Hans8891

And the old Simon resurfaces…. Trying to find a bright spot as it is clear they are running with Simon no matter what throws he makes or doesn’t make…. But it is getting harder to do…

Simon with a great fake and nice throw. If we can keep this Simon, looks like a different team.

Bo was wide but it was still a good throw. We have had numerous open opportunities where Simon ends up 5 yards short, but that was in stride and a nice throw. The passing game has been hard to watch but that was a legit nice pass. Good work Simon. The coaches are clearly not going to change horses so hoping this will get him some rhythm and we can unstack the box a bit.

We also haven’t seen Simon look to run which is clearly his strong suit. If he is going to be the guy, he needs to make things happen with his legs to open up the short to mid passing game - . Deep pocket passing is clearly not his forte….

Every pass over 15 yards becomes a curl pattern. He needs an earlier release as I don’t think he has the arm to get it past the receiver if they get very far down field - but we have to get at least 15 or 20 down the field or we will have 10 in the box the rest of the year.

Dixon is out but we have gone 1-5 on the cb depth chart and nobody wants to cover anyone. Couple that with minus 1 passing yards and 7 rushing yards halfway through the first half against a team we are 4 touchdown favorites. There better be a royal ass chewing in the locker room at half. Nobody was ready to play,,,

Of the 5 incomplete, 2 should have been caught and were not Simon’s fault, one bad read to Bo with no chance, and 2 balls that were wide open and missed by 10 yards. Not sure what happened on those 2 but the rest have been okay other that a very bad read to Bo in short triple coverage.

Can simon really be that inconsistent on wide open short passes? Like his competitiveness but man he has to hit easy wide open passes and not miss by a mile…

That is exactly why Bo should not be our punt returner. Last thing we need is to lose Bo on a return we never intended to be returned anyway. Someone on a 100 man roster has to be able to catch a punt….

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…..