I've Let It Soak In Overnight. My Thoughts:

What happened? I didn't watch the game. It started at 1130 PM my time.

We fell behind by around 16 early... fought back to within 5 at half.

We took the lead at around the 13 minute mark I believe and held that lead until we quit running our offense in a timely manner and got fricked on three huge calls.

Up 65-60 with around 2:40 left, we steal the ball, would have been a breakaway lay-in and they call a foul. Instead of 67-60, it's 65-62 after the freethrows.

Then we got fricked on an out-of-bounds call that the replay CLEARLY showed was last touched by NC... refs reviewed and still fricked us.

Then we got fricked on a charge/walk that turned into points for NC, which basically iced the game once Moses missed two FT's.

We choked to a point and the refs tightened the noose the rest of the way.

Just thinking about it today pisses me off more than when it was happening last night.

My takeaways from the season:

These are my takeaways from the season
1. Macon and Barford have the killer instinct. Macon more than Barford. Macon has better court vision, but Barford is the better scorer. However, Macon truly has ice water in his veins. Neither are ready for the professional level.

2. Barford needs to develop better court vision. He's got an ability to get to the basket, but he needs to get his teammates involved.

3. The team finally bought into the defensive system that they preached about. You could tell because they were cramping and scrapping. So it took a while, but they finally did.

4. We need to improve our half court offensive sets. Do a few Princeton style, kick and drive, shooter screens, something a little more than we did this year. This year we had a lot of good offensive pieces but they didn't always fit together well. From a coaching standpoint, I think Mike Anderson spent a lot of time trying to drive the defensive mindset home with this year's team considering how many new guys he had. I think the message finally stuck, so CMA can probably focus on other improving other things, while keeping our bread buttered with high intensity defense. Not saying we should focus on it, but there are times when the game slows down (i.e. the end of a close game), and you need to be able to execute something in the half court.

5. Also refs during conference play were terrible. They need to stop calling games so tight. It hurts the conference come tourney time because players are expecting fouls calls they won't get. It's played out decently for SEC teams this year, but many times i've seen players throw up some wild shots expecting to get a foul call, but instead it's just a bad shot.

6. If everyone returns, the future looks bright.

Did anyone besides me think Barford block shot against the board from behind was a clean amazing play. Looked like he got all ball but because he came flying in, he gets a anticipation whistle. Can't count the number of times I've seen Lebron do that. The whole game pisses me off. I hate blaming refs, but damn.

8-25 FT DIFF!!!!!!!

It was a clean block and even Webber "kinda" admitted such. What was worse is that the 3 Stooges met at the prompter to see if they could call a Flagrant 1.

quote:

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We got to see flashes of that nasty 90s style hawgball and it was a beautiful sight. I'm excited about Razorback basketball again.

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It's only going to be seen during the tournament since that's the only time the refs allow them to play that way. During the season it'll be handcuffed by ticky tack fouls again.

Not really.

West Virginia plays fullcourt trapping defense without fouling.

The reason why it quit working for Nolan wasn't the hand checking it was the loss of length and athletism on the teams. Lee Mayberry could run backwards as fast as could forward lol.

You need long arms and bodies to set effective traps, but you also need quickness to not only set the trap but to play defense while being beat up the floor, you have to be able to turn your hips and take away their desired angle and use your speed to force them into an angle you want them to take, usually into another trap at half court if they choose to keep the ball instead of passing.

Where you see the hand checking become a problem is from guys who don't have the quickness to make up ground from being beat so they reach and grab. Really its no different that a db grabbing a wr when he's been beat because he doesn't have the speed to catch back up to the wr and make a play on the ball.

The current rule set doesn't prevent a full court pressing d from being played, the athletes attempting it can however. I fully expect to see very little zone next year as man won't seem as near ineffective with the zone hiding the lack of quickness from dusty when on he was on the court.