In the second game of the Cream City Classic UCD plays Southeast Missouri State of the Ohio Valley Conference. SEMo has beaten South Florida, who does not seem very good and lost to Bradley, who seems pretty good. Like Milwaukee, the Redhawks have a lot of depth with 12 players averaging more than 10 minutes a game. Earlier, I thought the BU game would be tough but SEMo beat the Terriers 63-52. They stayed with their starters in this one. Phillip Russell, their 5' 10" guard scored 21 to lead all players. In both their remaining games of this tournament, the Ags need to take better care of the ball. ESPN gives us a 63.5% chance of a W. This game is not on ESPN+ but I am copying the link that OldAggieAlum so thoughtfully posted in an earlier discussion: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PRIPtcm9S1Y
32-32 at the half. This was not a good half of basketball for the Aggies. They had SEMO on their heels with an 11 point lead and then got sloppy and threw the ball away numerous times and lost the lead. Poor FT shooting, 5-10, and 13 TO's. Very unfocused play by the Aggies.
This game could easily have been a double digit lead for the Ags at the half. It seems like Pepper is the only player who can consistently hit any FT's too.
Somehow we are up by 11 with 8 mins left. Small worked there. We had Lose, Pepper, deBruhl, Beasley and Milling out in the court for a few minutes. That seemed to disrupt semo. SEMO is not happy with the refs.
OMG! Down to a one point lead now. I don't think I could take another last second loss. Refs seem to be calling this one close too? Must be the same ones.
The Aggies escape with a 73-71 UGLY win. How do you win 21 TO's and 11-24 FT shooting? This was perhaps the worse FT shooting I've ever seen by an Aggie team and many of the misses were clunkers...not even close. Wow! Pepper is the only player you can feel confident about at the line.
The one positive I saw was Adebayo actually scoring some points. He had 13 on 5-6 shooting. It was nice to see him score in close with a pump fake rather than throwing up a wild shot. Hopefully, that will give him some confidence. We could use some offensive production from him.
I totally agree that this was an ugly game and I only saw the last 4 minutes. The team has lost the composure it showed at home and I think it shows in their turn-overs and free throw shots, which are 80% mental. The defense and rebounding saved this game. They out rebounded the Redhawks 42-32. I don't think he got credit for it, but it appeared that Lose blocked a shot at the end that would have tied the game.
Lose did have a huge block. Coach Williams on an earlier broadcast said he has some big time offensive potential that the staff is just waiting to see in real games. Hopefully these minutes that he and Rocak are getting now will help them when the regular season starts.