by Chicagojayfan » Wed Feb 14, 2024 8:14 am
Not sure how much we learn from last night other than that the team seems to have gotten to the point of being able to focus on the details enough on offense and defense and bring the effort necessary to put away a team we were expected to beat by a good margin
Best offensive game of the year against a power conference opponent (offensive rating of 138.2). As someone on the Hoya board said, that's so bad that if they fouled Kalkbrenner as a 70% FT shooter every play, they would have done the same as playing defense...
While it was nice to see guys mostly hitting shots, there were lots of open shots
Defensively, we had a good first half and when we stretched the lead to 20, the defensive intensity fell off (hard to blame them for that). Epps got 17 on 18 shots and finished 6/18
We outrebounded them and kept turnovers low - and that, to me, is the key for every game we have left from now on
Lots of individual performances:
Baylor with the triple-double! I remember Ben's triple-doubles back in the day, (wonder how close Wrightsell was to a double double or triple double with the 8 steal games?)
Trey went crazy, especially from 3 PT range -- really it was the only area of his game on offense lacking and I've been hoping he could return to the form he showed last year
Kalk could have really dominated again, but we only got 8 shots for him
Ashworth had another nice performance 4/10 from 3 PT, 6 rebounds (I like how he gets the offense up the court fast when he rebounds), 4 assists, 0 turnovers
Miller looked banged up still but was 2/5 from 3 PT
Green looked great off the bench. If he can play like this off the bench, and Traudt can get to a point of playing well enough at the 5 to let Kalkbrenner rest, that may be a huge boost for the rest of the season. That along with Trey hitting 3's are the big takeaways for me
On to Butler Saturday where I hope we can steal back the win we gave up to them at home