Wave is a 16.5 point dog, even with Houston missing Bitey Jarreau.
Somehow it wouldn't shock me to see us win straight up. But it also wouldn't shock me to see us lose by 35.
Side note from the AP preview:
Prior to Thursday's game, Houston will observe a moment of silence in memory of John Altobelli, his wife, Keri, and their daughter, Alyssa.
The Altobellis were in the helicopter accident on Jan. 26 that also claimed the lives of Los Angeles Lakers legend Kobe Bryant and his daughter, Gianna. John Altobelli was a two-year letterman for Houston baseball from 1984-85 and served as an assistant coach in 1987.
I’m just thankful the game started after my son’s bedtime. It would be child abuse to make him watch this. I’ve purposely stopped posting his predictions.
1309th WAVE wrote:11.1% from the field at one point 1H
7 days, 21 hours, 49 minutes from first pitch
We live and (mostly) die by the 3. When we aren’t making them, which is more often than not, we don’t score many points. We don’t drive to the goal nearly enough and as a result, we don’t get as many free throw opportunities.
Tulane Greenbackers
"If you want to win you have to have good players." Vince Gibson
1309th WAVE wrote:11.1% from the field at one point 1H
7 days, 21 hours, 49 minutes from first pitch
We live and (mostly) die by the 3. When we aren’t making them, which is more often than not, we don’t score many points. We don’t drive to the goal nearly enough and as a result, we don’t get as many free throw opportunities.
We were winning by getting to the line. At some point we forgot how to do that and became a three point shooting team that gets no easy points.
He's just not that good. Once in a blue moon he'll have a game where he hits a few threes. He has a low basketball IQ and poor court awareness. We need better.
1309th WAVE wrote:11.1% from the field at one point 1H
7 days, 21 hours, 49 minutes from first pitch
We live and (mostly) die by the 3. When we aren’t making them, which is more often than not, we don’t score many points. We don’t drive to the goal nearly enough and as a result, we don’t get as many free throw opportunities.
We were winning by getting to the line. At some point we forgot how to do that and became a three point shooting team that gets no easy points.
14 of 25 first half shots were from 3.
Not even open threes, mostly contested step-backs.
Zhang and the three grad transfer one-and-dones all seemed to drop off at the same time, starting with the UCF game. The weekend before that there were stories whispering Hunter as a potential national COY. The bottom fell out starting then. I wonder what went down in the locker room.
We saw a bit more of bench players last night. Hope that continues even if in it's garbage time.
Team has utterly collapsed. Game effectively ended in mid-first half when UH got four or five straight layups/dunks (most only mildly contested.)
Offense too often looks like bad dorm ball. Yeah the 2 for 19 FG shooting late in first half was underwhelming. Let's see if Hunter can coach team to recover from this.
PeteRasche wrote:Zhang and the three grad transfer one-and-dones all seemed to drop off at the same time, starting with the UCF game. The weekend before that there were stories whispering Hunter as a potential national COY. The bottom fell out starting then. I wonder what went down in the locker room.
It's true - they looked amazing vs Temple on the road, laid an egg vs UCF at home and it's been downhill since then.
I think that a system coach like Hunter really needs guys who are "all in", especially if they aren't athletically comparable to their opponents (which was clearly the case vs Houston). In the Temple game they were working the ball deep into the shot clock and getting good spacing and angles for their drives and only taking 3s if they were open. Last night was just a lot of Lawson 1v5 and then other guys shooting contested jumpers if that didn't work.
I've heard Hunter mention a few times that they've been together and working very hard since the beginning of last summer and it makes me wonder if the unspoken part is that there's a cost to that and the team peaked too early and is now cooked.
1309th WAVE wrote:11.1% from the field at one point 1H
7 days, 21 hours, 49 minutes from first pitch
We live and (mostly) die by the 3. When we aren’t making them, which is more often than not, we don’t score many points. We don’t drive to the goal nearly enough and as a result, we don’t get as many free throw opportunities.
We were winning by getting to the line. At some point we forgot how to do that and became a three point shooting team that gets no easy points.
14 of 25 first half shots were from 3.
Not even open threes, mostly contested step-backs.
This. It's not just the threes; when we were playing better early in the season, they were open shots. These are mostly contested, bad shot, desperation shots.
There were moments last night where we had 5 guys standing at the 3 point line. You certainly can't get an offensive rebound like that and it isn't exactly difficult to defend that. We are playing "hero" ball instead of team basketball. The 3s have gotten completely out of hand and we forgot that we won by getting to the line. The defense was pathetic last night. Complete matador defense at times.
NJwave wrote:There were moments last night where we had 5 guys standing at the 3 point line. You certainly can't get an offensive rebound like that and it isn't exactly difficult to defend that. We are playing "hero" ball instead of team basketball. The 3s have gotten completely out of hand and we forgot that we won by getting to the line. The defense was pathetic last night. Complete matador defense at times.
It really was dramatically different from what was observed earlier in the season. Dribble, dribble, dribble and then crazy step back jumper. Defense very disconnected; very little helping which is 100% necessary in a matchup zone. All a far cry from stronger performances earlier in the season.
Something's up.
