We will not win many games this year when Pepper and TY are the only offense we have. It's going to be a long season if we do not find some semblance of balance in our scoring. We forced 16 Sac TO's in the first half and could not capitalize on it because the only offense we had was Pepper. Sac was 1-5 coming into this game and they beat us in our house...not good at all...
Hard to point to one reason we lost, but the defense was a bit lax and that scoreless stretch near the end did the Ags in. This was a game that UCD should have won. Two positives: Borra looked comfortable playing and was aggressive on offense. Milling made a 3 near the end that shows that he might be gaining some confidence in his shot.
It was good to see Borra out there and moving pretty well despite a big brace on his knee. Our defense is usually pretty good but we couldn't contain Sac in the paint and Sac did a good job of hitting some critical 3's. We must find some balance in our offense though. Right now it's Ty or Pepper and, after that, we simply are not getting much help. Right now, even when Pepper and TY score 20 some, it's just not enough.
Frustrating. I was really hoping for a basketball sweep. On paper it looked like we should have won, but then on paper we should have won men's soccer, too. I guess that's why they play the games.
Like everyone has been saying, we need more guys scoring. There was a stretch at the beginning of the second half where we went scoreless for about 5 minutes. I don’t recall seeing Leo take one shot. I was hoping Milling would find his shot. And we need work on making those FTs.
The poor free throw shooting is inexcusable. It's 90% psychological once a player has learned the fundamentals of making a free throw. The players need to learn how to focus on the line during the game. Easier said than done, though. I'd be willing to bet that in practice they make 80% of their shots. Does anyone know if the athletic department employs a sports psychologist?
Sometimes I think the men should practice their FT's from the women's basketball team and learn from them. For whatever reason, it seems that women players tend to shoot a higher percentage from the line. I don't know if it's a mental thing or a physical thing. It seems that FT shooting requires more of a "light, fluid, soft touch" which is more of a fine motor skill than a large motor skill that requires more strength and force. Women generally have better fine fine motor skills so perhaps FT shooting is more intuitive for them and makes the execution of it easier. I certainly have no scientific knowledge to support this idea but it seems reasonable enough to be food for thought...
The frustrating part with the men is that the whole offense is built about getting to the line. It's drive drive drive to the basket, maybe dish for an open 3, but mostly try to draw the foul and get to the line. when you only shoot 50-60%, it really puts your offense in a terrible situation.
I agree and we're so unbalanced offensively with Pepper and TY carrying 2/3 of the scoring or more. Pepper is the more reliable of the two as TY is more streaky. Teams can focus on slowing them down and they know, if we don't have any reliable scoring coming from elsewhere in the line up, Pepper and TY are not enough to beat them by themselves.