There will be the negative attacks on this thread saying it doesn’t matter , team is 9-12 and 2-8 and going no where. But what I saw last night and what has flashed recently second half Wisconsin , at Iowa , is this team is actually getting better ..That is something a Pike team has not done in recent years.
The first half last night was about a perfect a half as any team can play and it was done against the #1 ranked defense in Kenpom in MSU. The ball was moving , we were screening hard, cutting hard , getting everyone involved , played great defense and team defense , ton of deflections , ton of steals , disrupted their big guys into misses and turnovers ; we on the other hand with only 1 turnover to their 10 . But for a Coen Carr 3 to cut our 15 point lead to 35-23 , we looked like a decent basketball team despite having no center .
First time all year we had 5 guys in double figures , which is normally a winning recipe. The offensive attack and aggressiveness of Buchanan , Zrno, Grant , JMike and Francis is something to duplicate the rest of the year. Taking 3’s without hestitation , on the extra pass, on the proper and good screen , in rhythm , something that must be a critical part of the offense going forward . Zrno and Francis with 16 and 23 so 39 points off the bench with almost all good shots except one forced 3 by Zrno . To the Zrno haters , PSAL especially , last night should have showed you why he is impirtant to our team and needs to be set up with the screens we saw last night in the first half , and tried a number of times in the second half but MSU overplayed it tight . That should open up the lane for the guards or Buchanan to exploit going forward .Hopefully Pike sees that Buchanan and Grant can coexist together . That JMike and Francis can only play together when JMike is attacking and scoring. We have had too many 0 scoring nights from JMike but hopefully that is over. . Not having a center to get us a bucket when we need it or step out and hit a three really hurts and something almost every team in the country has, and we are missing , but we played well without one., except the failure to team rebound killed us. Still very hopeful signs.
I , unlike Pike , stand on the side of fouling up 3 . I do not care there was 17 seconds left. I would have traded foul for foul because MSU was not making 3’s and were just shooting 2’s . Pike could have calked a timeout to set up the defense after Davis made the foul shot to go up 3, and instruct his guys to stay with heir man. really wish Pike would have 2 timeouts left last minutes as he wastes them in game a lot. Press or no press is a judgment call but worse case scenario Fears goes coast to coast and hits a layup to cut it to 1 with 12 seconds left. Then they foul and we go up 2 or 3 and they only have 10 seconds left and we foul again. That is the way I would have played it out the way because we had the lead all game
Last point is sometimes you have to get lucky and MSU did. With just under 4 minutes to go up 65-57 there was a tie up but only 8 on the shot clock . There was a timeout and we played tight defense and MSU was heading to a shot clock violation and Carr threw up a prayer with 1 on the shot clock to cut it to 5 with 3:51 to go. Shot clock violation there , we are up 8 with the ball. Absolutely crucial play of the game. Then we stopped guarding Fears , as the guards were gassed .
Overall the team is getting better and for this season ticket holder , Hope and better play is occurring.
The first half last night was about a perfect a half as any team can play and it was done against the #1 ranked defense in Kenpom in MSU. The ball was moving , we were screening hard, cutting hard , getting everyone involved , played great defense and team defense , ton of deflections , ton of steals , disrupted their big guys into misses and turnovers ; we on the other hand with only 1 turnover to their 10 . But for a Coen Carr 3 to cut our 15 point lead to 35-23 , we looked like a decent basketball team despite having no center .
First time all year we had 5 guys in double figures , which is normally a winning recipe. The offensive attack and aggressiveness of Buchanan , Zrno, Grant , JMike and Francis is something to duplicate the rest of the year. Taking 3’s without hestitation , on the extra pass, on the proper and good screen , in rhythm , something that must be a critical part of the offense going forward . Zrno and Francis with 16 and 23 so 39 points off the bench with almost all good shots except one forced 3 by Zrno . To the Zrno haters , PSAL especially , last night should have showed you why he is impirtant to our team and needs to be set up with the screens we saw last night in the first half , and tried a number of times in the second half but MSU overplayed it tight . That should open up the lane for the guards or Buchanan to exploit going forward .Hopefully Pike sees that Buchanan and Grant can coexist together . That JMike and Francis can only play together when JMike is attacking and scoring. We have had too many 0 scoring nights from JMike but hopefully that is over. . Not having a center to get us a bucket when we need it or step out and hit a three really hurts and something almost every team in the country has, and we are missing , but we played well without one., except the failure to team rebound killed us. Still very hopeful signs.
I , unlike Pike , stand on the side of fouling up 3 . I do not care there was 17 seconds left. I would have traded foul for foul because MSU was not making 3’s and were just shooting 2’s . Pike could have calked a timeout to set up the defense after Davis made the foul shot to go up 3, and instruct his guys to stay with heir man. really wish Pike would have 2 timeouts left last minutes as he wastes them in game a lot. Press or no press is a judgment call but worse case scenario Fears goes coast to coast and hits a layup to cut it to 1 with 12 seconds left. Then they foul and we go up 2 or 3 and they only have 10 seconds left and we foul again. That is the way I would have played it out the way because we had the lead all game
Last point is sometimes you have to get lucky and MSU did. With just under 4 minutes to go up 65-57 there was a tie up but only 8 on the shot clock . There was a timeout and we played tight defense and MSU was heading to a shot clock violation and Carr threw up a prayer with 1 on the shot clock to cut it to 5 with 3:51 to go. Shot clock violation there , we are up 8 with the ball. Absolutely crucial play of the game. Then we stopped guarding Fears , as the guards were gassed .
Overall the team is getting better and for this season ticket holder , Hope and better play is occurring.
