Tennessee Tech

[mcdadenets50]

womack said:

We do expect perfection with this team since we expereienced so much success with the same players last year

If you are expecting perfection from college kids (or anyone for that matter) then I think the bar is set a wee bit too high.

[bball30]

Womack, I can compare that because Tenn. Tech won their conference last year, and is picked to win it again this year. A lot of the same guys returned from a team that lost in their conference tourney last year. Not to mention a team that is tough at home. Open up your mind for just a few minutes, see the whole picture. It makes so much more sense.

[Womack]

Perfection in the figurative sense of course

[formerseasonticketholder]

well, we should all be used to coaches saying things they don't mean. Like "I've put down roots."
We didn't press as much last year as people have said here and we did press some tonight and it worked well.
I thought the level of expectations came crashing back down to reality after the Memphis game, but I guess not. This team should still be very good, but will have to play well to win games on the road against comparable programs.
Great to see Boo bust out and AT start getting it together. If our starters can all have a good game on the same night, we'll be fine.

[aknowsense]

Well fellas it was a tough loss it's nice to be able to put our thoughts out in an open forum with people who share the same passion. When it's all said and done we do all want the same thing. 1 game isn't going to make or break the year that's right I said it, I really wanted this one tonight though, coming back from that many down that would've been really swell. Oh well wash it down w/a couple of 12 oz. weights and get ready for Saturday St. Louis is coming, get your eye band aids ready!!!

[nohopspanther]

Hey Joey or Dunz, how about locking up this thread and throwing away the key?




Moderator's Note: There is no need to lock this up.

[Hack]

No need to ... this isn't the UIC board. Discussion is welcome here.

[fan]

Why in the world would you lock up a thread less than 4 hours after the game?

[ArtVandelay]

I know its Chris Hills senior season, but I think it may be time to move Avery Smith into the starting lineup. Hill's size and shooting ability are making him a liability until he can straighten out his shot.

I always felt Chris was best around the basket during transition, but since we are relying less on transition baskets Chris doesn't fit the offense very well.

I respect Chris, but I think he will be better served being used in the same capacity as Kadima a few years back. Chris still deserves playing time, but I'd like to see his and Avo's minuets swapped.

[johnjaymilwaukee]

Box Score: Tennessee Tech 72, UWM 67
uwmpanthers.collegesports.com/sports/m-baskbl/stats/112805aac.html


Written by Rob Schabert
Monday, 28 November 2005

Tech wins third straight, claims five-point win over UW-Milwaukee

COOKEVILLE, Tenn. -- Tennessee Tech survived a furious second-half comeback by UW-Milwaukee, getting clutch baskets by sophomore Anthony Fisher at the close of both halves, and earned a 72-67 victory over the Panthers Monday night in Eblen Center.

Tech (3-1) won its third in a row, and now turns its sights on hosting rival Austin Peay as the Ohio Valley Conference schedule begins Thursday. UWM fell to 1-2.
Derek Stribling, who was 10-for-10 in the last game, hit 8-of-9 Monday to pace Tech with 20 points. Guards Belton Rivers and Anthony Fisher came off the bench to score in double figures. Rivers was 7-for-10 and hit 15 points while Fisher added 14.

Boo Davis topped UWM with 25 points and Adrian Tigert had 17 points and 12 rebounds. UWM had a 46-35 edge in rebounds, but Tech's defense limited the Panthers to just 30.8 percent shooting (20-for-65) from the field. Tech shot 51.8 percent.


Rob Schabert's coverage continues at:

www.ttusports.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=1189&Itemid=47

Tennessee Tech University Athletics Department



Milwaukee Comeback Falls Short
Panthers lose at Tennessee Tech

Nov. 28, 2005

COOKEVILLE, Tenn. - Boo Davis scored a career-high 25 points but the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee's comeback effort fell short in a 72-67 loss to Tennessee Tech Monday night at the Eblen Center.

Milone Clark had 20 points, Belton Rivers added 15 and Anthony Fisher pitched-in with 12 as the Golden Eagles (3-1) won for the 80th time in their last 85 home games.

Adrian Tigert added 17 points for Milwaukee (1-2), which battled down to the wire in a battle of defending conference champions from a year ago.

Milwaukee found itself down 64-57 following a Rivers layin with 3:10 remaining and was still down 66-60 with 1:23 left. But a five-point flurry that included a free throw by Tigert, a basket by Davis and a Tigert tip of a missed free throw by Davis made it 66-65 with 59 seconds remaining.


uwmpanthers.collegesports.com coverage continues at:

uwmpanthers.collegesports.com/sports/m-baskbl/recaps/112805aab.html

University of Wisconsin - Milwaukee Men's Basketball



Davis unable to save Panthers

By BUDDY PEARSON
Special to the Journal Sentinel

Posted: Nov. 28, 2005

Cookeville, Tenn. - Boo Davis is scary when he's on.

The UW-Milwaukee senior almost brought the Panthers back from a 14-point deficit against Tennessee Tech on Monday night. Davis scored a personal-high 25 points, including 17 in the second half, and grabbed eight rebounds but the Panthers fell, 72-67, to a tough, scrappy Golden Eagles squad at the Hooper Eblen Center.

"Those guys are a good ballclub and they play hard just like we do," Davis said. "We just came up short. We were down by 14 and we just gave it everything we had."

Davis gave the best performance of his life, hitting seven of 14 shots and eight of nine free throws. With his team trailing, 48-34, Davis tallied 17 of the Panthers' final 33 points, eclipsing his previous high of 22 set against Manhattan during the 2004-'05 season.


BUDDY PEARSON's coverage continues at:

www.jsonline.com/sports/coll/nov05/373942.asp

www.jsonline.com/sports/coll/uwm/

[n8]

wow. I don't get on here as much as I did last year, but boy, I've never seen such pessimism on our board before. I'm gonna try to be the voice of reason (and hopefully Freak, lou, joe, and matt will too):

ok, this is game 3 (game 5 including exhibition)
- is our team as good as last years team? probably not.
- have we played well yet? not quite.
- did we honestly have a chance at an at-large bid? nope.
- does losing to Tennessee Tech mean the end to the season? absolutely not.
- is conference play what really matters? your damn right.

open your eyes people. these games prepare our team for conference play, which prepares our team for the conference tournament.

[fan]

bbfran said:

So trust me when I tell you that you need a longer view of this than five games. Bruce didn't set the world afire in his first five games. Bo didn't. And we lost two extremely important players from last year. The whole team is adjusting to that just like it's adjusting to a new coach.

Rob Jeter is a hell of a coach. This team WILL BE very good. So blow off some steam if you want tonight, but please, give these guys a chance.

I don't understand how the people you criticize need a "longer view" to judge Coach Jeter as being good or not whereas you find it relatively easy to judge him as "a hell of a coach." In fact I have no idea where or how you could claim that other than using blind faith.

I said before that I will give Rob up to a point to transition and get control of the team. But where is this point? This would be the poll question of the month: When do you start to judge Rob? after the year is over? when conference starts?

These things I know:
1. Rob Jeter cannot make the excuse of fouls for not playing key players (once again ahem Boo Davis vs. Memphis). Jason Mccoy, Derrick Ford, and Messiah combined for 3 fouls and played a total of 31 minutes. Instead we had Bendall and Hanson running around the court.

2. Rob Jeter needs to give a stoplight system to his players including Tucker. Joah can't continue to shoot the 3 ball if we are going to win. We can't take dumb quick 3's either. That is no one's offense (except Grinell)

3. We aren't a good shooting team. One of two things needs to happen: we play better defense or we get easier shots. We obviously aren't getting them in the halfcourt set currently.

4. Tyrone Young's pity time at the end of games is annoying and saddening. I hope this kid gets some desire somewhere.

Brett, 6thman and I had a discussion of what we'd do as coaches for a practice. 1st we'd have Tucker and Ford working the Jugs machine catching 1000 passes so they won't fumble them like they've done every play. Next AT is going to shoot bunnies from either side of the hoop until his leg breaks again. Joah, Mccoy and a couple others will be fitted with shock collars that go off when they think of shooting another ill-advised 3pt shot. Something along those lines. I think there were a couple other suggestions as well but those were the key ones.

In this post I attempted to not criticize the offense used. I think I and we covered that in past discussions. Criticisms of Jeter can be done without. I'm not going to have a verdict on whethere he's a hell of a coach or not yet but I don't think he's been the best coach on the floor in a game this year...yet. While it is indeed true that none of these games matter as far as this season goes, its hard to watch the struggles. Maybe I'm spoiled but this is hard regardless. You can't keep saying that such and such a team is really a good one and that we will get it soon. Some time the losses have to be accounted for.

[milwsport]

Tucker is taking those shots because in the Swing offense the guards post up to draw the fouls and the forwards shoot from the outside. Does that mean Tucker has to shoot from 3 point land? That depends on where the defenders were and how much time was left on the shot clock.

I give Jeter the benefit of the doubt. He's not as outgoing or as exciting as Pearl was but he's not stupid either, he's been successful at every level in the past. I don't think he would've instituted a new offense unless he couldn't see a better way. And he thinks about what to do all the time, not just at game time.

From what I heard, the refs sounded awful. At least three times, the announcers said a UWM bucket was a three only to take it back when the refs said it was a two. They reversed themselves on calls after the TT bench complained.

Then there were the sudden foul calls on Tucker (he picked up three in a minute or so) when we got within 1. And there were the charging calls on baskets that could have changed the momentum of the game. TT missing the free throws didn't give us those points back.

Still we should have won.

We were a basket or two away from beating a team that has a 16 game winning streak at home, won it's conference last year, knocked off a Pac 10 team by more than 20 and is favored to win its conference this year.

That's not what we wanted nor what should have been but it's not horrible for a team trying to overcome losing its best player and its coach either.

[ArtVandelay]

Its kind of astounding how the success of last season has really gone to some peoples heads. I think some have become unrealistic with expectations toward a new season in which we have a new coach, lost a key starter, and great reserve player.

UWM got its 1st NCAA tournament birth during the 2002 season and last year reached its highest point as a program with an appearance in the sweet 16.

Do I think this program is going to be garbage now? No, but I know we aren't going to have the same success as last season even if Pearl had returned. I remember chanting "You can't stop him" as Ed McCants was raining threes on teams last season. I also remember our early struggles last season until after the Detroit game when we moved to a 3 guard lineup.

Ed was a huge part of this team and made things much easier for Joah and Boo to work last year. With him gone Joah is going to need to step up, and be the impact player Ed was (that does not mean shooting a bunch of 3's).

To see so much criticism of the coach this early in the season is a huge shock to me. I want to win these games as much as anybody, but I'm not even close to start screaming that the sky is falling.

Some fans must have been calling for Bruce Pearl's head after his first 3 D-I games. UWM was 0-3 with losses to W. Michigan, Valpo, and Iowa St. I can hear them screaming "this fast paced style doesn't suit our players that Bo Ryan recruited!"..."These swing players can't comprehend a different type of offense they are just stupid college athletes!"..."Why change what was working with Bo Ryan. Bruce Pearl should just run Bo Ryan's system!".

Don't those comments seem ridiculous now? People gave up on Jeter after Memphis.... Understandable they are a pretty sh*tty team...? Now that we lost to Tennessee Tech I fully expect more to give up on him. Even when you look at how great of games Rivers and Stribbling had for Tennessee Tech.

I'm sure some people will come back at me and claim that this sweet 16 team from last year was so much better than the original team that Bo Ryan left for Bruce Pearl. Well lets look at the roster in Bruce Pearl's first year....
Clay Tucker!
Ronnie Jones!
Jason Frederick!
Adrian Tiger!
James Wright!
Dylan Page!
not to mention Nate Mielke, Chris Hill, and Kalombo Kadima....

Yeah those players are totally worthless. (SARCASM) Fan I agree that Rob needs to work on things with the guys. Its going to take a solid effort by the team and coaches to correct this season.

I don't plan on making a judgment on Rob Jeter for 2 years in my opinion. We may end up being average this season, bad next year, and then amazing in Rob's first year with all of his own players. Otherwise who knows he might drive this program into the ground, and I'll hate the guys guts. I'm just not ready to make a judgment without a reasonable sample size to judge on.

This post wasn't directed at any person more just a vibe I'm getting from a lot of fans that they are losing faith after only a few games. So try not to hate me too much guys.....please?

Your Lovable Neighborhood,

Art Vandelay

[dutchpthr]

ok look after reading thru this thread i have to say that i am shocked by many of you that posted.

if it was so damn easy to come up with a way to fix the problems that our team is having right now then why is it that none of us on this board have been plucked for the head coaching job? well for the same reason that you will not see any of us on the sidelines for the Packers next year, IT IS A BIT HARDER TO DO THAN SOME OF US SEEM TO THINK!

i understand that people may have an idea but that is so much different than saying "this is how things should be done..or...this is the best way this team should play HOW IN THE HELL DO WE KNOW! WE ARE FANS...GET IT THROUGH YOUR HEAD.....

but that is not to say that we can not have opinions in any way but lets be a bit realistic here, we are in a transition year since we have a brand new coaching staff that runs a brand new style of play and we have a few new players that have to fill significant roles that were lost on this team from last year...that is the reality since there was a post about how "we are realists on this board"

so this is my $.02 that i am gonna throw in, why is it that we are overally surprised that we lost 2 games to 2 tough teams IN THEIR GYMS, and i agree w/ what the fan from LU posted, we have to realize that no one in the college b-ball ranks has forgotten what we did last year in the tourney and it will make a few teams seasons to beat us by playing their greatest game (Memphis is by far and away not in this category, as i would hope all of you would know)...but just as it is that we are going to get everyone's best game nite in and nite out that doesn't make this loss any easier, no one likes to lose and hopefully that is where some of the crazy posts came from.

i think we all need to take a deep breathe, or have a cold beverage, and get set for Saturday.

GO PANTHERS!!!!!!