Meh....

So with all the traffic and the Key Arena parking lot all of a sudden being closed (shows you how often I drive across the bridge), we didn't get to our seats until about 5 minutes into the first half. Then when I came home to watch it on the tivo, turns out those 5 minutes were also missing from the broadcast due to the Beaver game. So those five minutes are lost to me....

Anyway, not much to take out of this game. We were hitting our wide open shots at a higher clip than we had been over the last few games, which was nice to see, regarless of our opponent. If you have the ability to re-watch this game, I'd suggest watching the last 5 minutes or so of the first half and watch Baynes move from the block to the high post and back down, setting 2-3 picks on every possession, and how fluid our offense becomes when it happens. Why he only does this against inferior teams, I'll never know. For those who think we're going to miss Aron next year, I think we'll be ok as long as our new center moves like this on every possession.

Plus/minus for the evening (I'm really looking forward to Pac-10 play when we can start looking at progression rather than snapshots)

Thompson +22
Rochestie +21
Koprivica +15
Baynes +13
Casto +12
Harmeling +7
Forrest +6
Boeke +3
Witherill +3
Lodwick +1
Capers -2
Harthun -2
Enquist -4

Capers and Forrest's numbers are a bit skewed as they were on the court with the rest of the freshmen playing MSU's starters at the end. I think I speak for all of Cougar Nation when I plead to Tony to start Caleb over either Nik or Daven. We're simply a better team with him on the floor. Maybe Tony likes having him bring up the 2nd unit, but I think he deserves a look, maybe against Idaho, where a win is inevitable.

We did some things right, and we were also very lazy as well. Lanes on defense seemed to be open the entire 2nd half, although there were several times both Casto and Harthun were out of position to help, when a starter probably would've made the play. There are a lot of people calling for Harthun to get increased minutes, but I think his off-ball defense is keeping him off the court for the time being.

So did Sterk take a look at our schedule last summer and thank Jesus we have 8 days to prepare for Idaho?

Still Breathing?

All apologies for not getting this up yesterday, I've been out of town on business and from the looks of it, it may have been a good thing. I ended up watching this game in a bar full of Laker fans demanding my one little TV be switched over to the Laker/Sun game because nobody gives a fuck about Wazzu. Well, I gave a fuck about Wazzu and fortunately I had a solid 30 pounds on anyone who was bitching.

Anyway, not a lot to add to what other bloggers have said, but wanted to list a few. Let's start with the plus/minus for the game (it's not pretty)

Capers 8
Lodwick 8
Enquist 4
Harthun 4
Casto 1
Forrest -5
Thompson -22
Baynes -25
Koprivica -25
Harmeling -28
Rochestie -30

I really hate to say it, but I think this is the first time Coach Dreamy really ate a shit sandwich. I frankly can't believe the gameplan all week was "let's go out and trade threes with Gonzaga and just see what the fuck happens".... It seemed there was no effort to curb that when it was going on all throughout the first half. And maybe this one's not Tony's fault, but more of whoever on the staff is doing the scouting, but Austin Daye has had no J to speak of for the past few weeks, but is the Zags' best bet to beat someone off the dribble. So who do we stick on him? You guessed it: Daven. In fact Ehlo's facepalm this evening was "You know I can never remember Harmeling ever getting shook as badly as he did at the end of the first half." I'm going to go ahead and just assume Ehlo does not RSS this blog.

What to say about that 2nd half. Well, Gonzaga is great and all, but we really played like shit. I can't emphasize and bolden the word SHIT strongly enough. I'm seriously flipping off that second half as hard as I can... If you want a little difference that goes a long way from last year to this year is the way we handled Gonzaga's diamond press. It's not an incredibly aggressive press, in fact I don't know why they run it. For years, it's constantly gotten them out of position on defense and it produces few turnovers. Last year we exploited it by making the correct pass, ended up with a 3-on-2 or 4-on-3 and the early offense allowed an easy Baynes/Cowgill/Weaver score.

This year? If we were able to get the ball up the court before 12 seconds ticked off or before we chucked it out of bounds for no particular reason, once we got up the court with numbers we actually HELD ONTO THE FUCKING BALL UNTIL GONZAGA'S DEFENSE GOT BACK AND WAS SET UP! Seriously, either we have the classiest, most polite offense in the country, or we just don't know what the fuck we're doing. When you completely give them back the one disadvantage to running that press on every possession, there's no reason not to press every play. Last year we made them pay enough times that eventually they stopped running it. This year? Shit sandwich.

Everyone's freaking out about Rochestie. You want my solution? Don't play him so damn much. Sit him 8 minutes per game. Other than that, I've got nothing. I don't think he's forcing much, but I do think he might be tired.

Oh and with five minutes left, we had all of our starters pulled (save for Daven). Gonzaga's up by 3o and still has all their starters IN THE GAME still pressing and still jacking three's. So much for that classy Gonzaga/WSU rivalry. Fuck Gonzaga. Fuck them in the fucking ear.

One positive note on the evening: Sloth shaved that damn mustache.

I'm Idaho (State)!

So after watching Taylor and company get thoroughly dominated by a team of All-Americans on Saturday, it was refreshing to watch us come in and beat on the Little Sisters of the Poor for a night. CORRECTION: We actually played the Little Sisters of the Poor minus their four-year starting Point Guard. Matt Stucki was at home having a baby. Upon further inspection, did you know in the dream season, we only beat this team by 6? I was pretty shocked, too. On the plus side, it was nice to pull the starters up 28 points and play the freshmen for the last 7 minutes. We even had a Dolph sighting for a few minutes!

For those who care, here were the plus/minus on the evening. You'll notice the starters all have incredible numbers and the freshmen didn't do so hot against the ISU starters.

Rochestie +28
Baynes +24
Harmeling +24
Koprivica +21
Thompson +20
Casto +4
Forrest +2
Capers +1
Witherill -2
Boeke -3
Enquist -6
Harthun -9
Lodwick -9

Outside of the box sccore, I was really impressed with Baynes, and have been all season. His weight loss is really helping the team on the offensive end. There were large stretches last season when our offense would set up in mover/blocker and Baynes would just camp out in the key hoping for an opening. This sesason, he (along with Casto) are really getting into setting BIG picks for the wings, which is why Daven and Klay had so many wide open shots. Then in the 2nd half when ISU switched to a zone, he was able to stay off the blocks long enough to spread the defense out and we were able to penetrate because of it. Game ball, Sloth. You earned it.

This was FSN's first Coug game of the season, and may I be the first person to say how refreshing it is to enjoy college hoops without Brian Davis fucking it up. Oh, and his Thunder lost again tonight.

Ehlo only had one Facepalm tonight, this time essentially making up a Superhero Origins story from just reading the roster: "You gotta realize he's left handed, and Coach Bennett's left-handed and he was a point guard who was left handed, and that's why Taylor's out there so much..." Getting no reaction from Todd Mansfield, Ehlo elaborated his Southpaw-Cult theory in the 2nd half by telling us the only reason Capers was recruited at all was because he's also left-handed.

Looking forward to what he says about Baylor on Saturday....