Hans8891

I disagree. Eli has shown that he has very good playmaking skills. He has very good vision for th open man. No question exists that Tyree was better suited for our half court offense where it was essentially whatever he could create without much offensive movement from anyone else. Tyree was good enough to make that happen against most teams. However even Tyree, as talented as he was, struggled against better defensive teams hen we were forced into our half court offense - i.e., Omaha, KC, St. Thomas, NDSU, and SDSU. We played better when we played with pace. Our half court offense was not our strong suit even with the athletic skills of BJ and Tyree. I hope that Paul will adapt a better offense to the tools we have and find a wat to get Trey some better looks. With a better offense with more movement not entirely reliant on the singular playmaking of one or two players, I think Eli can fill that role very well. He is an incredible defensive player. He and Tyreee both made some unbelievable passes at times off the drive. Certainly the addition of Tyree was huge for us. But we also had the emergence of Amer the second half of the year which was also a game changer. Don’t get me wrong. I wish like hell that BJ and Tyree were staying. I think we would have been the team to beat in the summit with those two,, but that is mid major basketball at this point. I cant blame them for taking the opportunities that present themselves. We will definitely have some holes to fill, but so will others in the summit. I like the pieces coming back if we can find a few key players to fill holes, particularly a 3 and a big man. I hope Kraft comes around next year, but we could certainly stand to add more shooting depth as well…. We do that, I think we can be in the hunt next year as well.

SDSU tried to do what we did. Took a 22 point lead with 6 minutes left, played clock management and didn’t score for 5 minutes. They actually gave up more of a lead than we did but had 22 to play with instead of 12. One reviewed call that was close could have given Denver the ball back with 30 seconds to play and down 5. Was an epic collapse. Another classic example of changing the game plan that got you the lead in the first place with way too much time left. Game should not have even been close. 20 plus point lead all game…

I think that is possible. I watched a lot of him at Red River. He and Reis Rowekamp got all of the attention from opposing teams and he still managed to get 20 to 30 points shooting a high percentage from outside. That came in a Red River offense that does nothing to get anyone looks other than what you create yourself. In the rare event he was truly wide open, you could pretty well count on it going in. He has a quick release and could get shots off in traffic, as well as hitting floaters off the dribble. The speed and physicality at this level is obviously different from high school, but if he catches up to that, I do think he can help us offensively. He had a lot of work to do on the defensive side of the ball in high school, but I am hearing the same thing as others - he has come along way in that regard as well. I don’t know how big a role he will have, but I expect he will see the court next year in some capacity, even if it just to come in occasionally as a zone wrecker.

I don’t disagree with the thoughts on Kraft. I will be very happy if he improves defensively enough to be a regular contributor. That will be a question mark. He has a pure stroke. What I do think he can do is provide some time off the bench when we need a shooting threat. Trey can fill it up. Tyree and BJ are great, but not consistent outside threats. We struggled against zones and match up zones that cut off penetration by BJ and Tyree. Eli came around nicely at the end of the year from the 3, but our next two answers were Brady and Elijah. I am very confident Kraft’s shooting will eclipse that by miles. How well the rest of his game will translate remains to be seen.

If everyone comes back, we will have a great nucleus to build around. Kraft will add to our 3 point shooting ability. He is a better 3 point shooter than anyone we have put on the floor in a long time and has a quick release. He will have to make the adjustment to speed and physicality and show he can play d at this level, but should be a nice compliment to our already very good guard rotation. We need one or two bigs that can step in. Amer has been a great find, but need one or two others that are game ready. My hope is that Paul will revise the offense in the off-season to find a way to get looks to Eaglestaff and Kraft outside with some off ball movement rather than just rely on whatever Tyree, Eli, and BJ can create off the dribble. Getting some quicker reversals would help with the outside looks and should open up the lanes for our slashers as well. Against aggressive d overplaying wing passes, we settled for non-existent movement and poor shots at the end of the shot clock far too often, i.e., the Kansas City, St. Thomas, and NDSU losses.

Schiller will be a great addition and may well be a Kacie type player. Pemberton is likely to develop into a very solid player as well. Ibrahim has potential. Hurst can score but has to at least attempt to play some defense - which has not happened so far. I still think Beal has real potential. Her athleticism is off the charts if we can put her in the right role. After that, we need to recruit length, speed, and 3 point shooting badly. Those are necessary adds if we want to get to the next level. Right now, we are too small and too slow. Usually, that equates to good shooting, but we don’t have that either. On the other hand, if we actually had an offense that creates open looks, our shooting would likely improve. Mal needs to abandon whatever that shitshow she has now in favor of a real offense that creates something more than letting two players go one on four. Kacie made things happen on raw talent, but certainly not from anything the offense gave her. Nobody else could generate much of anything except 20 plus turnovers a game. Next, Mal needs to learn how to coach team defense skills and what to do on switches. The number of defensive screwups this year was nothing short of embarrassing. It was no fluke that other teams saw triple digits against us way too many times in one season. Mal was part of a. Roebuck coached program that knew how to win games. She needs to go back to the basics of how that was done if she wants to continue in this position. If next year looks like this year did, we will be lucky to have 30 fans at a game. I am still hopeful she has it in her, but this year was an absolute disaster to watch.

King had a tough charge. However, for the last 3 minutes we had no penetration from anyone else. He was at least trying to create something instead of just wasting clock. We sat around outside and allowed them to force us to the perimeter and take shots at the end of the shot clock that we really didn’t want to take. Played not to lose instead of playing to win. Classic coaching mistake with a lead. Worry more about the shot clock than the opportunity to score. We didn’t score in the last 2 1/2 minutes as a result. That and a few lucky breaks on rebounds and that was the game. Credit Fidler. He made huge shots down the stretch when he needed to. We did not do a good job of getting the right defenders on him in the last 5 minutes, but they had a lot to do with that as well…. That was our game to finish out. We just didn’t do it. Unfortunate because I think the tournament was shaping up nicely for us. I had way more concerns with KC than Denver, but we will never know now….

Omaha definitely playing like they need the win more than we do Beating us to every loose puck right now. Even on our power play they beat us to pucks in the corner every time…

We have had better fan support this year, as would be expected with a better team. We have a long way to go though. The Betty is a 3200 seat arena that is never close to full. The Betty would not even fit the people that attended NCC conference games at Hyslop. Other than Bubba rallying the football players, student support is almost non-existent. Would love to see that change as well. I was always concerned that we were undershooting our potential with the Betty. Unfortunately, that has not been a problem. I would love to get to the point where it is a completely full house again, which should not be that hard with the small venue that the Betty is…. This team is fun to watch and should be drawing more fan interest than it has….

UND had a hospitality room before the women’s semifinal game last year. It was a smaller room, but decently done. You have to remember this is a two way street. It is hard to demand a large hospitality suite if only 12 of us show up. Last year, there were a handful of faithful fans, some UND administration, and parents present. Until we show up in force in Sioux Falls, there is very little reason to have a large hospitality room. I would like nothing better than to have enough of a presence that a large scale production is required. Unfortunately, we are not there yet. SDSU has a massive room with all of the bells and whistles which is very impressive, but they own that tournament. 3/4 of the people there will be bunny fans with the Yotes taking most of the rest. USD had a nice room as well. I don’t recall seeing what NDSU did. Sioux Falls does a nice job with the tournament. However, The downside to this tournament is with the semis on Monday and Tuesday, it is a short evening drive for the SD schools and days off work for everyone else…. It is a huge advantage.

Kansas City is a team that worries me, depending upon the officials. They play brutally physical and handsy. We are a finesse team and didn’t handle that well in the blowout at home. The next game when they played NDSU they had everybody in foul trouble. Really depends whether the officials swallow their whistle at not. If they let them play, they are a handful due to their physicality as ORU is finding out right now.. ORU may not get 45 against them. Definitely do not want to slow down and get into a bruising game with them.

Bruns is a very good shooter who can get to the rack and would have fit nicely into our rotation. With our backcourt skill this year, likely would have been role player off the bench. We are not long on pure outside shooters and it would have been great to have him. We all hate when one of our good players transfer out. On the other hand, I couldn’t be happier getting Tyree back from the portal, Eli from Iowa State, and bringing Amer in. In fairness to Bruns, he got to play with his brother near his home. And he left our program when it was a dumpster fire that was hard to watch. He was one of very few bright spots that year. Sather has done a very nice job of turning it around, but what we are now is not what Bruns left…

Watched the stats during a flight and watched the replay when I got home. Tyree was awesome today. When Tyree and Eli get out in transition, they are almost impossible to contain. And they find others with open looks off that transition. We looked great. Play that style of game with pace in Sioux Falls and we have a great shot at taking it all. The pieces are there.

Great win to finish up regular season! It has been a fun ride at the Betty this year. Time to keep it rolling in Sioux Falls. We can play with anyone in the Summit. Just need to string 3 together…

Sure. I agree he was one of the defensive players who couldn’t get out on his guy on 2 of their 3s. If you think he was the only one, you are delusional. He was also the one that got tie ups and knocked the ball out on a couple of those doubles on the bigs. You won’t find those in the stats but it is what we asked our guys to do. SDSU moves the ball well and we had to address some mismatches down low. We don’t match up well with their bigs. We were cheating down by design which I will agree Brady has less speed to get back out on. But he was not the only one. What you ignore is the end of the half and the first 4 minutes of the second half when we had an 8 to 10 point turnaround and where Brady was not on the floor. Tyree, who I personally think is awesome, made a mistake. He underthrew the inbound pass which BJ couldn’t seal off. They got a steal, layup, and a foul for 3. It happens, but it was not all Brady’s fault. In the beginning of the second half, we came out flat like we did with the Bison. No ball movement and poor shot selection. Brady was not on the floor until we were down. He was on the floor when they extended their lead and failure to cover 3 s was a part of that. I will give you that. But it was also clear that our strategy was to double down on the post, which does give up an outside look. Besides personnel, it was also a part of our defensive scheme. That is the tradeoff.

Pemberton is going to be a very good player. She developed nicely this year as a true freshman. Ibrahim came along reasonably well but was forced to take a bigger role than she should have if we had better options, I continue to believe Beal has real potential if used right. She has serious athleticism both on offense and defense. Hurst has definite offensive skills but is an absolute liability on d. If she can be convinced to want to play d, she could be ok. Beal and Hurst were highly rated prospects but obviously have things to work on. After that, we need length, speed, and shooting. That is a huge issue throughout the lineup. I don’t have a problem taking a chance on Vanderwal. She is clearly needing to gain some some speed and skill but you can’t teach 6’7…. My bigger concern is the lack of improvement in players and an in a complete lack of defensive and offensive cohesiveness. Imagine just how much worse our offense would have been without Kacie, who has the skill to create and score on her own without any assistance of an offense at all - and usually doing it while double or triple teamed. That raises issues of ball distribution as well but our offense was literally whatever she or Hurst could create on their own. Our offense without her would average 20-30 points per game. That to me is a coaching issue along with the personnel deficiencies. They don’t know how to play in a defensive scheme - resulting in 100 point games for the other side. They don’t run an offense with movement which explains our abysmal shooting percentage. Personnel needs improvement but it is certainly not the only thing…..

I know it’s easy for some to continually look just at Brady. While I agree there are times I question whether he is who we should have out there as well. Then there are times when he makes hustle plays and gets hustle rebounds that are game changing. Regardless of his athleticism, there are times he brings an intangible that far far exceeds his talent level. In an offensive scheme that has damn little movement in the half court, Brady is probably our best option of off ball back door layups when he sees it open. Again, I’m not arguing with you completely but it is not that black and white. Sometimes coaches know a team plays better when someone is on the court regardless of that persons talent. The one thing you can’t argue is that Brady plays with heart. He busts his butt when he is on the floor and that is often contagious to other players. As for the SDSU game, the beginning of the end was the end of the first half when we had a lead, momentum, and the ball with 7 seconds left in the half. We threw away the ball, gave up an 3 point play, and went into the half with a 3 point lead instead of 8. We followed that with no movement for the first 4 minutes of the second half and dug ourselves into a deficit we never recovered from. Contrary to your assertion, Brady was not on the floor during that time frame. I would like to see Mara see some time as well, as I think he has a lot of potential, but the constant berating of Brady is misplaced. Sorry the game didn’t fit your narrative but we the reason we lost was inopportune turnovers, failure of pace, and faure of ball movement - not Brady Danielson…

South Dakota State is a very good team. They have good perimeter players that are all good shooters. They have strong inside game with Kyle and Appel, plus Appel shoots 40% from the 3. We did a better job containing their bigs than I thought we would. Mayo just did what Mayo does. He was good down the stretch. We looked good the first half. When they stepped up their d in the second half, we resorted to settling for 3s and no-passing possessions where we watch Tyree and BJ dribble through their legs until they drive and everyone else stands around and watches - but not with enough spacing to get a decent look at a 3. Our half court offense is god awful against good defense. We absolutely need to play with pace and take advantage of breaking pressure when it happens. Don’t stop and slow it down. Nobody stops Tyree, BJ, or Eli in an open court game. Whole lot easier to do so when Tyree and BJ are playing slow down and going one on 4. Did the same thing against the Bison. Let them dictate the game, rather than us. I was hoping we would learn after the Bison game, but apparently not there yet. The good news is that we know we can play with them. Now we just have to do what we are good at and that no passing half court offense is definitely not it.

Pemberton is the real deal. She will only get better. Schiller from Red River may be an immediate impact player next year. Ibriaham showed some real improvement. Hurst has real offensive skills but she is going to have to decide she wants to play defense. Her matador style defense will continue to put her on the bench with foul trouble, not to mention giving up way too many easy buckets. Beal is very athletic if we can figure out how to use her. She can raise havoc on defense with her length and speed. Davis is just too small and absolutely not a shooter. Aumer seems okay, but we really need to go find more length and speed, plus add a couple of good outside shooters, if we want to take the next step. Our outside shooting has been atrocious for years. On the other hand, shooting may improve if we find an offense that gets us better looks. Before we can take the next step, however, it is more than just the talent. Mal has to figure out how to get her players to play team offense and team defense. Our offense is almost entirely whatever Kacie and Hurst can create. There is no movement whatsoever. The lack of movement leads to a ridiculous number of turnovers. On Defense, nobody seems to know where to be. We don’t cut off drives and when we do help out after a defender gets beat, there is no rotation leaving wide open shooters- i.e. giving up 100 plus way too many times. Once may be a fluke. Giving up more than 100 points that many times is a systemic problem. Breaking a press has to improve. What I wouldn’t give to have Roebuck back to mentor Mallory for a few years. If Mallory is going to find success, she is going to have to figure out how to make a team a team. So far, that is just not happening.

Congrats to Kacie. Hanging 40 on your arch rival is a nice way to finish out her final series with the bison.

6 total fast break points for us and 2 for the bison. Exactly what they want to do and not the pace we should be playing at. Hats off to Richman. He got us to play their game instead of the other way around. When we see them again, get it up the floor and use our athleticism. Slow half court offense on the outside settling for 3s is not our game. Way too much dribbling going nowhere instead of movement with the ball. When we move with purpose we look like the best team in the summit. When we don’t attack and don’t play with pace, we are middle of the pack. Need to use our strengths and we will be fine.

We are making it respectable. Kacie is on fire scoring. If we could stop anyone on the drive we might make a run at this yet…. Either give up the layup - or double and leave someone wide open for an easy look. Had it down to 10 but can’t close the gap further.

Same lack of any team d whatsoever. No talk on switches and picks and someone is wide open. Hence 56 for the bison at half. On the brighter side, we have scored on the bison putting up 43 ourselves. Last game at home we didn’t break 20 until 12 seconds left in the half and had 18 turnovers at that point so this is a definite improvement for what that is worth.

Ouch. Scored 18 in the first quarter against the bison but gave up 34. At that pace, we will give up 135 for the game…

Unless both UND and ndsu knock off sdsu, we will likely see the bison in the summit semis. Need to learn from this game and not let them dictate how the game is played. Half court offense with 50 percent of shots being 3s is not in our favor.