Fun to watch that game this afternoon. I'm impressed with how the depth of our squad has responded. It's far from perfect - Clayton has made a couple mistakes, our bigs as well - but these guys have pretty much uniformly stepped up and into more important roles.
Clayton had a really good day today overall I thought, a couple mistakes but many more good moments. Selectively took his moments on offense (one late game heat check that was ill-advised, but ignore that) - he attacked at times, made a nice pull up jumper at the foul line and then had a huge 3 as the clock was winding down in the second half, also played above his weight class with toughness on defense and scrapped out rebounds from the muck. Mullins continues to do a very good job of what he's asked to. Very good defense and selectively attacking on offense. He played well in the second half all around, but his best sequence was making the cut to get the ball and dump to Nicholson for a dunk, then in transition the next possession gets a pass in stride and takes it for a beautiful finish.
Ty Berry didn't have his best game today. Too many sloppy passes or ball handling mistakes in the first half. But wow is it incredible his ability to space the floor and hit a 3 from anywhere. It's huge to have a guy like that. It's a very nice feeling that nearly every time he puts up a 3 I feel like it was a good decision, because he can make it from anywhere.
Nicholson. We will miss you next year. May not score a ton but he is very efficient when he gets the ball down low (mostly because, based on highly complex analytics, dunks tend to be a good expected value shot). Much more so though, he is just a dominant force down low on defense. Robbie Hummel got this one right on the call - he may have had 2-3 blocks, but he had 7-10 shots altered for misses. He is the core of our defense. We will miss him next year.
In any event, fun game to watch this afternoon, which I did not expect to have about a month ago. Wisconsin is an exceptional team, well balanced, and it will be tough. Apparently the B1G is trying their best to screw us in multiple ways, not surprisingly. But I am not going to count out this team. They've given us much more than we ever would have expected after Barnhizer and Leach went down. I'm confident they will bring a dogged effort tomorrow. Maybe, just maybe, we can win one more. And survive one more day. And then see what happens after that.
GO CATS
(Love this squad)
Clayton had a really good day today overall I thought, a couple mistakes but many more good moments. Selectively took his moments on offense (one late game heat check that was ill-advised, but ignore that) - he attacked at times, made a nice pull up jumper at the foul line and then had a huge 3 as the clock was winding down in the second half, also played above his weight class with toughness on defense and scrapped out rebounds from the muck. Mullins continues to do a very good job of what he's asked to. Very good defense and selectively attacking on offense. He played well in the second half all around, but his best sequence was making the cut to get the ball and dump to Nicholson for a dunk, then in transition the next possession gets a pass in stride and takes it for a beautiful finish.
Ty Berry didn't have his best game today. Too many sloppy passes or ball handling mistakes in the first half. But wow is it incredible his ability to space the floor and hit a 3 from anywhere. It's huge to have a guy like that. It's a very nice feeling that nearly every time he puts up a 3 I feel like it was a good decision, because he can make it from anywhere.
Nicholson. We will miss you next year. May not score a ton but he is very efficient when he gets the ball down low (mostly because, based on highly complex analytics, dunks tend to be a good expected value shot). Much more so though, he is just a dominant force down low on defense. Robbie Hummel got this one right on the call - he may have had 2-3 blocks, but he had 7-10 shots altered for misses. He is the core of our defense. We will miss him next year.
In any event, fun game to watch this afternoon, which I did not expect to have about a month ago. Wisconsin is an exceptional team, well balanced, and it will be tough. Apparently the B1G is trying their best to screw us in multiple ways, not surprisingly. But I am not going to count out this team. They've given us much more than we ever would have expected after Barnhizer and Leach went down. I'm confident they will bring a dogged effort tomorrow. Maybe, just maybe, we can win one more. And survive one more day. And then see what happens after that.
GO CATS
(Love this squad)
