 3rd best FCS, Big Sky like team in nation, that again is expected to win their league, and make NCAA tourney.
South Dakotah State just barely by skin of teeth lost a fluke loss to Idaho.
South Dakotah State is not a EWU type, and not another EWU type loss. Rather South Dakotah State is more like a UCSB, Winthrop, formerly unbeaten 8-0 weber St, etc. South Dakotah St, was one of the toughest games on schedule so far.
And despite that, WSU just barely lost by skin of teeth, to a DEEP, fall away, hand in face, desperation, throw up 3 point shot at the buzzer, despite TERRIBLE 3 point shooting, where most of the shots were semi open, semi good shots, that went halfway down and pop back out, and where the opponent shot 70% from 3, with many of the 3 point shots, late in clock, well defended, hand in face, etc.
This was a lucky for South Dakotah St, unlucky for WSU, where it took near perfect shooting, combined with unlucky bad shooting from WSU, and despite that South Dakotah State just barely win, almost lost.
If WSU had shot better, or if South Dakotah State hadn't shot near perfect, WSU would have won by 8 to 16 points.
If the roles had been reversed, and WSU had shot near perfect, and South Dakotah St had shot terribly unlucky bad, WSU would have blown South Dakotah out, instead of just barely winning at buzzer on a lucky shot.
So South Dakotah St is a good team. They are not a EWU type. It wasn't a EWU type loss, It was perfect storm bad luck for WSU, good luck for South Dakotah St.
And EWU was, is still a FLUKE loss. And the loss to South Dakotah St was a UNLUCKY loss to a good team, that should have, would have gone to overtime, with about a 63% chance to win, if not for the butlucky buzzer beater.
Guys in the paint don’t do anything to deserve the ball. If you take Gueye’s dunks out of the equation I bet he shoots less than 30 percent.
But none if that happened and WSU lost to an SD State team that has already lost to UW and Idaho this year. Last year is last year and they are not as good as you are making them out to be. This was a week after losing to a decidedly below average 5-5 EWU team. That is not what tournament worthy team do no matter all the ifs and buts.
Edit to lol at the SD State fluke loss to Idaho comment. It was a 14 point game and Idaho scored 98.
They are still reading their pre season hype headlines, aka smelling their own farts.
Coach Shaw?
He was on the bench with UW and Romar for the only other time South Dakota State beat a Pac12 team, that time by 19.
Incremental progress
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Idaho was classy and passed up an opportunity to score 100 points vs South Dakota State.
Didn't see the game but listened to the audio broadcast. Chazz went out of his way once to comment on a play in which Gueye was open on the low block with the defender in back of him....easy entry pass would provide a one-on-one opportunity against a much shorter defender & they were not doubling Gueye like they were Efe when he got the ball. The guard (unnamed or I can't remember who it was) failed to pass the ball inside. Smith apparently threw his arms up in the air and turned his back to the court– extremely frustrated that the pass was not made. That's all well and good but until Smith does something drastic– like immediately replace a player who doesn't want to give up the ball when he should– then it's going to continue. Selfish and low IQ ball. A bad combination.
Glad Cougar
There were at least 10 times against SC where the bigs had a serious mismatch on the block on the guards simply refused to toss the ball inside.
Bring Jim Meredith down for three days and drill on how to make a proper entry pass.
I have no idea how they could have lost to Idaho. Nor how they could have lost to the dogs.
SDSU is a good team. They wanted that game badly. More than we did.
Clearly they aren't that good of a team and neither is wsu. Good teams don't lose to bad teams. Im just bummed we are eliminated from the tournament basically barring a miracle before conference play starts. Such a kick in the d after a promising start to the season. We had to do real well in ooc with a weak schedule. Losses to ewu and sd state really hurt.
Noah needs to get over himself. Clearly he hooked the guy, rather blatently actually. He is not ready for Prime Time this year at all.
If you’re going to run dribble hand off/ball screen, there’s going to be mismatches. Use them.
I’d probably be less concerned if there was any semblance of movement away from the ball. But that’s non existent too
Frankly the offense under Coach Smith is not up to snuff. He keeps complaining about this or that, but its not just a defensive game. The team held South Dakota well under there average, but we failed to score ponts. Frankly I would like to see some zone presses. I would like to see some sort of sets that work. I would like to see all of these guards feed the post. I would like to see all of these Athletic players drive the rack.
I watched Kunc play this weekend and he plays a lot better than most of the stiff's on this team. The "punishment" of Jeff for a "personal" matter is a bunch of crap. Either play him or cut him. Same with Rosario why is he on the team if he can't play?
Odd lineups are not depth they speak of management.
I watched Kunc play this weekend and he plays a lot better than most of the stiff's on this team. The "punishment" of Jeff for a "personal" matter is a bunch of crap. Either play him or cut him. Same with Rosario why is he on the team if he can't play?
Odd lineups are not depth they speak of management.
Oh come on. We are not “all but eliminated” from the tournament. Let the P12 season play out before you start looking for cliffs to jump off.
As much as I hate to say it, I’m starting to think Smith is a great recruiter and a pretty average coach after that. As far as getting the ball inside. That would be great with Jackson but the other 2 are very athletic overhyped NBA “prospects” who never learned to truly play the game. Gueye gets a pass as a true freshman but Efe is a disappointment this year.
I mean our OOC schedule is bad, zero ranked teams and zero major conference teams. You can't lose these games and we have lost two already. By most experts estimations we were on the bubble as it was. Anything is possible, but we are really gonna have to tear it up in conference play.
They talk about scheduling because it is important.
Kelvin Sampson and Jim Livengood cost WSU an NCAA tourney bid in 91-92 after a 9-9 finish in conference play because the non-conference play was so obviously a joke that year. (Sampson only had one winning season under his belt and this was Year 5).
Here the AD and hoops staff moved a Saturday game to Spokane which drew slightly over 1,600 very quiet fans.
Two losses to FCS non Power 5 teams hurt.
Level of game coaching hasn't been stellar.
There is no FCS in college basketball. WSU is playing D-1 teams, albeit they've been non-power 5. However, I wouldn't be surprised to see Weber State or Eastern Washington win the Big Sky, UC Santa Barbara win the Big West, South Dakota State win the Summit, Winthrop win the Big South, and New Mexico State win the WAC. All of those teams are better than many of the Power 5 teams.
But yes, those losses to EWU and SDSU will hurt the Cougars.
Glad Cougar
But yes, those losses to EWU and SDSU will hurt the Cougars.
Glad Cougar
I certainly agree that we need more ball movement and fewer 3's early in the shot clock. Roberts in particular tends to dribble too much with no real movement going on by the rest of the team. However, I'm less convinced that feeding the big men will work. I think Jackson has a low post game. I'm less convinced that at this time either Gueye or EFE has a low post game that can be fed. EFE threw the ball away a couple of times yesterday after being doubled in the low post. He tends to bring the ball down to his waist which undermines any size advantage he has. He also tends to shoot a lot of fall away stuff which also doesn't take advantage of his height.
I was wondering why they’d move a game to spokane while the students were in town too. Apparently graduation took precedence at Beasley.
I think the least talked about issue with the game yesterday was how poorly we shot the ball. 25.7% from 3-pt range and 37.3% overall. Noah had 6 points / 3 rebs in 27 minutes.
It was one of those games where nothing was falling for us and everything they looked at went in. Frankly, it's surprising that it still took a buzzer beater to put us away.
It was one of those games where nothing was falling for us and everything they looked at went in. Frankly, it's surprising that it still took a buzzer beater to put us away.
