re: UA Basketball (16-15, 8-10)

I’m never buying in to another Bama transfer again until I see them do it in a Bama uniform.

Beetle is a ball hog and he had a couple of momentum altering turnovers when we were on the verge of blowing last night game open

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t's hard to be rational the morning after. We reverted back to our Tennessee and Arkansas efforts and energy. All 3 of those have been at Coleman. That is just inexcusable, and falls on the coaches. Maybe there's a lesson he's trying to send that we can't see.

But I guess my rational take is we are a team that is reliant on the 3-point shot to be successful. When those shots are falling, we generally play well. They were mostly only falling last night in the latter part of the 1st half. Couple that with an opponent that shot better than they have all season from the 3-point line, and it's easy to see why we lost. I mean Shack missed 3 open looks and Kira missed one from the 3-point line in the final 2 minutes of the game, while their guy hits a contested one with one second on the shot clock to put them up 6. Difference in the game right there. But it's hard to ignore that it should have never been that close. They had 14 turnovers in the first half, and we could only muster a six point lead at the half.

Easily the worst loss of the season, at the worst possible time

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I agree that at this point of the season, the buck really stops at the coach and not the players nor a previous coach although I do have some (hopeful) confidence in Oats to sort this out if he can recruit.


What I really want to see from Oats going forward this year is some answer to these massive end of game issues we have.

We have to be among the worst teams in America in the last five minutes (as our 1-7 record in 1 or 2 possession games attests).


I agree about the 3 point shooting being a bit more of a "crap shoot" in the final possessions. However, our larger issue has been that we just don't produce enough "good" shots of any variety in crunch time. We'd actually be better off working for the first open 3 and firing it up to continue to increase possessions since we turn it over even more when we slow the pace.


When teams bear down and put a premium on possession by possession play they are able to force us into bad shots or turnovers in well over half of ours.

These possessions keep happening every single close game like clockwork:
1. the defense reads Kira no look passing out to the corner for an easy breakaway layup the other direction and a 4 pt swing (this one seriously makes me hit pause on the TV to settle myself down)
2. too much non-incisive passing around the perimeter until we're forced into a contested three
3. Petty recognizing that we need a play but trying to do too much off the dribble and turning it over
4. Kira missing on a contested 1 vs 4 drive attempt

I agree that none of this matters against A&M if we don't carelessly throw the ball away 15 times to make the game close down the stretch.

However, at this point, I tend to feel that we have less than a 10% chance of winning any game that's within 5 points in the final five minutes and Oats needs to work on that.

This is so depressing. I don’t know what it’s going to take to turn this around. I really think Oats is a very good coach.

My answer would be for the administration to quit putting the basketball program on the back burner. We have to find a way to start making improvements

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We are staring an NCAA berth in the face and go out and lay that egg at home.

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This has been happening for the last 4 or 5 seasons.

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However, our larger issue has been that we just don't produce enough "good" shots of any variety in crunch time. We'd actually be better off working for the first open 3 and firing it up to continue to increase possessions

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I get what you're saying, but all 3 of Shack's misses were good, open looks. As well as he's been shooting lately, the odds were at least one of those should have gone in. And 2 of them were on the same possession, the second one set up by an offensive rebound. Not faulting those possession at all. I'd rather the guys have the green light to take those shots than be scared to like they were under Grant and Johnson.

The more frustrating thing for me was not being able to extend our lead in the first half. Some of that was uncharacteristic good shooting from A&M to start the game, but with them turning the ball over 14 times, our lead should have been more than 6 points. It wasn't a bigger lead because we got outcoached and played A&M's game the entire game instead of playing our game and dictating tempo.

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The more frustrating thing for me was not being able to extend our lead in the first half. Some of that was uncharacteristic good shooting from A&M to start the game, but with them turning the ball over 14 times

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Yes sir.

When it was 30-24, we had about 7 chances to extend the lead and blew them all.

before we scored again, we were 0-5 (3 missed 3's), 3 turnovers and four fouls in about a 3 minute stretch.

you extend that lead to 10-12 and it changes the game a bit.

How our combination of three bigs can continue to combine for less than 10 rebounds game after game is mind boggling. Especially when we have Herb out there with one hand at barely over 200 pounds getting 17 rebounds with one good hand.

Petty who is even lighter than Herb is by far our second best rebounder.

Me too hopefully he is really just out of shape and can come in next year and play well. Would be hard not to be an upgrade over what we have now.

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Me too hopefully he is really just out of shape and can come in next year and play well. Would be hard not to be an upgrade over what we have now.

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I believe it’s more than that. In my opinion, if it was just him being out of shape, he could still get 3-5 minutes a game.

You hate to label someone a Miss after their first season, but it doesn’t look good when you can’t get on the floor with these bigs