re: 2016-17 Basketball Season Thread - WBB vs. MSU - W 67-55 - NATIONAL CHAMPS!!!

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Hey USCe fans, I was hoping to get your thoughts/ideas about our upcoming matchup. I was hoping to throw some questions with specific Auburn related info underneath. Looking forward to your thoughts and the game

- How did USCe keep TAMU's Tyler Davis (or other similar types) from taking over the game?

Auburn's new FR C Austin Wiley (6'11 255lb) is extremely similar to Tyler Davis in game style and scoring rate (Wiley is improving too) . I noticed USCe doesn't have much past Kotsar maybe Silva to repel that size. What did ya'll do to hold Davis under season avg?

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Davis is Texas A&M's leading scorer and rebounder at 13.4 ppg and 6.9 rpg. Davis didn't dominate in the game, but he didn't necessarily have a bad game shooting-wise. He just didn't take many shots: he was 4-8 for 10 pts and 5 boards. So for some reason he wasn't made a big factor of the game, for whatever reason. The Gamecocks forced Texas A&M into 25 turnovers for the game, with many of them attempts by Aggie guards to drive into the lane, draw defenders, and drop-pass off to Davis. USC's length of reach and defenders following the drivers closely allowed us to pick a ton of those off. Then towards the end of the game Hogg became unconscious from outside, and he seemed to become the go-to guy for them.

Silva played 31 minutes for us, and only picked up 2 fouls. Scored 15 pts and 6 rebounds, and was a big reason why we won the game. Could it have been a bad game-plan by the Aggie coaches: had they forced the issue to Davis more, which would then force Silva to play more defense, perhaps Chris would have picked up more fouls throughout the game and been a non-factor. Too late now....

Wiley is averaging 8.6 ppg (4th in scoring on the team) and 4.7 rpg (3rd in rebounding). It's not quite like Davis....

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-What is USCe doing to be #2 nationally in defensive 3PT%?

Auburn is around ~#100 in % of points from 3FG. What does USCe do to hold trigger happy teams like AUburn from hitting their 3PTers?

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USC is very long at the guard position: 6-6 Dozier, 6-5 Thornwell, 6-2 Notice as starters. Coach Martin's staff places premium on defense, and recruits athletic, defensive-minded players. He coaches them to play an in-your-face style of defense. In the past, past teams have struggled to move and embrace the concept for various reasons: too young, too slow, too lazy or out of shape. This season's team is perhaps Coach Martin's deepest in terms of well-conditioned athletes who play solid to great defense. Dozier has leaped forward by miles in this regard: IMO he's improved defensively more than offensively this season. Sometimes perimeter shooters will still go off on us (see TAMU's Hogg) but in those cases it's typically going unconscious with hands in the face. We'll still be there....

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- USCe is amongst the leaders in fouls committed, Auburn is amongst the leaders in drawing fouls, how do you deal with foul trouble?

It appears Silva and sometimes Dozier have issues with fouling. Considering they + Thornwell are effectively your offense, how do ya'll cope if they are in foul trouble?

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The fouls are concerning: it's a by-product of Coach Martin's hectic team defense, and players not quite "getting it", or being lazy in how they prepare. By the nature of the defensive scheme, we will most likely always be a high-fouling team under Martin. But as long as the team understands the philosophies and the staff keeps it deep on the bench, then Coach Martin will keep rotating the entire team in and try to survive it.

Silva just fouls too much. He's a tremendous athletic talent that also has quality basketball skills, but he is a bit too physical in his defense: he has the position under the basket on an opposing player with the ball, but often nudges and pushes forward with his body - I think more unconsciously then anything - when all he needs to do is hold his ground and wait for the player to take his shot. Silva can leap through the building and is a quality shot-blocker, but when he's all over the top of opposing bigs, and then tries to defend that player's shot attempt, there's always body contact and he gets called a lot for it. He also will often reach into players when he gets beat for rebounds or loose balls, and pick up fouls that way. Mostly a lot of foolish, unnecessary fouls when he wasn't going to win the battle anyways.

Silva reminds me a lot of Michael Carrera: in Carrera's first 2 seasons he also was a very athletic player who bounced all over the place, but picked up a ton of fouls. He spent half his career on the bench in foul trouble. Coach Martin finally moved him to a better fitting position on the floor, and he became the team's leading scorer and rebounder by his senior season (last season).

Silva doesn't have the game to be moved to the perimeter like Carrera was, but I'm hoping that he matures like Carrera did with the physicality while defending, because he has the ability to be a major player for us as long as he can stay on the floor in games....

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For a midweek game against a team with little respect like Auburn, what is the expected crowd attendance by rough % filled?

How much does the crowd have an effect on the game @ USCe? Is the crowd for Auburn expected to be big?

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I expect the crowd to be around the ~15K average we've had for the 3 home SEC games we've already had, at the minimum. That's 83% of CLA's 18K capacity.....

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Generally, what have teams done to be successful vs USCe? What gets shutdown by USCe in terms of play style/tendencies?

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We're still young and inexperienced in the post - Silva our only big older than freshman, and it shows often in games. Kotsar's production has fallen a bit since SEC play began, but that's also expected: he's young and a bit under-developed physically to bang constantly with the bigs, and the SEC is a physical conference. So if an opponent has a lot of talented bigs that can take over a game, IMO that could be a problem team for us. If a team is guard-oriented or smaller, IMO we can handle those much better.

We've had a tendency in the past to get burned by perimeter players who go off on a hot-streak. Overall however that doesn't translate into bad guard play defensively on our part, it's just we can't hold one particular player down for one reason. Mostly though how badly we've played in the past two years have as much if not more to do with our team coming out slow and lackluster, playing sloppy defense or without energy, and racking up fouls early which put key players on the bench. We've been our worst enemy in recent games, IMO....

We rarely play that on our home floor, however: USC is 27-4 in Colonial Life Arena over the past 2 seasons...