Great effort by the Ags in a very tough place to play. We got homered on some of the calls once IU started to roll which led to Les getting T'd up...hey, it's the Big10 and IU was at home and it showed with 4 FTA's by the Ags and 21 by the Hoosiers. Coming into this game I would have said that if we kept the spread under 25 it would be a pretty fair effort against a team with the kind of talent Indiana has.
Really good to hear Coach Les in an upbeat mood after the game. He said he's really proud of how the team played and, if we can play with that kind of effort here against a team like Indiana, we will be a tough out. He was funny talking about the T he got and said, "I was having a good conversation with the ref. He's a midwest guy and I'm a midwest guy and I was telling him a few things about officiating and he was telling me his side about it."
AJ's shot was coming back tonight and Caleb Fuller is starting to show us that he's going to be a very good player for us as he gets more PT. I also liked the fight and determination the Ags showed tonight. Now we have to keep it going. We'll be battle tested for sure by the time conference begins.
John had a nice game, hopefully first of many. TJ was solid maybe wore down a bit down the stretch. GG had some good moments. I agree that Fuller is starting to play better. Gonsalez did some good stuff, and seemed to deal well with the pressure.
Something to build on. Not many easy wins out there in the preseason.
They weren't outclassed at all...really very competitive...which makes some of the other really poor losses look even more glaring. I hoping it was just a perfect storm of Siler and Mooney being off their shooting game, TJ turning the ball over by trying to do too much, Fuller being new, AJ just not himself after battling an injury and everyone making mistakes on defense. Les has said that he feels good about the talent of this team so, even though I've been pretty dismayed about how things have gone, I think Les knows a lot more than me!
That’s exactly how I judge these games against a power level team. My son asked yesterday at half time if this would have been our best win against a big name school. It didn’t happen but like you said it looked like we belonged.
We definitely belonged. We've been seeing some signs here and there that the team was coming around but the loss to Sac St kind of rained on the brief parade. I just hope that this game is indicative of what's to come with some consistency.
I have been questioning the wisdom of playing such a tough out of conference schedule given how things have been going but, to tell you the truth, I love these challenges. I would like to see this kind of scheduling continue in the future even if it means we lose a bunch of games and enter the conference with a losing record.
There are a lot of benefits that can come from games like this if we have enough talent to not get embarrassed each time out. Games against the power programs give us exposure to the "big leagues" and shows us where we want to go with the program and what it takes to compete at the next level. We also get a lot of media exposure and that can help with recruiting especially if we are competitive. Lastly, it gives the players a chance to play in great basketball environments against elite talent and we will certainly be battle hardened by the time league starts.
I say keep the challenges coming. Eventually we will upset a couple of these teams. We will take our lumps for sure but, in my opinion, this kind of scheduling can potentially have more benefits than disadvantages if we can keep our heads up. Iron sharpens iron so the saying goes...
I just stumbled across the Big10 Network replaying the Aggie at Indiana so I got to watch the second half. The team I saw playing Indiana was not the team we have seen in the previous games. They really looked good and we would have been right in game up to the end if it hadn't been for several shots that rolled off the rim and several untimely offensive fouls once Indiana caught fire from 3 and lit us up.
Our defense was solid and our switches, rotations and block outs were excellent against some elite talent. Our ball movement was crisp and quick and our penetration and kick out was very good. TJ was driving through traffic in the lane and our 3 point shooters were draining their shots. Caleb Fuller is making huge progress and is settling i to a starting role. This was by far our best basketball of the season.
If we can continue to play this way we'll be a very tough out and we could pull an upset or two in the upcoming games. I'd love to see a game where Schneider, John, Gonzalez, Mooney, Fuller and Printup are all feeling it and scorching the nets from outside. That would be awesome.
Hopefully, we are over our early season growing pains...
I watched the game and the Hoosiers were never in it from the start. Duke steamrolled them from the get go. Duke's Zion Williamson threw down one of the most thunderous dunks I've ever seen too: