I don't know that I've ever seen a more heart-breaking loss. One thing to lose at the buzzer, another thing to lose that way after outscoring the opponent 9-2 in 30 seconds. I guess Christian was trying to throw it as far away as he could, but yeah...
Heartbreaker...but this game was really lost on allowing 27 points off our 19 turnovers. T.Y. Johnson with a monster game with 32 points. I hope he had lots of family and friends in the stands.
We only shot 16-25 on FT's and some of those were the front end of 1 & 1's and 7-23 from 3 is not very good either. I liked the way we never quit but I don't think Les will be happy with our defense or with Milwaukee being the aggressor for most of the game.
Totally agree. We probably didn’t “deserve” to win, but it does show a good resilience. I enjoy watching this team, but a few hundred FTs after every practice is needed (I’m sure they’re doing that already)
It looks like Les has given this team the green light to run at every chance they get. I like that but it can also lead to a lot of risky passes and a lot of turnovers. I feel like we just got out worked on the defensive board in this game and that was huge.
#12, Kentrell Pullian wrecked us. He got 9 rebounds, 6 on the offensive glass and lead the Panthers with 20 points. He didn't even start. I have to give credit to Milwaukee. They didn't falter after starting off poorly, did not panic when they lost the lead with 9 seconds to go and matched us in almost every category, actually trailing in rebounds 31-37. Statistically, the key was that they made 10 of 16 from 3 for 62% while the Ags shot a relatively cold 7 for 23. We should not overlook the fact that this was their home floor and our guys had to go on a very long trip to get there. My daughter lives in Milwaukee, so I know something about that flight.
A lot of things can contribute to TO's: anything from unfocused, sloppiness to great defense by the opponent and lots of things in between. Les has this team playing at full speed so things happen quickly when everyone is on the fly including errant passes at times. Milwaukee was quick and athletic and got into the passing lanes. They were more aggressive than we were for much of the game.
FT's...who knows? Mental...maybe. I've always wondered why the women are so good at FT shooting compared to men. I think it may be easier for them to put up a more "soft" shot for some reason. Men miss off the back of the iron quite a bit and the big guys generally struggle the most. Maybe someone at UCD could do their grad thesis on this and figure it out!
It looks like Les is settling in on a starting 5 of Pepper, Johnson, Anigwe, Beasley and Adebayo for now with Milling and Losé coming off the bench for significant minutes. DeBruhl has gotten some good minutes also this year especially if Johnson or Pepper get in early foul trouble.
Adebayo is a defensive specialist. He's long and strong but rarely scores. Losé is a great defender and he is showing some offensive capability at times. Milling is a good defender and can be a deadly shooter from distance but his shot has been off a bit in the early going. When he's feeling it, Les will keep him in and have the team get the ball to him often.
In some cases, Les can use his depth to wear out an opponent that tends to use only 6-8 players. This seemed to work against Sac State. Milwaukee, however had excellent depth as well, although for this game, they only used 7 players very much. In fact, two of their starters only played for a combined 12 minutes, which is unusual. It is often the case, where some players are simply better coming off the bench. This is where a lot of substitution strategy becomes critical in seeing very quickly how certain matchups work, some players are not having a good game or others are really effective. T Y Johnson had the best game of his career, but no one on the Aggie bench really caught fire, so Les played his starters more than usual. Thus the UCD bench was outscored by the Panthers "bench" 59-13. On the other side, Angelo Stuart, one of the two starters I mentioned above, was not having a good game in his coaches opinion, even though he is one of the teams leading scorers.
About 5 minutes into the game the Milwaukee coach subbed in 4 players who went on to play most of the game. Sometimes when a coach has not been happy with his normall starters in practice or some other reason, they will start some other players to make a statement and get the attention of his normal starters and then put them in early in the game. I was wondering if this may have been the case with the Milwaukee coach. I've seen Les do this a couple times in the past.