Hard to beat a team at home that's shooting the ball lights out, everything MD chucks up goes in. I hope we move on and just win out, I believe we can.
I'm not concerned after MD. Just win out!
- Thread starter DaCat
- Start date
Yep. They're shooting 32% from three for the season. Today they shot 64%. And got help from the refs to keep it going.
Yep. Beat PSU and Rut. Very doable.
We're locked into The Dance but want to go into it with positive momentum and a good seed. Beating our basketball nemesis State Pen would be a good way to get back on track. And we'll be unranked again so that should help. 
Rutgers will be just as difficult. These closing three road games are all so difficult, blowing one we had in hand was a mistake we couldn’t really afford to make.
Can't wait for Wednesday. Should be the purplest crowd of the year, Senior Night, HUGE game vis a vis the double bye at the United Center AND avoiding slipping to a 7 or 8 seed in the NCAA's (meaning likely meeting a 1 or 2 seed in the round of 32). Counting the minutes already. ✊
Rutgers will be tough, but not as tough as MD or ILL. Rutgers is slumping and has very little depth. If we play well, I think we have a really good shot. We played pretty well today and had no shot.
Starting to worry about all of these second half performances. Collins mentioned after the IU game that the guys were really tired in the second half, but I am starting to suspect that our guys are really tired in the second half of every game. I don't know if this is conditioning, too many minutes, or just the frantic style we play, but I worry that we've had a number of games here now where we were just crushed in the second half. Not sure what the solution is.
They definitely were tired in the second half against IU due to playing with their hair on fire against Purdue but when you look at the Illinois and Maryland games Both teams shot it very well from the three-point range Illinois in the second half Maryland the whole entire game and that is the way to beat This defense would have love to see Collins go to a traditional man-to-man defense to try to keep pace and cover up the shooters wouldn’t hurt me thinks.
Agreed. Getting Roper back and distributing the minutes are best ones I can think of.
Lundy and Funk were a combined 1-for-18 from 3 in their loss to Rutgers. Don't know if we can get that lucky. Rutgers ran two guys at Pickett just about every time he had it in the second half. Roper would really help here. Pickett is usually very good at finding open shooters but he got a little frustrated when they kept missing. Penn State's interior defense is a weakness that was exploited by Rutgers in their comeback, but they also got a couple of big 3s from bench players.
Looked like NU had a defensive answer for three-point barrages the way they answered against Iowa at home. They still might have it, but didn't believe MD would continue the three-point barrage and didn't change. Neither did MD's three-point consistency.
I'm hoping the Illinois collapse, etc. is fatigue. Either that or they're the streakiest of the streaky. I just wanna watch the guys that beat Purdue and stomped Iowa, IU for a half and Ill for a half play a few more games.
Maybe NU will see MD again in the tournament. I think NU would like another shot.
"we were tired" doesn't seem like the most likely explanation.
It's not. We get tired as other teams get tired. We don't rotate less than most teams either.
Unless our guys are biologically weird or our conditioning regime is bogus. Unlikely.
See the PSU RUT game at PSU last night? PSU was up 19 with about 17 to go and their 3 pt shooting deserted them
Tough is what sense? Offense? Defense? Those teams are better than Rutgers offensively, but when Rutgers focuses on defense, there isn't a team in the B1G that is as effective as them. As for depth, that statement is somewhat true and false at the same time. When Mawot Mag went down, it threw the rotation out of whack.
I think it's plausible? We ended in Champaign after 11 p.m. Eastern on Thursday, probably drove back that night, then flew to Washington on Saturday for a noon start. They weren't roughing it commercial but that's still a quick turnaround. It may have contributed to some of the lapses and missed open shots.
Not sure I understand your question. They'll be tough in the sense that it's always tough on the road in the Big Ten. Tough in that they beat us in a "rock fight" earlier this year. Tough in that they play solid defense. Not as tough as ILL and MD in that they don't have the overwhelming length and athleticism that those teams have. When big, athletic teams play at the top of their games as UofI did in the second half and Maryland did all game, we are in trouble. Rutgers doesn't have the athletes to run us out of the gym. They can certainly beat us, as they proved in Evanston if someone like Spencer shoots out of his mind, or we play sloppy. As for my "depth" comment, Rutgers doesn't have guys like Shannon, Rogers and Goode coming off the bench the way U of I did, and without Mag, they are much like us where there's not a lot of room of error.
That's all true. Also true they got over two full days or rest. One of them on Saturday, no classes. Also true, we played an away game at a team who went 10-0 at home.
My question was about the comparison of Rutgers to MD and ILL. Was it MD and ILL tougher because they have a better offense? Was it tougher because they have better athletes? What is it you see that separates the teams?
Rutgers doesn't have the athletes yet, like MD or ILL, but they have length. Other than Spencer, every starter is 6'7 or taller. The bench players who see time are Woolfolk, 6'9, Palmquist, 6'8, Reiber, 6'10, and Simpson, 6'2. It is why Rutgers plays the passing lanes to create turnovers or trap teams when they press.
Rutgers is consistently inconsistent on offense. They have bench players who flash the ability to score. Players like Simpson can create their shots or beat you off the dribble. His biggest problem is playing behind Mulcahy. Mulcahy seems to get more minutes as his play suffers. The situation is similar to what Mag faced last year playing behind Harper. Palmquist was stuck behind McConnell for most of the year until Mag got hurt. Now Palmquist is playing out of position as a backup stretch 4. Hyatt was the 6th man (averaging 9 ppg.) and now moved into Mag's spot, which threw the rotation out of whack. That one less scoring threat from the bench who is playing more minutes than he should. I think Pikiell made a mistake by reducing the bench minutes once Mag went down. It was like a panic move.
