Was That Bad Basketball Or A Good Opponent?

by ccmachine on Nov 17, 2009 10:46 PM CST in Football

I've got to be honest. Despite the fine review done by DishingOutDimes I still didn't know much about Louisiana Monroe basketball before tonight's game. Now, I'm thinking that I know even less about the Sooners. It's a good thing that I'm not a gambler because I would have bet that OU would've won by more than 11.

ULM did a great job, in the first half, at slowing the game down and generally frustrating the Sooners. At one point in the first half the Warhawks led by 8 and they controlled the lead almost until halftime. The Sooners were able adjust in the second half and led by Willie Warren did a much better job at controlling the tempo and separating themselves from ULM. It was a different side of Warren than what we saw last Saturday when he dished out 11 assists. Instead of sharing (only 4 assist) he kept the ball and scored a game high 24 points. Tony Crocker also scored 13 points by shooting 4-6 which is a far cry from what we saw from him on Saturday.

The Warhawks saw their record drop to 1-2 with Tuesday night's loss to Oklahoma which begs the question; did OU struggle against a bad team? Only time will tell just how good, or bad, ULM is but at least for this game they were pretty salty. In the first half they held the Sooners to 36.4% from the floor and 14.3% from beyond the arch. They most certainly took OU out of their game which makes the turnaround this team made for the second half even more impressive because they are a fairly young team. In the final 20 minutes was able to shoot 59.1% from the floor and 50% from three point range. They also made their way to the free throw line 16 times in the second half.

Turnovers were the key to Warhawks success and the biggest obstacle Oklahoma had to overcome. ULM scored 17 points off turnovers but even more disturbing they outscored OU 32-26 in the paint, 6-4 on fast breaks and 32-26 in the paint. These both show room for improvement and raise cause for concern for the Sooners, especially the points in the paint.

It's a young season for a young team and we've seen tons of potential through the first two games. Now we know where we need to see improvement as they move forward.

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Comments

Bad Opponent

Sorry, but UL-Monroe isn’t that great of a team. They were way down in all of the rankings and we should have blown them away, especially on turnovers.

We’re a young team and we’ll improve, but there are two concerning things:
*We give up way too many easy paths to the basket, especially along the baseline and in transition.
*We turn the ball over way too much

It seems like we’re slow starters and we don’t take these teams seriously in the first half, and then we turn on the jets in the second half. Well, it’s going to bite us in the rear eventually, because we’ll dig ourselves too big of a hole in the first half.

I think that a lot of the first problem I talked about is freshman inexperience. They are getting beat off the dribble by guys who are much faster than they’re used to seeing in high school. All of our bigs need to do a better job of rotating down to the ball and helping out on dribble-drive penetration. Tiny’s talented, but he seems to be too slow to react on defense.

by dishingoutdimes on Nov 18, 2009 1:46 AM CST reply actions

the freshman inexperience

is the main problem with this team. The beginning of this game was much like the beginning of the exhibition. When Cade Davis came into the game, the defensive intensity increased. He seems to be the glue of the defense. The freshmen don’t know how to play defense yet. (AAU basketball sets an atrocious defensive precedent for the freshmen. Willie Warren was lost on defense last year too.) Crocker’s defensive intensity seems to be predicated on his offensive rhythm. If he is struggling to knock down shots early, he won’t be stopping anyone until he hits. I honestly think there are no defensive leaders in the starting 5.
As the season progresses, this issue ought to significantly improve as Mason-Griffin finds his defensive legs. He has the ability to shut down the guards if he commits to it because of his strength and athletic ability. I don’t know that Gallon will be a stopper at post this year. Post defense takes a lot of learning…especially when it comes to learning how to defend your man and help off on the driving guards. Right now, there is nothing standing between a guard who has broken down his defender and the basket.

by bigskinny on Nov 19, 2009 7:43 PM CST up reply actions