That was a fun trip (sarcasm).

Walking out of the FedEx Forum on Wednesday night a Tigers fan turned to me and said, "Is that really the same team that nearly made the Elite 8 last March?"

My response: "I don't know which team that was?"

Through 8 games, this team has no identity. Where is the toughness? I hate throwing around the word "soft", but it applies here. One suggestion...fly in Tommy Freeman and let him show these guys how to step in the lane and take a charge. Somebody has to be willing to take one for the team.

I don't think OHIO committed one hard foul on Wednesday night. Everything is ticky-tack and way too many fouls 35 feet away from the basket. I also remember on 3 occasions when a Memphis player had nowhere to go under the hoop. They were forced to attempt a circus, reverse lay-up and we ended up slapping them on the wrist and getting whistled for a foul. Why? Poor court awareness. 

Rebounding. The numbers don't lie. Alarming to say the least. 

There was a lot of on-court bickering between players and horrible body language throughout the game. Confidence is clearly lacking and Christian needs to nip this in the bud. I was disappointed by Christian's lack of emotion and anger on the bench. This team lacked energy and focus and I actually thought Christian should have took a technical foul. Anything to try and energize the team. 

With all this said, I'm not ready to push the panic button. In 2009, I traveled to Pittsburgh and saw a similar performance when OHIO lost a December game to Pitt by 26 points. That team went onto beat Georgetown the following March. 

Better to lay an egg in December than March. This team has been humbled. I'm really curious to see how Christian handles it from here.

PS No more ally-oops to Baltic when you have a 4-on-1 break. A lay-up also counts as 2 points. 






 

Dee-fense.....Dee-fense.....Dee-fense.

A better coach!!!

I was in attendance and told the guests that were with me at halftime, "that's not our OHIO team and we will come back and win this game in the 2nd Half."  I kept believing and waiting up until the very end thinking this team would do what I expected it to do all along, and that being climb its way back into the game.  Not much to add other than what's been added:
*relying exclusively on outside shooting that's simply not clicking right now
*letting Ivo play through his struggles as at halftime I was ready to let TJ play the entire 2nd half and not count on him in such a big game
*Walter is playing very similar to how he played early last season (and still waiting on him to catch the magic he had down the homestretch
*Christian as "calm as a cucumber" and as much as I aplaud him for providing a seamless transition, wonder if we're missing the "fire" he brought to the bench

I guess what frustrated me the most was that despite getting destroyed by Memphis, I was not impressed with their team.  They simply appeared to have a bunch of athletes and not necessarily a bunch of good basketball players.  Yet despite this, we played right into their hands by allowing them to get uncontested fast break dunk-after-dunk and dominating the boards.  That's the two things we really couldn't allow them to do and that's what they did to us--let their athleticism shine instead making them run half court sets and shooting the ball well. 

At the end of the day, I was totally shocked by the outcome.  Really didn't expect to get run out of the gym and feel exactly the way I did after the Pitt game--feeling like we were a totally inferior mid-major team.  That's not who I think we are, but that's what we looked like on this night.

Regretfully, if we haven't all but eliminated any At-Large possibility, we are 95% there at this rate.  Looks like we're going to have to do this the old fashion way by winning in Cleveland.  All is not lost this early in the season, but it's looking more and more like I was totally wrong in thinking we under-scheduled for the OOC.  Need to get some confidence back with games in the Convo and see if we can get this right @Okl and @UMASS.  Total bummer of a night and trip.

CGeorge--We always win at home.  The barometer is the road record.

I agree. Defense and turnovers have been the primary problems, along with rebounding in the two losses.  Though we can't have expected that the Cats would out rebound Memphis, Robert Morris is a different story.  Tomorrow will tell us more about where things are, and no matter what else we see tomorrow, I hope we see a much better effort defending and rebounding.  And I'm hoping that Ivo remembers that he's a post player and not a 2-guard and works on drawing some contact to get to the charity stripe.

 

From yesterday's Sun-Times: http://www.suntimes.com/sports/16916049-419/illinois-mens-basketball-still-perfect-and-still-looking-for-big-season.html

That game was tied at 54 with less than six minutes to play. An unhappy Groce ripped his trousers while coaching frantically during the game — and tore into his players at halftime.

I waited too long to get on here and see this... but you nailed this game. I was there too... way up in 203 and quite frankly, from there I could see everything you just mentioned. Christian almost see disinterested and the players conduct towards one another was shocking to me. I thought it was a complete lack of discipline on display, I told my fellow alum that came with me I wanted to send my ticket stub back to Athens and ask for a refund.

The answer to your question lies in your not even knowing who Lipscomb is.

Pretty sure Burke would reply with the same "THINK........." response. There is subtlety in the proposition he made.........