We won the game, that's all that matters. I refuse to be a Debbie Downer today.
Zag for Life
We won the game, that's all that matters. I refuse to be a Debbie Downer today.
WE ZIGGED, WE ZAGGED, WE CONQUERED !!
Zag for Life
Randy did a great job.....did things that other coaches have not tried against Gonzaga....went big....sent everyone to the offensive boards....clogged up the middle......and the passing lanes......stopped the back cuts .....He just didn't have anyone that could stop Jalen and that was enough to spread the court enough so the Zags made enough threes to win.....
Zag for Life
Well that was a messy affair wasn't it. No one would describe that as beautiful basketball. SMC was able to get back on defense to shut down Zag transition and still outrebound the Zags 32 to 29. IMO Timme was a rock as he shot 83% from the field and 80% from the FT line while pulling down 8 boards and blocking 3 shots with just 1 TO. That is damn near perfect basketball. Suggs when he is on is unstoppable but when he is off he is definitely average. After a slow start, Ayayi played to his strengths and Corey played almost to his norm. Watson's flat statistical line is worrisome though he was a disrupter on defense (2 steals). Cook was above average and Nemby a little below avg. SMC shot poorly (35%) while putting up 11 more shots (63) than the Zags. If it hadn't been for decent success from 3 (39%) they would have been boatraced. $hit happens.
Birddog
Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe:
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe.
Zag for Life
What I saw that didn't set too well was when coach few had his arm around his waist and giving him what looked like a gentle coaching moment and Suggs wouldn't look at him, and walked away kind of shaking his head as if he didn't like it. Too good for coaching by what may be the best in the country? I hope that is not what I was seeing. No eye contact with coaches is a dis in my view. Just MO..
He gets upset when he's not putting on the star of the show performance and he wasn't exactly last night.
One of the greatest stories in basketball history...Gonzaga!
Zag for Life
Raivio used to do that. One tenth the player of course, but a terrible look nonetheless.Originally Posted by GrizZAG
Zag for Life
The SMC defense was sound, but...I don't think the defense caused Nembhard to miss a wide open layup, or Kispert to miss undefended shots from the middle of the key.
So many Zag shots, at the start of the game, came up short. I don't know why but, knowing me, I'll speculate.
Could it have been an effort to control the adrenaline that normally kicks in at the start of games, and with no crowd, the adrenaline wasn't as much, so trying to control it caused the shots to be just short?
Other than that, Zags win an ugly one. After they go undefeated, it will be remembered as a win, not necessarily an ugly win.
Are you laughing at ME?
Zag for Life
Enjoyed reading everyone’s posts. For all his apparent lack of energy and 0-fer stat line last night I believe Watson has the coaches’ confidence by virtue of his intangibles, like understanding the team’s concepts on both ends and executing them, and potential to be a disruptive force on D. Having said that, they just may not be so enamored of him after last night’s lackluster performance and body language. Maybe a full week of practice helps Gregg earn some time at the 4? I don’t think Strawther is the answer there for this team’s lofty goals. Zags need size, toughness and maybe even a little meanness kind of Casey Calvary attitude in the post to help Timme down there. I suspect Gregg can check all those boxes more than Strawther. He’s supposedly a knockdown shooter w range too, a skill Watson has yet to show us as a Zag.
Texas Tech is built to frustrate these Zags if they don’t figure out how to counter vs opponents whose D and determination to slow things down, stop Zags’ transition game and muddy up the game by keeping them from finding a free flowing rhythm. Few may need to pull out the old playbook of Zags of yore for some 1/2 court sets vs these kinds of opponents. They gotta get better at feeding Timme in half court sets.
As for Suggs, just because he wears his emotions on his sleeve doesn’t mean he has a bad attitude or isn’t receptive to coaching. I agree w Farnham’s comment that his foot appears to be bothering him. He doesn’t look as explosive to me anymore. Rather see him shut down for a bit and 100% healthy than push through any apparent foot or lower leg injury. Check out some of his HS highlight vids and explosive dunks. He just doesn’t look that explosive to me right now...but such an incredible athlete he can still look athletic at < 100%, as weird as that sounds.
It is their time....their team...I just get to watch. - Bartruff1
Zag for Life
Y'all are way off on Jalen. I've seen this before. Suggs is an extraordinary athlete that is driven to be the best. When he doesn't perform up to his own expectations, he is visibly perturbed. He's harder on himself than the coaches are. By the time the end of the regular season rolls around he will have reined himself in and will have absorbed everything the coaching staff teaches him. What you people are witnessing is Jalen showing his disappointment in himself for not being perfect. He will mature in that area.
Moderator
How does that explain the whining to the ref’s ?
Basketball...The Toy Department of Life
Don't mess wth happy...Coach Few
Zag for Life
Seriously? The way this board whines about the refs even after a win? That's what you are going with?
By the way, I've yet to see an NBA player think he ever fouled someone. Hahaha
Zag for Life
Ha, you are correct. We whine about officiating, yet they can’t even show emotion.
Zag for Life
Wow, so many body language doctors on this board. I think some of you are reading way too much into this. Way too much.
Wasn’t the best game. Give St Mary’s and Randy credit. There is a history there. Also, no team plays at peak efficiency every game.
At its best, this team can win it all. We all agree with that. If we had faced a better team last night it could have been a loss. My guess is the Zags would have stepped up to the level of the competition.
Zag for Life
I give Bennett credit. He did what the Zags used to do well defensively, he forced the bounce and took away the perimeter, mostly without help, and Zags missed some tough twos and pressured shots, and the ball movement wasn't there. Bennett extended his D, maybe that's their thing this year, idk, but they jumped the Zags early defensively and Zags looked a little stunned from it
Zags responded by going off the bounce but not to create as much as to finish in the first half, had trouble finding the weakside off of penetration. Joel had this going on until Few pulled him early, left AW out there when Andrew came on, usually AW gets the pine then after the first 5. The ball was sticking to Joel but after the quick hook, it didn't.
When Joel returned he was a different player, off the ball movement, transition movement, ball movement and less dribble...he adjusted to what Bennett was doing. Took Jalen until the 2nd half to do that imo, to understand what Bennett was doing and how to counter it and his 2nd half was good. Agree he is learning how to control his explosiveness, he shows he's a freshman sometimes, the turnovers, but he goes hard
Zags also were giving up good looks early trying to double the post from the weakside block. Also, Zags adjusted their pick and roll D at halftime, stopped trying to dig over the top when Bennett pulled Timme up high, instead went hard hedge recover just with Timme; Zags switched screens with CK and others for example
Finally, I think these games are excellent prep for the tournament
Zag for Life
This may be the most over analyzed thread of all time (thru 37 posts).*
*Perhaps I'll weigh in again on page #10.
But we don't play nobody.
Zag for Life
- surprised cook's name hasn't come up.........i thought he played 'great'.
- was surpirsed he didn't get more playing time in this game, given how well he played.
- i think suggs needs to dial it back a bit to start the game, he often picks up two early fouls and that seems to put him into a funk (no i'm not a body language expert, i'm an observational psychology expert)
Zag for Life
Posting to try and extend to page 10 so we can find out what 50 is REALLY thinking!
Are you laughing at ME?
Zag for Life
Doesn't this belong in The Foo?
Zag for Life
- lets me fair to coach bennet, this board so likes to jump on him for his blow by handshakes, myself included.
- in our current covid universe, post game handshakes are not even required, but bennet showed clear post game sportsmanship. he and few met and spoke for more than just a brief moment.
Zag for Life
At their best, the Zags play the "Jogo Bonito" The Beautiful Game as they say in Brazil. The passing, the the sharing, the tempo, the flash. This cohesive beauty shows up in the box score as assists as a % of FG's made. When we have assists on ~60%+ of our FG makes, we are lethal.
Last night, we had just 6 assists on 28 made FG's-a 21% rate. By FAR our lowest of the year. As a result, we looked slow, disjointed and vulnerable.
For comparison, here is that stat going back to every game so far this season (% of made FG's with an assist)
SMC 21%
Pepp 53%
UP 66%
BYU 59%
USF 50%
DXST 59%
NAU 47%
UVA 74% !!
NWST 2 51%
NWST 1 70%
IOWA 69% !!
WVU 65% !!
AUB 53%
KU 40% (this surprised me)
Remember, there is nobody who knows us better than Randy Bennett. We have played SMC more than any other school on the last decade-usually 3 times per year. If anybody knows how to ugly us up, it is him. Even so, we handled SMC by "only" 15 points on the road-our toughest in-conference matchup per Kenpom.
ZZ
Zag for Life
bennet mucks up the game,
he knows us so well,
fortunately their team is low octane offense and missed a ton of shots after the first quarter of the game,
we will meet this type of team in the tournament, Texas Tech like, and we need to be preparing for that.
6 assists, smc with 13 assists?
wow, outrebounded, wow
still the better team won,
if bennet had the talent we do, smc would have won this game
Zag for Life
Randy Bennett was upbeat in his postgame Zoom news conference.
“You just have to have perspective on everything on your team,” the St. Mary’s head coach said. “I thought we played pretty well. I thought we really competed hard. ...
“I don’t know if you want to call ’em moral victories or not, but can you feel good about getting beat by 14? I think you can.
https://www.sfchronicle.com/colleges...a-15877396.php
--------------------------------
"You have to generate some points against those guys because they’re going to score,” Saint Mary’s coach Randy Bennett said. “We’ve been pretty good defensively this year. We only played seven guys, you can run out of juices a little bit. That was our best chance to win so we went with it. … You have to score more. I don’t think you can hope to keep them under 60.”
Gonzaga forward Drew Timme said. “I think we have to do a better job of creating our own energy.”
https://www.eastbaytimes.com/2021/01...t-marys-73-59/
Zag for Life
Randy finally mellowing. Haven’t seen him on the beach in a while, now I’m actually looking forward to it.
Zag for Life
Its the first time I've seen Randy and Fewy actually talk and hug after a game...
America's Team!
Zag for Life
I think the big difference here with Randy and Few is that Randy knows just how good this years Zags team is. It is harder to take the loss year after year when you feel that your team can compete and is on the same level. When you are in tight contests and come up short frequently or you feel that you are oh so close, its a lot harder to take the L. In this years game, there is not as much stress and emotion because there is no expectation. His quote, “I don’t know if you want to call ’em moral victories or not, but can you feel good about getting beat by 14? I think you can" , pretty much says it all.
Zag for Life
Griz, when i watch college basketball everywhere, for decades, I have a different interpretation, and it includes football, boxing (where you can easily see it) etc. It is rare for a player to look into a coaches eyes while receiving feedback, or act like they are in a conversation. I think most of them are hearing it and taking it in, but it's got to be a momentary sidebar. The mode of game face and keeping your emotional focus on the battle is better left alone. The time for conversations is later while watching film, discussing and analyzing. From my eyes, i have never seen Jalen come close to disrespecting Few in glance or gesture.
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