I'm chalking the 2nd half up to....

[GUZagDenver]

Fatigue. I'm not here to make excuses for us, I never have, but I saw a team in the 2nd half that was tired. The 20 point lead allowed the adrenaline to fade and fatigue took over. Not sure we've really had time to recover from a 7 NIGHT, 3 CITY, 4 FLIGHT, 3 HOSTILE GAME ROAD TRIP. We probably got home in the early hours of Sunday morning and didn't have a lot of rest time before starting to prepare for St. Mary's.

We are coming off what Few has called the toughest road trip in his entire time at GU, and I just think the 2nd half showed that. I thought that was why we were so late on close-outs, missed some of those easy bunnies, and started making some sloppy plays. No legs underneath us. You could really see it with Elias, Kelly, and Gary, who have been getting banged around for a week and a half.

Obviously there are things that we need to sure up, and we definitely did some of the bad things that have haunted us before, but I just thought we looked tired. This full week off should give us time to rest/recover, get a tune-up game in against Portland (7-10 record), and give it hell against Butler rested and ready to go.

We're 16-1 and come Monday will probably be ranked #7 or so. Take a deep breath and say that out loud: 16-1!!!

[MickMick]

Let me be the first to rag on.........

Sam Dower.

Way to get out hustled on the glass Sam.

I have said this from the beginning. PK must be part of the core group.

[vandalzag]

Congrats on being first

I for one appreciate you hustle on being the first to rag on a player.

[Birddog]

I have said this from the beginning. PK must be part of the core group.

His "O" is pretty good but his rebounding is lacking for a guy his size. After a year of conditioning I will expect a lot more.

[HenneZag]

Im not buying fatique

We had 5 days of rest before the SM game. If we can't get up for a SM game then I don't even know what to say. Don't understand why we are trying to sugar coat things.

We give up a 20 point lead @ home = concern
We were outrebounded
We were out hustled
we missed 10 layups

We may have had a grueling road trip I agree, we had plenty of rest before this game.

Not trying to be a downer, just realistic, we have a ton of work to do if we want to win the WCC. I really wish Karn would have gotten more minutes, would have liked to see some KD in the place of DS and some points in the game

nonetheless we are 16-1 and 3-0 in WCC play, I will take that but we need to tighten things up, and learn to have that "killer instinct"

[23zagmd]

dolo dower

Mick, I second you.

What has happened to Sam? He's completely lost on defense. His rebounding is atrocious and his ability to secure the ball is worse.

His offense is way down because of the above issues and his minutes just seemingly are disappearing.

Frustrating.

When your not doing what you are put in the game to do, you had better find a way to affect the game in another area. He's not doing that

[zag944]

If only we had two small forwards who weren't fatigued due to only playing a few minutes a game. If we just had that there'd be something we couldve done, rather than have our two point guards chasing around a physical guard like Holt the whole second half.

[CDC84]

Sam has always been terrible on defense, and has always been a poor rebounder. Nothing has changed. What you look for in Sam is offensive production.

[BULLDOG#1]

I think it was more of a mental let-down than anything else.

"ah, we got these guys. Let's put it on cruise control and get the second half over with asap."

That mental breakdown combined with the Gaels bigs playing thug ball and the refs buying into it ... Dangerous situation which nearly bit the zags.

[siliconzag]

Not so sure

Fatigue. I'm not here to make excuses for us, I never have, but I saw a team in the 2nd half that was tired. The 20 point lead allowed the adrenaline to fade and fatigue took over. Not sure we've really had time to recover from a 7 NIGHT, 3 CITY, 4 FLIGHT, 3 HOSTILE GAME ROAD TRIP. We probably got home in the early hours of Sunday morning and didn't have a lot of rest time before starting to prepare for St. Mary's.

We are coming off what Few has called the toughest road trip in his entire time at GU, and I just think the 2nd half showed that. I thought that was why we were so late on close-outs, missed some of those easy bunnies, and started making some sloppy plays. No legs underneath us. You could really see it with Elias, Kelly, and Gary, who have been getting banged around for a week and a half.

Obviously there are things that we need to sure up, and we definitely did some of the bad things that have haunted us before, but I just thought we looked tired. This full week off should give us time to rest/recover, get a tune-up game in against Portland (7-10 record), and give it hell against Butler rested and ready to go.

We're 16-1 and come Monday will probably be ranked #7 or so. Take a deep breath and say that out loud: 16-1!!!

Do nineteen year olds even get tired?

[Martin Centre Mad Man]

Bad rebounding leads to tired legs. Tired legs lead to bad rebounding.

Defense is more physically demanding than offense. When a team gives up offensive rebounds, they have to defend longer. That wears them out. Once they are fatigued, they slow down and have less ability to get to the 50/50 balls.

I attribute that entire second half run to SMC's ability to get rebounds that they never should have had. Our guys would have put them away easily if they had just grabbed more of the boards. We had their entire front line in foul trouble with fifteen minutes to play. If our kids had grabbed more offensive rebounds, they could have converted the put-backs into trips to the foul line and fouled out their players. If we had grabbed more defensive rebounds, we could have been able to control the tempo more effectively - bleeding time off of the clock or attacking on fast breaks.

I expect the coaching staff to hit Coach Izzo's Spartan rebounding drills between now and Butler. They need that refresher.

[CDC84]

The team has played 4 games in 9 days, including that long road trip. They barely had time to work on themselves once they got back to Spokane.. They need to get refocused during this mini break. The game at Butler last night, especially, is going to require a 40 min effort. I don't know about the fatigue factor last night, but it's clear to me that the team could use the mini break.

[Reborn]

I couldn't disagree more with the premise of this thread. Most of the starters were on the bench when St Mary's made their run. Sam Dower, who had zero rebounds, was in and to my count, last night every time he was on the floor St. Mary's made runs because of his efforless play. Yes! He scored some points but gave up 17 points and tons of rebounds. The second point has been stated. David Stockton could not guard Holt.

I hope Few takes a better look at how the two small guard defense is hurting the Zags at times.

What happened last night in the second half often happens when a team gets up by 20 early in the second half. For some reason the system begins to shut down and the team stops attacking. Then the other teams suddenly begins their attacking and aggressive play and fight their way back into the game. Often, the team fighting back pulls out a victory at the end. It didn't happen last night. Kudos to the team.