Borna, to do all those things you talked about on defense takes effort and work. I would say we are often times outworked on the defensive side because most of our guys do none of the things you are talking about. We have guys who really love the offensive side but I know even you have talked about blow byes and simmons who is probably the best defender.

I just think the desire to put the effort in on the defensive side is lacking. It looked to me like our guys just wanted to match 3s with them last night. That is a big mistake in my opinion. strategically, I say give them the lane and don't sag on the pick guy up top and leave him wide open for a 3. It doesn't seem like that hard of a concept.

For all you guys posting while at the office, total lack of effort on your part doing the fundamental aspects of your job. I might even say you are expending more effort than if you just worked instead of loafed.

Difficult to get a read on us. I imagine that we're not the team that stumbled thru the first part of the MAC sched and not the team that was great for stretches of the last 10 or so games.

Hopefully, we can lean to be more of the great team.

MAC tourney seems to be wide open--any of 6-8 teams can be said to be legit contenders.

I agree that I can't get a read on this team either. Look at our sweep by BGSucks. They have five MAC wins and we are two of them. How did that happen? How can we sweep Buffs? How can we almost beat a tough Tulsa team but lose to St. Bonaventure? Perplexing. I would like to say our team can win this thing but I also think we can lay an egg and lose our first game.

I think people take these "lack of effort" comments to the extreme sometimes.

I think when people talk about effort it's not saying "They aren't trying or they don't care"

They obviously care....and they obviously try. But sometimes the energy level just isn't there with this team. Some games, they are dialed in. Some games (at BG) they just seem out to lunch. Again, maybe that comes with youth/inexperience.

I've never questioned whether they want to win or not. I would never say they are trying to lose.

Effort sometimes is thrown around as a term meaning performance.

"An effort like we saw in Akron won't win the MAC Tourney"

Substitute performance.

"A performance like we saw in Akron won't win the MAC Tourney"

They were obviously trying at Akron and weren't trying to lose. But that kind of performance/effort isn't one that will win you a conference tournament.

I think there's misinterpretation of the word "effort" sometimes on this board.

Another part of the conversation of effort, or effective performance on defense could have to do with tired legs. For me, when the zippys really extended the lead mid 2nd half, they just looked fresher, quicker. Not closing out on defense can be affected by how tired someone is. Same for getting beat to a loose ball, or being half a step late and not getting the rebound over your opponent. I think OUr guys really need to beat Miami, and get the the bye, just to get a couple needed rest days.

We have 'so say us all' for Miami sucks.
We have 'What is Buffalo sucks' for Buffalo sucks.
What shall we do, how shall we capture 'kron sucks?