Pokes come out of Hawaii with a 2-1 record. Lots of close games overall in the tourney and some pretty decent basketball. A few thoughts on the tourney overall:
1. MVP - Hunter Maldonado - More to come in another thread, but Maldo is playing the best ball of his very successful career right now. He is schooling defenders in the post with his footwork, on the drive with crossovers and spin, with his passing and vision with crosscourt passes and against USF with his....perimeter shot? Ok, not counting on that being there all year, but when he stepped into a couple 3's in rhythm in that USF game it made the Pokes basically unguardable. I did no notice that he missed the next one and basically decided not to shoot after that, so you can see a confidence issue there for sure. Still, great tourney for Maldonado who came through with Ike in foul trouble for large stretches.
2. LVP - COVID and COVID protocols. COVID sucks and so does current protocols around the NCAA. We aren't going to have a season at this rate.
2b. LVP#2 - Transfer Portal - This week deserved multiple LVP's.
3. BCB - Blue Collar Boys - It's fun, but...probably had enough of the coverage from the TV crew. Hopefully future crews spend more time discussing what the Pokes are doing to get open 3's and less time showing the Blue Collar Boys celebrating said 3's. They should keep doing it of course, love the general energy from our bench.
4. Please stand up, Please stand up - Could somebody other than Maldo/Ike/DuSell please provide steady offense. Maldo and Ike are going to lead the way and they should and I have been really impressed with how consistent DuSell has brought it on both ends of the court this year. There will be games where he makes more 3's than others, but he has played very well. We need more consistently out of Oden/Foster/Jeffries/Wenzel/Thompson and ideally even one of Dut/Reynolds. I thought Dut played pretty well in a few possessions against USF which was great to see because he really seemed lost and frustrated the last time he played in Laramie. Would love to see him be able to step in and provide a few minutes.
5. Jeff Linder's Dream/Worst Nightmare - Do you think Linder was physically ill watching the USF offense? That was like a clinic on what not to do if you are coming from Linder's perspective. I couldn't believe how many long 2's USF was taking. You know Linder was over there just smiling to himself (insert Jack Nicholson departed GIF here) thinking "you guys go right ahead and keep shooting those".
6. Rebounding - This is really becoming a problem. Pokes got outrebounded in every game in Hawaii and I don't think anyone they played is that great of a rebounding team. Certainly not on part with Boise State who is top 20% nationally in both offensive and defensive rebounding. If Ike gets in foul trouble against BSU we are in a world of hurt, which brings me to...
7. What's next - No time to celebrate a successful OOC season, because it is about to get serious. The next 5 games are against Top 75 KenPom team. The Pokes haven't played 5 straight games against teams rated that high in over 10 years. The last time they had that kind of stretch, the Head Coach was Heath Schroyer and we went a robust 0-5 in that stretch against BYU (Jimmer version), SDSU (Kawhi version), UNLV (Kruger era), UNM (Alford era), and CSU (Miles first really strong team). Fortunately, none of this year's opponents are as good as the BYU/SDSU teams of that era and we have Jeff Linder instead of Heath Schroyer. However, 5 Top 77 KenPom teams, 3 on the road, is a hell of a way to start the conference season. We will know real quick if we have a shot at a top half finish or if the T-8th preseason poll position was accurate.
1. MVP - Hunter Maldonado - More to come in another thread, but Maldo is playing the best ball of his very successful career right now. He is schooling defenders in the post with his footwork, on the drive with crossovers and spin, with his passing and vision with crosscourt passes and against USF with his....perimeter shot? Ok, not counting on that being there all year, but when he stepped into a couple 3's in rhythm in that USF game it made the Pokes basically unguardable. I did no notice that he missed the next one and basically decided not to shoot after that, so you can see a confidence issue there for sure. Still, great tourney for Maldonado who came through with Ike in foul trouble for large stretches.
2. LVP - COVID and COVID protocols. COVID sucks and so does current protocols around the NCAA. We aren't going to have a season at this rate.
2b. LVP#2 - Transfer Portal - This week deserved multiple LVP's.
3. BCB - Blue Collar Boys - It's fun, but...probably had enough of the coverage from the TV crew. Hopefully future crews spend more time discussing what the Pokes are doing to get open 3's and less time showing the Blue Collar Boys celebrating said 3's. They should keep doing it of course, love the general energy from our bench.
4. Please stand up, Please stand up - Could somebody other than Maldo/Ike/DuSell please provide steady offense. Maldo and Ike are going to lead the way and they should and I have been really impressed with how consistent DuSell has brought it on both ends of the court this year. There will be games where he makes more 3's than others, but he has played very well. We need more consistently out of Oden/Foster/Jeffries/Wenzel/Thompson and ideally even one of Dut/Reynolds. I thought Dut played pretty well in a few possessions against USF which was great to see because he really seemed lost and frustrated the last time he played in Laramie. Would love to see him be able to step in and provide a few minutes.
5. Jeff Linder's Dream/Worst Nightmare - Do you think Linder was physically ill watching the USF offense? That was like a clinic on what not to do if you are coming from Linder's perspective. I couldn't believe how many long 2's USF was taking. You know Linder was over there just smiling to himself (insert Jack Nicholson departed GIF here) thinking "you guys go right ahead and keep shooting those".
6. Rebounding - This is really becoming a problem. Pokes got outrebounded in every game in Hawaii and I don't think anyone they played is that great of a rebounding team. Certainly not on part with Boise State who is top 20% nationally in both offensive and defensive rebounding. If Ike gets in foul trouble against BSU we are in a world of hurt, which brings me to...
7. What's next - No time to celebrate a successful OOC season, because it is about to get serious. The next 5 games are against Top 75 KenPom team. The Pokes haven't played 5 straight games against teams rated that high in over 10 years. The last time they had that kind of stretch, the Head Coach was Heath Schroyer and we went a robust 0-5 in that stretch against BYU (Jimmer version), SDSU (Kawhi version), UNLV (Kruger era), UNM (Alford era), and CSU (Miles first really strong team). Fortunately, none of this year's opponents are as good as the BYU/SDSU teams of that era and we have Jeff Linder instead of Heath Schroyer. However, 5 Top 77 KenPom teams, 3 on the road, is a hell of a way to start the conference season. We will know real quick if we have a shot at a top half finish or if the T-8th preseason poll position was accurate.
