Dons 72, Griz 71

[TrueGriz]

Griz lost a tough game today. Griz started out quite flat on offense, and lost quite badly on the boards in the first half. Plus, the turnovers in the first half hurt the Griz. In short, the Griz lost the game in the first half.

Second half, the Griz improved, didn't turn the ball over hardly any times at all. Maybe the best this season at taking care of the ball. Still, Griz really didn't play well enough on offense to win the game, but they battled hard and had a slight chance at getting evening it up. Many opportunities were lost though because of poor shooting.

I sure liked the comeback try at the end though. Mansell kind of was in the wrong spot to take that shot.

San francisco Dons did have a good team. Their quickness was hard for the Griz to deal with. Plus, zone defense worked well in defending against Griz offense. Griz seem to have a tough time against zone defenses.

 

[chris]

their defense was tough!! Hard to get through it for the Griz, and boy were they quick on Offense!!

Turnovers hurt us in the first half, there were quite a few (11 overall in the game, which suprises me(I thought there were more))

We only had 13 points in the game after 12 1/2 minutes of play, without this slow start we would have come out on top pretty good!!

Criswell found his shot this game shooting 4-7 at the 3pt, with a total of 16 points for the game!

Kamarr had 8 boards splitting them on offense and defense.

Note on the Refs: They kinda sucked, specially the short one! :lol:


The Griz have a tough 5 games ahead of them starting with Auburn on Tuesday!

Lady Griz tongiht @ 7:35

 

[grizgirl317]

We only had 6 turnovers in the first half but we only shot 33% and didn't get hardly any second looks. They majorly out rebounded us (42-32) plus they had 30 defensive rebounds which just killed us. I don't think I've ever seen the guys play so badly. Everyone just looked terrible...well Criswell looked ok...but he's been looking terrible lately.

I think the biggest problem is that the guys are tired. Their schedule has been brutal. They've only had 2-3 days off from practice since the season started. They've played 6 games in 14 days and spent 4+ days travelling (they didn't get back from WI until like 3am because of weather). With the exception of Thanksgiving weekend they've been trading games at home and on the road and that's hard for any team. Plus they haven't had much time to prepare for any team because of all the travelling they've been doing. It'd probably do them some good to have a couple games in a row at home but that's not gonna happen for a while.

 

[ohyeah]

Their schedule has definately been tough. Must be hard for them to miss that much school too. I wonder if having a really tough preseason schedule is really good for a team or not. Even though they're losing to good teams, it still has to be a confidence killer to keep losing. Hopefully they can keep their chins up.

 

[Grizbeer]

I was pretty discouraged after this loss. It looked like the same pattern we have been following the last couple years - play with brilliance one game then stink it up the next. These last 2 games are ones we needed and should have won - period. They were not great teams, or even really good teams - they are 4th and 5th place teams in confereces slightly better than the BSC.

What encouraged me is listening to PK on the post game interview on the way home. He basically said the same thing, and was critical of the effort they put forth. I think he will get this turned around, and even though we should be 5-1 right now, I would rather have these losses in the non-conference than the regular season. I think PK comment that the team got a big head coming out of the Holiday classic and started playing as individuals instead of as a team was dead-on. It also shows that PK won't accept these losses as the best we can do, and if he can get the team to understand it we might still have a pretty good season.

I don't agree that the schedule was too tough. With this schedule we should have gone 8-5 non-conference, 10-4 conference, plus 2 tournament wins gets you a 20 win season, With 20 wins plus a good schedule maybe you get a 12th or 13th seed, and a chance for a first round upset. You do that a couple of times, and maybe you get a 10 or 11 seed, and a chance to win a second round game. On the other hand , we could go back to a week schedule, go 12-1 non-conference and 10-4 conference, get 24 wins, a 15 or 16 seed, and lose by 20 or 30 to one of the 8 best teams in the country, and confirm in the committee's mind that the seeding that we would all be bitching about was indeed correct.

To be a sweet 16 team you have to put yourself in a position to get a decent seed, and you do that by winning a couple first round games. You win first round games by getting a decent seed in the first round (12th or 13th). If the 96-97 team that had 23 wins (including one over Gonzaga) had played a little tougher schedule mayby they wouldn't have played Kentucky in the first round. Or how about the 91 team that won 23 games and was seeded 16th and had to play the #1 team in the country. To avoid this we have to play a decent schedule such as the one we have this year.

 

[BozoneCat]

You guys have to remember that the knock on Kennedy everywhere he has ever coached is that he can recruit like mad, but coaches as if he is mad. I'm not saying that is what is happening, because (obviously) it is too soon to tell. It might be a somewhat scary indicator of things to come, though...



Yeah, yeah, don't even get me started on Mick Durham!!! :wink:

 

[Grizbeer]

Don't get me wrong, I really like Coach K and didn't mean any criticism of him at all. One of the things that drove me nuts about Holst is that nothing ever changed with him (until the tournament in his last year). It never seemed like we would get better, and the team didn't progress during the year.

Bozone I don't know if the rumors are true, but I am happy he is here.

 

[grizgirl317]

I talked to Brent yesterday and he said that they were all really tired on Saturday. They've been travelling a lot...and getting very little sleep because of it. Last Tuesday their flight left for Cali at 6:30am which meant they had to meet at 4:30. They have to do pretty much the same thing tomorrow...except they have a much longer trip. They have to fly from here to SLC to Atlanta and its an hour and a half or so to Auburn from there. Luckily they have 2 home games in a row after they get back from Auburn. Being at home for a couple of games should help.

BTW from what I've heard...the players like Kennedy a lot more than Holst. Holst was really hard on the guys and put a lot of pressure on them and it made it hard for them to rebound from bad starts in games and tough losses.