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Akron @ UB - 1/31/23 7:00 pm - ESPN+


Bluebird96

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2 minutes ago, squire17 said:

Is there any reason why Blocker can’t get more of Powell’s minutes? Powell takes a lot of shots, including 3s, and his percentages are bad. What am I missing?

Blocker shot 4/6 including 1/2 from 3 and dished out 5 assists. Certainly has played with high energy and doesn’t force as many shots as Powell does. I agree, he should be getting more time on the court.

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Akron is clearly the better team, but to be fair they shot out of their minds tonight from 3 at 12/18 while UB shot 4/18 (0/8 in the 2nd half).  Castaneda is a good player, but he’s a 37% shooter from 3 and went 7/8 tonight. Too many turnovers again for the Bulls with 18, Zips had 15 and still won going away.
The biggest difference tonight was from behind the arc, with everything else being equal if both teams shot their 33% average, the score would favor UB, 70-63. One of these days we’ll put it all together against a top 3 MAC team so we can stop making excuses, right?

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18 minutes ago, Bluebird96 said:

Akron is clearly the better team, but to be fair they shot out of their minds tonight from 3 at 12/18 while UB shot 4/18 (0/8 in the 2nd half).  Castaneda is a good player, but he’s a 37% shooter from 3 and went 7/8 tonight. 

That's true but that same "out of their minds" shooting is the primary reason we won the BGSU and Ball State games.

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5 minutes ago, clodney said:

That's true but that same "out of their minds" shooting is the primary reason we won the BGSU and Ball State games.

We definitely were hotter than normal from 3 in those games, but UB did enough other things right that they still would’ve won by double digits with an average (33%) shooting night from deep (9/21 vs BGSU, won by 29; 11/22 vs BS, won by 26).

Just for fun, if UB had shot totally out of their minds in those games like Akron did tonight (67%), they would have won by 44 vs BG and by 35 @ BS 😂

Credit to Akron, I think they would have found a way to win tonight regardless of how they were shooting from 3. And UB played too sloppy to keep up with the defending MAC champs.

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53 minutes ago, clodney said:

We can talk all day about the talent on this team but these results are miserable. The last time we ended up .500 or lower in conference was 10 years ago with Reggie still at the helm. There's not much more to say. We're back to Reggie days.

Even Reggie had four 20-win seasons in 14 years at the helm.  And the first few seasons he was still trying to build the program up to respectability. That’s a better % than JW’s 1 in 4 years (barring a 10-game win streak to end the season, this year won’t he his 2nd)

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Question 1: Is Foster actually that vital to the lineup?
Question 2: Is this what Ball State felt like last week when they played UB?
Question 3: Was there a gas leak in the locker room before this or something?
Question 4: Did they really play an Indian dance/techno song in the second half? And was that possibly the best song those DJ's played?

Not good enough tonight, right from the start.  This team CAN be good, but when you shoot that terribly in the first half (and your opponent shoots that well), you dig too big a hole.  They started getting some stops on defense but just too many missed shots and turnovers to turn those into points the other way.  I hate to keep making it about shooting, but that number always sticks out.  The Bulls beat them on the boards, the difference all in offensive rebounds too; they actually took one more shot than Akron did; both teams ended up with more turnovers than they'd like. Too many fumbled passes today.  Right now this team is interesting, but falling short of truly competitive with the top 3-4 teams in the MAC.  They have a good opportunity now to put some lessons-learned into play after this tough stretch.

Yet again I think that teams have figured out the way to play UB is you tighten things up along the perimeter and dare them to go after your inside guys.  Don't give Jones/Powell/Adams good looks outside.  One of our group said that UB needed to move more on offense, maybe that dribble penetration would open up looks outside.

A couple things that I DID like: for as frustrated as they were, the team did not quit. That drive shows they care.  Whitesell keeps being willing to pull someone off the court if they did something wrong so they can correct it. I would rarely say this - but I liked his technical foul today.  It was like a contrived fight in a hockey game - something to try to get the team to wake up.  At that point why not.  People complained in the past that he doesn't seem animated enough.

Respect for Akron - as teeth-grindingly difficult as that is for me to say.  Casteneda - I would like to see anyone who manages to shoot better than that here this season.  The guy was perfect from the field until the very end. 6 for 7 from three.  Even when he was defended well, he still nailed the shots.  Freeman smoked our inside guys time and again.  That was a good team that played very well today.  Akron's defense was very, very good, they were aggressive on a day when the refs weren't calling much.  They didn't let UB penetrate inside easily.

I have ripped on them repeatedly, so I want to give credit when it's due - props to UB for marketing the game with the glow sticks, True Blue shirts, and beer tasting.  This was a game to try all that, the students were back, the atmosphere was back, a rival in the house...too bad the team tripped out of the gate.  

True Blue - I'll give you a pass because it was tough to get fired up during this one.  But you need to make more noise when the Bulls are on defense.  

Please DJ's, play some different stuff, this is the same playlist every week.  Retire "Cotton Eyed Joe" and "Wobble".

For the simple fact that it was enlivening to have the band and the atmosphere back tonight - I had some fun and I hope you found a way to as well.

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Everyone covered most everything, mostly bad. Only thing I can add is this: we sit courtside at the end where UB warms up and my buddy and I both had the same observation. For the last half of warmups, UB attempted flashy dunks, threw each other alley oops, didn't take any mid-range jumpers, floaters, etc. It looked like an all-star game warm-up. And sure enough we come out shooting ice cold and get put in an insurmountable hole by Akron's hot shooting. Let's just say Akron's warm-up looked very different from ours.

Also, our guys are not shifty dribblers and many are basically one-handed. Akron seemed to know exactly how to funnel our dribbles into help, especially as we ran our simple weave over and over. We missed Foster's penetration and as-of-late steady conducting, but the roster is imbalanced with too many stiffer SGs who can't really break down defenders (or shoot). No idea why Ceaser is glued to the bench given all this.

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