I hope Fred puts more emphasis on D in the future.

[Wesley]

Defense is great. I'm sure that Fred would like to have the manpower for a little better defensive performance. But taking shots at ISu's 3 point shooting is crazy after this game. ISU hitting 17 3's and shooting over 40% from 3 is what kept ISu in this game. They were facing one of the leading shotblockers in the country. They were going to have to score from outside. ISU created a lot of turnovers. They got stops, but couldn't get enough of them. They also had a guy who had been struggling and they made the decision to make an unlikely guy beat them. They helped with Johnson's guy early in the game and he got hot. This is a guy who struggled scoring the entire season. **** happens, it was still a good game plan. I would rather force the 6th option to beat me than stand around and let the 1st or 2nd option beat me like they have every other game.

The sixth option was the refs.

[Trice]

I think we played good defense when we needed it.
The call that SHOULD'VE been made, wasn't.

Are you saying we played poor defense on that posession?

No, if I read you correctly you're saying if the right call is made, and we win the game, then nobody cares how bad our defense was. I'm saying sure, we'd be thrilled to have won but that wouldn't change the fact that our defense was bad. I'm talking about the game as a whole, not the final possession.

[tre]

No, if I read you correctly you're saying if the right call is made, and we win the game, then nobody cares how bad our defense was. I'm saying sure, we'd be thrilled to have won but that wouldn't change the fact that our defense was bad. I'm talking about the game as a whole, not the final possession.

We have a miscommunication then.

I'm saying we played good defense when we needed to. We were robbed by the no-call. How could we have played better defense when it mattered? Could Goerges have done something better than what he did to stop that play?

[vortex]

When you get to the tourney defense tends to win more games than offense. Scores start to come down, usually the best defensive teams advance. A team can have a hot game and make a bunch of three's to advance but maintaining that kind of shooting over several games is almost impossible. If you don't guard every game you don't last long.

[Rural]

We need to shoot better.
We missed 24 threes.
Make all those and we win by 60.
That's the point this defense debate is getting to.

[Trice]

We have a miscommunication then.

I'm saying we played good defense when we needed to. We were robbed by the no-call. How could we have played better defense when it mattered? Could Goerges have done something better than what he did to stop that play?

I'm not disagreeing with you on the outcome of the final play. There isn't anything more we could have done there, the refs blew the call. No argument.

I would, however, argue that we *needed* to play better defense during the prior 39 minutes and 55 seconds. As a whole, our defense was not good. If it had been, the game very likely would have been won, perhaps comfortably, in regulation.

[tre]

I'm not disagreeing with you on the outcome of the final play. There isn't anything more we could have done there, the refs blew the call. No argument.

I would, however, argue that we *needed* to play better defense during the prior 39 minutes and 55 seconds. As a whole, our defense was not good. If it had been, the game very likely would have been won, perhaps comfortably, in regulation.

Defense could've been better throughout the game, I agree.

I guess in my eyes that doesn't matter when we make the plays at the end of the game that SHOULD'VE won it for us.

If we're going to say defense should've been better throughout the game, we should also be saing "Free Throw shooting cost us this game, giving up offensive rebounds cost us this game, 8 turnovers cost us this game..."

In the end it comes down to this in my opinion... we were in position to win this game. We made the defensive play that SHOULD'VE won us this game. Unfortunately, the ref swallowed his whistle on an obvious charge, & decided to call a foul Georges in a fight for a lose ball.

[jbhtexas]

We need to shoot better.
We missed 24 threes.
Make all those and we win by 60.
That's the point this defense debate is getting to.

Only if you're going to take it there.

[Trice]

Defense could've been better throughout the game, I agree.

I guess in my eyes that doesn't matter when we make the plays at the end of the game that SHOULD'VE won it for us.

If we're going to say defense should've been better throughout the game, we should also be saing "Free Throw shooting cost us this game, giving up offensive rebounds cost us this game, 8 turnovers cost us this game..."

In the end it comes down to this in my opinion... we were in position to win this game. We made the defensive play that SHOULD'VE won us this game. Unfortunately, the ref swallowed his whistle on an obvious charge, & decided to call a foul Georges in a fight for a lose ball.

On this point, there is no dispute. On your other points, however...

Free throw and turnovers did not cost us this game. We shot nearly 90% FTs in regulation and had eight turnovers overall. By any standard those are both outstanding. Rebounds hurt us, no question.

You're absolutely correct that we were in a position to win and the refs blew it. But had we played better defense or rebounded better, we might have avoided that entire last sequence entirely.

[mitten1975]

This isn't a good time to bring this up.

[nhclone]

But had we played better defense or rebounded better, we might have avoided that entire last sequence entirely.

If we played better offense and shot better, the same could be said. Does it really matter to you that we win 56-54 instead of 90-88?

There are 2 ways to win games, score more points than your opponent, or keep him from scoring as many as you do. We have the players to do the first, but not the second. Perhaps in the coming years we'll have the players to do it, but we don't right now, so we try to run everyone out of the gym. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't.

[tre]

On this point, there is no dispute. On your other points, however...

Free throw and turnovers did not cost us this game. We shot nearly 90% FTs in regulation and had eight turnovers overall. By any standard those are both outstanding. Rebounds hurt us, no question.

You're absolutely correct that we were in a position to win and the refs blew it. But had we played better defense or rebounded better, we might have avoided that entire last sequence entirely.

We're just going to have to agree to disagree.

We played well enough to win, & I think we do win if not for a horrible sequence of officiating.

Have a good one...I've got to get back to work.

[CycloneErik]

I'm still not seeing where the idea of playing even a little more defense means that we're shooting for a slowdown, Wisconsin-style 33-30 game. That's just a stupid argument.

Our team can improve defensively, and it should. That isn't trashing the team. That's simply pointing out an area for improvement that has cost us a few teams.

And yes, I fully know that officials have cost us dearly as well. We can't control them. We can control playing just a little more defense.