RE: The Official Broncos vs Kent State gamethread
Unbelievable game last night. Glad our Broncos came out on top!
Before I start yapping about the game, let me thank the student section. There was genuine effort last night. They showed up in good numbers and the Zoo was actually decorated. It is a breath of fresh air to seem some life in that section. My hope is that it will continue to grow and get closer to how the Lunatics function.
Kent St has some talented offensive players. Seriously, Holt and Evans are really good. Every time one of their guys hoisted a 3, I thought it was going in. They were red hot from downtown last night. A few people mentioned that we weren't guarding the 3 point line very well. I disagree. The majority of their open looks came after they penetrated and kicked it out to the open man. They held a strong advantage in quickness and drove into the paint whenever they wanted. Our help defense was solid, they just hit shots...lots of them. To give you an idea of what I'm referring to....10 of their 3 pointers came on an assist from a guard or forward.
I don't know how that team has 6 MAC losses already. They have more talent than that. I mentioned this in the pregame thread, I wonder if Senderoff doesn't have complete control over his players? They underachieved last year, and have somewhat this year as well.
One of the posters on the Kent board pointed to the disparity in fouls called. 31 on Kent, 18 on WMU. They thought the refs were horrible. To be clear, the refs weren't great last night. They blew two calls in the final two minutes, one for each team. They blew another one in the first half when Shayne blocked a shot. Other than that, I do not recall anything that stood out. Why did Kent rack up 31 fouls? Because WMU was aggressive. We took the ball to the hole almost every possession in the second half. Kent on the other hand was not aggressive. They took 27 three pointers, and only 25 other shots. When they did take it to the rim, they were fouled and were rewarded with free throws. I thought there were multiple times where their guards penetrated and were forced to kick it out (10 assists on 3 pointers) or threw up a falling back shot off the glass. You aren't going to draw very many fouls doing that.
Kent needed 12 three pointers to even stay in this game. Think about that for a second. After last night, they are shooting 34% from long distance. If they aren't hot from deep, this is easily a 10+ point win for the Broncos. Kudos to them for hitting shots though. I seriously was holding my breath every time a 3 went up.
My two favorite stats of the game....only 12 turnovers against a team that was much quicker than us. And 40 free throw attempts. We were aggressive and didn't settle for jumpers very many times in the second half.
David Brown is playing like the guy we thought we signed up for 4 years ago. I really enjoy watching him play right now. Shoots the 3 well, takes the ball to the rim, and plays some intense defense. I'm happy he is getting rewarded after all the injuries.
Shayne continues to be a stud in the paint. 21 and 13 last night. Wow.
Hutch had a great game as well. I didn't like his first two 3 point attempts (the first one was on our very first possession), I thought he forced both. And to be honest, I wasn't thrilled when he took the third one. But he buried it. Huge shot. He also came up big with a couple buckets down the stretch. He worked his tail off defending Evans all night. They went at eachother non stop. Great battle.
I thought Darius had a rough game. I think he got flustered early in the second half when the refs chose to swallow their whistles on two possessions where they could have called a foul on Kent St. He also had the misfortune of having to guard Goodson, who really operates as a SF or wing. Not a great matchup with him on the perimeter. He still came through and nailed a 3 in the second half when we needed a bucket and dished out a couple assists.
Pokely is finally being used properly IMO. Took 5 shots last night, all from deep, and hit 2 of them. He didn't try to force anything or drive into the lane. And, he played pretty good defense.
I don't know what to say about our PG spot. Klein had 2 turnovers. The one in the second half was especially brutal. He was trying to throw a pass into the post that got taken away by a Kent defender. It was ugly. Richie on the other hand was conservative to a fault. He missed two wide open layups on inbounds plays. One in each half. Very frustrating. The other play that really confused me was his decision to throw an alley oop to Hutch on the fast break in the second half. Hutch made a great play to get the bucket, however it was a low percentage play. Richie had Poke wide open for a 3 ball on the wing and it was right after Poke had hit a 3 in the previous possession or two. It worked out in our favor, I just don't know why he did that. Don't get me wrong, I'm not trying to be negative about Richie. He had 0 turnovers in 29 minutes. I just think he could have boosted his assist total a few times last night.
The lineup at the end of the game with Brown running the point was interesting. I loved it. It gave us the ability to have both our shooters out there with Hutch, Shayne and Tava. More importantly, that group was able to play some lock down defense.
Tava stood out at the end of the game. There was one possession where he ended up guarding Holt (maybe it was Brewer). They tried to take him off the dribble. Tava stayed in front of the man and then forced him to the baseline without fouling. It was seriously great defense from a 6'6" PF who was guarding a much quicker opponent. The kid still needs to work on his free throws though :)
7 in a row!
Fired up for Saturday already!
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