Game 1: at. Portland November 12, 2010

[BBFran]

That was, by far, the worst defensive performance I can remember in the last two years. We played very hard and very, very badly on defense.

And by digging such a deep hole, it totally disrupted our offense, and it devolved into repeated bad decisions.

And while I don't usually call players out -- and there is plenty of blame to go around -- Kaylon had a terrible first game as a Panther.

This is a team with a lot of talent -- including Kaylon, whom I have every confidence will bounce back and be a terrific player -- but every player who played today should be deeply embarrassed.

I expected a loss in this game because I knew Portland was good and it's extremely difficult to play a good team on the road in your first game. But losing and getting embarrassed are two different things. These guys need to shake the cobwebs out fast and focus on doing the things the coaches have taught them day after day after day. And I think the coaches need to tighten up the rotation already. Several of our newer players showed they are not ready.

Let's try to get the next one and go from there. There's still a very good team buried under that very bad performance. They need to find themselves.

[teddyp00]

If he has it has not been announced anywhere yet. Just a verbal last I heard.

[nohopspanther]

I would have enjoyed listening to Mark Belling much more than watching that abomination.

[buppie05]

Shaq, if you are out there browsing over this board, please don't make any hasty decisions. We'll turn it around, and your bro looked like a stud out there.

The team I feel sorry for is FAU. Tomorrow we come out looking for blood.

www.evanmustplaynow.com

[BBFran]

buppie, Evan could not possibly have helped today. Our offensive problems were insignificant compared to our horrendous defense. Evan's redshirt year is all about him developing the strength, quickness and confidence he needs on defense.

[Deleted]

They'll bounce back. I can't wait to see the box score*- I'll bet we shot less than 37% and they shot over 50% on the night. We just couldn't buy a bucket in the first 7 minutes and final 10-12 minutes of the game. And Stohl... how do you stop that guy?

Positives: Ryan Allen looked good out there. Lonnie played like he wants starter-minutes and nearly single-handedly got us back in the game. Tony Meier looks ready for the season (those wild 3's though... (and Tone too- what does Portland not have a regulation sized/height hoop??)).

Negatives: Can we learn how to guard or play any kind of defense whatsoever? That was even more brutal than watching our brick laying sideshow.. Fran is right- D was BY FAR the biggest/bigger problem. Sacrifice a foul once in a while! So many of UP's shots went in uncontested. And so many times they found a guy on the perimeter without a single Panther near him. Tone was rusty as all h%%%. We need him to find his stroke SOON or trouble/disappointment looms large.. A big win tomorrow will allow some of us to back off the ledge a little bit.

Also (already mentioned but)- too many players saw minutes that probably shouldn't have in a game like this. We can't afford to not have the best 5 guys out there at all times when necessary (ie. when losing or in a close game). I don't think we need Evan to turn it around (though do think ER will be a great Panther), I think we needed a wake up call and got it, big time. If they play to their ability and start hitting those 3's.. we'll be fine.

How great was the Pack 3 weeks ago? Ok- I know the Pack didn't get blown out of any of those 3 losses.. but still. They didn't come out of the gates as strong as their lineup would suggest.


"The sky might fall, the sky might fall. But I'm not worried at all".


*if anyone finds a box tonight- please post. Thanks.

[PANTHERfan]

Well, I wish I could give some encouraging news having seen this train wreck in person. Simply put, it was one of the worst Panther performances that I've ever witnessed (first half at least). Utter confusion on defense, desperate offense, and all around lack of discipline.

The team looked great coming out of the gates in the second half. They made adjustments, played an inside outside game, and played within themselves. Then the wheels fell off for the second time.

Portland was a decent team, but nothing to write home about. We gave them insanely open looks. Any reasonable shooting team could have made those looks.

There's certainly talent and reason to be hopeful, but this was a bad, bad performance. I hope to see better tomorrow. Have to say my high hopes are on pause though.

[Super King]

After the 19-2 lead, we lost by just three points.

I would personally love to see the foul numbers in this game. I was forced to listen to the bulk of the second half on the radio, but it seemed like the Panthers were getting the poor end of a ton of tick-tack calls.

On the plus side: Tony Meier was a man in this game, Hill crushed the Pilots in the second half, McCallum was a stud at two different positions, Lonnie Boga and Ryan Allen showed their immense value.

I hate to say it, but a lot of this game had to do with coaching. Shuffling personnel like an exhibition game, turnovers, poor free throw shooting. General lack of focus. I've defended Jeter plenty, but this game reflects almost as poorly on him as it does on the team. There's a ton of time to turn it around and they may beat UC Davis by 40, but still.

[PANTHERfan]

The officiating was bad, but trust me... i had NOTHING to do with the results. This was all on UWM. And I agree, coaching wise, this was played like an exhibition. But much of that had to do with poor personal performances all around. They were just trying to find something that clicked.

[Super King]

Box score is up. I think Portland is just better than we all think:

Portland had 39 rebounds in the game, which is obscene. A lot of this had to do with our low field goal percentage, but 11 of our 29 total rebounds were offensive.

UWM had twelve steals. Steals are an aspect of our game that has been totally absent for years, and this is a promising start. The 48% FG percentage speaks lowly of our defense, but the fact that we pressured the ball exceptionally well seems to show a more ambiguous pattern. We actually won the turnover battle, 12 to their 15.

Free throws were horrible. 55.7% for the game. 8 points left on the line. A 12-point loss looks much better than this result.

Maybe Tone should just be a pure three-point shooter. He only hit five field goals in the game, three of which were 3-pointers. He made every 3-ball he took.

UWM played 13 bodies. Portland threw out 12.

Kyle Kelm may have had a poor FG percentage -- to be expected in his first college game -- but he had 7 rebounds and 3 assists.

Portland shared the ball extremely well, registering 20 assists to our 12. Kaylon's line isn't as terrible as we thought it would be; turnovers were his main problem. He did register 4 assists, 6 points, and 2 steals in his time on the court, but the four turnovers were killers. Three Portland players had at least 4 assists; two had five.

The game was ugly, but the score is slightly deceptive. And I think Portland is just a really, really good basketball team.

The most meaningful stat in the game might be that Ajami played only four minutes and did not attempt a field goal. The only stats on his line are a foul and a rebound. I think it may have taken Ryan Allen just one game to play himself into the starting lineup.

[nohopspanther]

Nov 12, 2010 18:08:22 GMT -6 @victorpanther said:

Negatives:

How great was the Pack 3 weeks ago? Ok- I know the Pack didn't get blown out of any of those 3 losses.. but still. They didn't come out of the gates as strong as their lineup would suggest.


"The sky might fall, the sky might fall. But I'm not worried at all".


*if anyone finds a box tonight- please post. Thanks.

The Packers were suffering through horrendous injuries, UWM had every single player available from July through Today, awful analogy.

[Deleted]

Touche. Well nophopspanther, "It's time to kick ass". I most definitely agree with you there!

[Deleted]

Super King (btw thanks for the box score alert)- I thought that was impossible that Tone was 3-3 from beyond the arc.. You were looking at his FTs (3-3)!!

espn.go.com/ncb/boxscore?gameId=303162501

That said, the 3 ball is Tone's shot. No matter how much we'd love for Tone to be an all-around slasher/post-up/combo guard...it ain't gonna happen. There isn't enough time left in his career to change his game to that. He is a 3pt specialist... He just kinda had a bad night tonight. I would LOVE for Tone to be our version of Jared Stohl.

EDIT: I wasn't too far off: they shot 48.2% to our... 34.4%. You will RARELY win a college basketball game at any level shooting that poorly. But again, to belabor the bigger point- our D needs to shape up fast or we are going to be a .500 team this season at best.

[BBFran]

"UWM had twelve steals. Steals are an aspect of our game that has been totally absent for years, and this is a promising start. The 48% FG percentage speaks lowly of our defense, but the fact that we pressured the ball exceptionally well seems to show a more ambiguous pattern. We actually won the turnover battle, 12 to their 15."

I think this is extremely deceptive. We had that many steals because we were so far behind we had little choice but to pressure, and even that wasn't organized pressure as much as guys just revving up. As I said in my first post, our guys played hard.

But steals do not by themselves indicate good defense. Good defense is when you prevent the other team, in an organized, systematic way, from getting quality shots. In that respect we were an abject failure.

So, we played hard, and that led to a fair number of steals. But we played badly. Very, very badly. We're not good enough to beat a good team when we play defense so badly, no matter how hard we play.

[Super King]

I think we're still negotiating the gap between ball pressure and sound defense. We've got one, the other's coming.