Wyoming

[pnthr30]

At this point in time, he is a good player who doesn't understand the game.........period. He doesn't know "how to play." If we were playing pick up ball, I'd definitely pick him, but in a controled game, he makes me very nervous when he has the ball (you never know what he is gonna do - to erratic), especially late in the game.

FYI - If you watch the game closely, the play after he shot that wild shot towards the end of the game (which was tipped in), Joah got after him about knowing the time and score (right before he got to the bench and got an earful). However, I gotta hand it to him, he has some testicular fortitude for throwing a lob like that late in the game being up by double digits - especially since he just got "reminded" about the time and score situation.

[pnthr97]

Pnthr30 said: "testicular fortitude"

That's fantastic. ;D

[mcdadenets50]

"I told the kids that I didn't care if their tongues were hanging out," Jeter said. "We were going to press for 20 minutes in the second half. That's what we do."

Excellent
www.jsonline.com/sports/coll/dec05/380914.asp

[PANTHERfan]

very solid effort last night. this is one of those games you can point to down the road and say that's when they really came together. to come back from a double digit deficit only to pound a team that doesn't lose very often on their home court is mighty impressive.
Jeter did an excellent job of coaching last night. his frequent subbing early on really paid off with the 20 minutes of press that they put on them. the combination of our much improved halfcourt offense and a stingy press is going to be very difficult for anyone to deal with.
it's great to see multiple contributers coming off that deep bench. Massiah stepped up early, Ford had arguably his best game of the season, and Pancratz gave a solid effort as well. Smith looked a lot better in the second half. he's showing his youth but man does he have upside. and how about that alley-oop to Boo?! just plain sick!!!
if we can pull off a win against a hot Montana team this road trip could prove invaluable in terms of building confidence and unity going into conference play.
way to go Panthers!!!

[PANTHERfan]

btw, awfully dissapointing to see our nice win get pushed deep into the JS sports section. i guess they really wanted that speedscating article on page one... unreal. somehow i'm sure MU's drubbing of mighty Lewis will be front page worthy.
yesterday we see a nice Boo article top front so it's hard to get too upset but come on!?

[uwmfan]

Did anyone else think that Bobbi R. gave a little more love than necessary to Joah? I didn't think he played a great game (although he did finish in double digits and came on strong late in the game), but BR gave him the player of the game nod. I thought AT had a tougher role playing against Williams on both ends of the floor.

Great overall effort, including the coaching staff. To come out in the second half the way they did showed me more about RJ in making adjustments.

[milwsport]

All I can say is that I watched the game at Axels and by the end of the game when Smith was driving with a steal people around where i was were like 'Pass it off this time."

I agree that he will become more unselfish. And he has enormous talent. I guess I don't totally agree with Dutch that he shouldn't be shooting at all, just that when he's racing down the court and there are one (or more) team mates with him, he should pass it off

The love RJ was giving to Tucker may have been because he has been pushing him to go inside more. Tucker did that in this game and I'm sure RJ wanted him to know he appreciated it.

[dutchpthr]

fan said:

I was referring to dutch and milsport on the sucking comment as they were the two who posted. You weren't instructed to suck eggs unless you feel the need to.

I don't know why you are so stubborn in referring to him as Mr. Smith. Is there a reason for this?

I hope you aren't bothered too much by my response.

fan, i'm only eating eggs if they are hard boiled first

don't g et me wrong i am excited by a lot of the things that Avo can do on the court and i love the intensity taht he plays with. He makes his oppentents work for every inch on defense and actually does a really good job of dishing the ball ie. Boo's dunk.

the only thing at this point that scares me about Avo's game is his shot. The reason that i say that is he has a funny release, it seems like he tires to put english on, it and kind of pushes it away, kinda hard to explain with out being able to visually show anybody.

plus i just kinda like joking around with you fan, like i said it was all in fun, just kinda wanted to see what you were gonna say.

but if you got any hard boiled eggs, i'll take a couple ;D

[panthers6thman]

fan said:

panthers6thman said:

I think Mr. Smith did shoot some bad shots in the game last night, but not necessarily on that particular lay up. He charged to the hole with way too much time on the shot clock late in the game, even after we were starting to put some distance on Wyoming and that bothers me.
He also, on a number of occasions drove with his head down and never looked up to pass the ball off. He plays good defense but he needs to pull up sometimes on a steal and set up the swing. At this time Avery is very inconsistent------He had that amazing pass for the Boo Davis dunk. I don’t question his ability I just refuse to suck an egg if I’m being matter-of-fact on what he has shown so far.

I don't know why you are so stubborn in referring to him as AVO. Just preference I guess. I'm never bothered by a responce on a discusson board so much that I seriously take it personal. I just call them as I see them and base my responces on fact and usually add a little humor. The egg coment was just a gentle ribbing fan. No direspect intended dog.

[PantherLou]

Random comments from me:

1. AVO (I will refer to him as such on this message board, just to appease fan) will be a great basketball player, once he learns how to play. Pnthr30 sums up my opinion pretty well. I can see why the coaches wanted to red-shirt him, but damn, is he athletic. I love his intensity, I will say that.

2. Was it just me, or was listening to Darrin Sutton really painful last night? A few items that I got real sick of hearing about:
- The altitude. And Rob Jeter's GENIUS in his sub pattern. Don't get me wrong, I think Rob did great, but jeez, did we have to hear about it after EVERY substitution?
- Justin Williams. I know the guy is a great shot blocker, but it seemed as though every Panther turnover or missed shot was somehow credited to him.
- This was not an upset, despite the fact that Sutton called it as such multiple times down the stretch.
- Did you know that Wyoming had a player from Australia? Sutton only mentioned that about 17 times.
- Nice behind-the-back pass by AVO, but really...it was not the greatest pass I have ever seen.

3. Overall, I really don't think we played all that well. This actually excites me: We played pretty soft for almost 30 minutes and still won easily, going away. Once this team really starts to click, look out. I still feel that this team is better, right now, than last year's team was at the end of December.

4. Joah finally stated to do the things that made him great. Posting up, driving to the basket, initiating contact. I really hope he keeps this up, because we are going to be very tough to beat when he does.

5. Kevin Massiah keeps looking better and better.

[BBFran]

Good post Lou. I agree in most respects, except that I thought we looked worse than we should have in the first half because Rob was trading smooth play for rested players in the second half.

Once Joah let the game come to him, and started posting and finding matchup advantages, he sure looked good, didn't he? If he finally buys in, he will have a fabulous conference season and be the player everyone expected.

Massiah is indeed looking more assured every game.

[PANTHERfan]

Massiah is slowly but surely proving to be an x-factor player. those first couple 3's he hit were big. if we see continued improvement from him we'll have great depth to work with. overall it's good to see so many players contributing quality minutes.
what's so heartening is we're certainly far from playing our best ball yet getting quality wins in impressive fashion. Wyoming simply does not get beaten at home like they did last night very often. a quick read of their message board makes that apparent.

[dylanrocks]

Daron obviously didn't see the line for the game. Glad we were at Goolsby's where the volume was sketchy. R.J. seems very happy (almost eager) to trade a sloppy, inconsistent and maddening opening half for a bullrush second (Did you see Rob's expression as the team took the floor for the second half. It looked as though he wanted to clock somebody). I can't really argue with the results to this point. Interesting comment by R.J. on his weekly radio program on WAUK, 'I've spoken with 'Bid' (assistant coach Brian Bidlingmeyer) about scheduling the game against Tennessee Tech, where they've now won 81 of their last 86 games.' " I think he's saying this in jest. Maybe?

[PantherLou]

If he finally buys in, he will have a fabulous conference season and be the player everyone expected.

Agree 100%. I am starting to think maybe, just maybe, he is starting to do this.

Interesting comment by R.J. on his weekly radio program on WAUK, 'I've spoken with 'Bid' (assistant coach Brian Bidlingmeyer) about scheduling the game against Tennessee Tech, where they've now won 81 of their last 86 games.' " I think he's saying this in jest. Maybe?

I think that this was just one of those games where the timing was unfortunate. I think if we played TT now, we would win. Speculative for sure, but I feel we are just a much better basketball team than we were 1 month ago.

[milwsport]

The local paper's story about the game

www.casperstartribune.net/articles/2005/12/28/sports/6b02f82ad9534ed1872570e500213399.txt

Make sure you grab some cheese to go with their whine before reading it