Just a classic letdown game. Coming off the emotional high of a big, come-from-behind win in front of the home crowd... and then you're playing in front of an empty arena in Muncie. We lacked energy and focus. There are many times that no amount of coaching can overcome that.

How we bounce back from this will be huge. I'm guessing Hawk really ripped into them postgame and I'm hoping they'll respond in a big way Wednesday at BG.

Attendance = 3,458!

Watched parts of it on ESPN3.

Make your free tossess and you still walk away with a W.
Becoming an unbecoming trend.

Didnt look crisp.Played more on their heels.

Seemed almost to be waiting for "someone else" to bail them out.

Little things add up. Watching on a small screen and doing work at the same time so i am sure I missed much.

But on Darius's final miss I saw two things that add up.
- He did not follow his shot. Replay showed him fading back into our bench, trying to apply a little mental omph.
- Kamenicki didnt block out. He raised an arm to contest, turned and walked to the basket. Ball came right to him flat footed.

Who knows better than the shooter "if" it's going in and if not "where" it will come off the on the carom.

DP didnt lose the game, just pointing out one of those little things that add up in a last possession game that could have "reset the table" differently.

Darius Paul had no business shooting that 3. Again, the shot selection that is allowed to go on with this team is embarrassing and kills us. Substitutions kill us. PLEASE leave Richie, Brown, Hutcheson, Paul and Whittington in the game and make minimal subs. Just spot minutes for the other guys.

Couple more thoughts after looking at the stats:

Twenty Turnovers is way too many. A combined ten between Richie and Paul. Yikes. Twelve assists to 20 turnovers isn't going to win many games.

Pokley and Brown a combined 0-7 from three-point range. We finished 4-16 overall from three.

Whittington and Paul should never combine for four three-point attempts. Ever. On the season Whittington shoots 22 percent from three, Paul shoots 16 percent from three. That's not efficient. Take it to the basket and work the paint big fellas.

Juwan Scaife was 9-16 from the field and 9-10 from the free throw line for 30 points.

Big point swings:

Down 47-44 with the ball out of an in-bounds play. Richie makes a lazy pass into Paul that turns into a steal and fast-break layup for Kamieniecki. Somewhere from a 2-5 point swing depending on if we would have gotten points out of that possession.

Down 51-50. Back-to-back possessions: Richie turnover, Paul missed three. Kamieniecki scores and is fouled but misses FT to make 53-50. Again, empty possession with no shot and bad shot selection, they score at the other end.

Down 53-52. Brown misses the front-end of a one-and-one. Scaife splits a pair free throws at the other end and makes it 54-52. Gotta have a minimum of one point there.

This sequence really hurt. Down 58-56. Richie splits a pair of FT's to cut the score to one. Force a stop, Paul called for the offensive foul- may have been a flop but it definitely looked like he lowered the shoulder too. Home team gets that call nine times out of ten. Scaife hits a three at the other end, 61-57. Brown offensive foul (and the right call). Left 1-4 additional points off the board with the missed free throw and empty possession with no shot attempt because of a foul.

Down 62-59. Hutch backs down his man and kicks it out to Paul for a three. Again, why? Paul is a 16 percent three point shooter. I don't care if he's open or how pretty his shot looks. It doesn't go in consistently from distance. Do not shoot if you're bad at shooting threes and you have plenty of shot-clock left.

Too many points left on the table. Too many dumb shots. Too many turnovers. That's the story right there.

Dunkface has it nailed here. And I agree with Gobee that attention to detail in doing the little things would have made the difference in this game (and most games, really). There's no room for complacenty at this level.

Anyway....moving on.....

I'm surprised nobody brought up the fact that Darius got hurt in the early stages of this game. Really gutty performance from him toughing it out and leading (tied) the team in scoring. He made some big plays down the stretch (minus the obvious missed 3-ball towards the end). He played nearly the entire game with a gimpy left leg. Too bad they couldn't pull it out.

(02-10-2013 12:29 AM)BrianPersky Wrote:  Too bad they couldn't pull it out.

Exactly. How are student athletes supposed to focus when they have mouths to feed and diapers to change.

Quote:Darius Paul had no business shooting that 3

He was unguarded, had hit a couple of threes early, and he's got good range and a nice stroke. You don't pass that shot up.

(02-10-2013 11:14 AM)Chipdip Wrote:  

Quote:Darius Paul had no business shooting that 3

He was unguarded, had hit a couple of threes early, and he's got good range and a nice stroke. You don't pass that shot up.

I understand where your coming from but IMO he would be the last option with Brown, Hutch, Richie and Pokely on the floor. That shot was taken very early in the possession.

(02-09-2013 08:56 PM)Broncos83 Wrote:  Attendance = 3,458!

Not even close. Looked like closer to 1000

ASSIST/TURNOVER RATIO Cl GP Assists Avg T-Overs Avg Ratio
1. ABREU, Alex-AKRON JR 23 138 6.0 60 2.6 2.3
2. COOPER, D.J.-OHIO SR 23 182 7.9 82 3.6 2.2
3. ROLLINS, Quinten-MIAJR 22 94 4.3 48 2.2 2.0
4. FOWLER, Chris-CMU FR 23 114 5.0 59 2.6 1.9
5. BROWN, Julius-UT SO 21 118 5.6 66 3.1 1.8
6. RICHIE, Austin-WMU SO 23 73 3.2 47 2.0 1.6
7. CRAWFORD, Jordon-BGSUSR23 98 4.3 79 3.4 1.2

PG isn't the issue. Again, shot selection, poor substitutions are the main issues.

My issue with the PGs (and Pokely and others) is that they struggle defensively against most opponents. We have struggled defensively against most PGs for years. This leads to many of the wide open3s we seem to give up in many games and why most teams seem to shoot a better 3-point percentage against the Broncos as compared to other opponents.

We switch underneath 95% of the time, have for eons (hyperbole guys, don't "Stampede"). A guard who can hit the open look is deadly with that luxury.

I can't agree, our main problem is at point guard, on "O" we don't break down the defense and kick out.

Ritchey, struggles at the point, too many turn overs and his funky two handed jump shot comes out with side spin. He is not much of a threat as a scorer, he can't penetrate under control. (main reason for his turnovers)

Finally, why can't Brown play the point, he has jumper and penetrates under control. My ideal five would be Brown, Pokley, Whittington, Hutch, Paul.

Tava, Avery and Perry off the bench.

I do not know my basketball details. With football I know what is going on, but basketball I get lost in the sauce.

But it seems obvious the offensive sets are starting to run out of gas. We are going toward the end of the shot clock and nothing seems open and we don't seem to be able to simply shot the ball with much success.

This seems to happen late in the season most years. Opponents have our number and a next step or adaptation isn't forthcoming.

(02-10-2013 04:48 PM)wojo-kowski Wrote:  I can't agree, our main problem is at point guard, on "O" we don't break down the defense and kick out.

Ritchey, struggles at the point, too many turn overs and his funky two handed jump shot comes out with side spin. He is not much of a threat as a scorer, he can't penetrate under control. (main reason for his turnovers)

Finally, why can't Brown play the point, he has jumper and penetrates under control. My ideal five would be Brown, Pokley, Whittington, Hutch, Paul.

Tava, Avery and Perry off the bench.

Lol. Obviously you don't watch the offense very closely. It isn't designed for the PG/guards to drive and kick out. It is a back door motion offense. Obviously you didn't look at the stats in the post above. Richie's assist to turnover ratio is one of the best in the MAC, so the PG isn't the problem.

If you want kick outs, they need to come from the post, which happens to be a black hole. Hence, my frustration with poor shot selections. I know we need Whittington, Paul and Hutch to score, but they have to know when it is a forced shot, which is a bad shot and when to kick it out and re-post.

Bad idea moving Brown to the point. He is slower than everyone we have except Pokely. Also, he is scoring from the wing. Leave him be. Wayyyyy too many minutes for Pokely.

Also, credit has to be given to Ball State for stingy, physical defense, rough as it was.

They were banging all over the court and attacking the person...not even the ball. They got results.

Broncos missed foul shots as mentioned repeatedly. Game won with those.

Broncos missed bunnies. Game won with those.

Careless passes resulting in B-State's baskets. Game won without those.

This team will taste this one for the rest of the season. It could serve as a wakeup call.

(02-10-2013 04:48 PM)wojo-kowski Wrote:  I can't agree, our main problem is at point guard, on "O" we don't break down the defense and kick out.

Ritchey, struggles at the point, too many turn overs and his funky two handed jump shot comes out with side spin. He is not much of a threat as a scorer, he can't penetrate under control. (main reason for his turnovers)

Finally, why can't Brown play the point, he has jumper and penetrates under control. My ideal five would be Brown, Pokley, Whittington, Hutch, Paul.

Tava, Avery and Perry off the bench.

Brown needs to be playing more pg.

Frustrating game to watch. I really feel like Ball St bullied us and we didn't respond well. They were very physical. More so than us IMO.

Two stories to this game...

1. Jauwan Scaife. I'm not sure if we played poor defense against him, or he just hit shots with a hand in his face. I do remember multiple buckets he hit in the second half that were basically pull up or step back shots. He hit them when he needed to.

2. 20 turnovers is not gonna win very many MAC games on the road. Darius looked really really flustered out there. And Richie contributed more than a few head scratchers. Together they accounted for 10 turnovers. I'm not trying to dog them, as I believe their contributions have been overall on the good side this season. Rather, I'm simply pointing out that EVERYONE on the team needs to come out focused and ready to play. If they don't, we are gonna lose games that we should win.


I thought dunkface had a post (#156) that pretty much summed up my thoughts. Two or three point swings that went horribly wrong for us.


This team has a choice going forward. They can fall into a late season tailspin...and sleep walk into a 3 seed in Cleveland. Or they can learn from it and bring the noise when they play at BGSU on Wednesday. Ball St smacked us in the mouth. I'm very curious to see how we respond going forward.

Also, Toledo does have the schedule edge down the stretch. Don't look now but they are playing very good basketball. And while they aren't eligible for postseason play...it would still be a nasty end result if we let them win the West.