UND vs UMKC 12/5

[SIOUXFAN97]

i am a big fan of webb but after tonight i think he needs to come off the bench from now with anderson being the number one point guard...webb continually has too many to's (how many again tonight?) and at the end of the game he can't make his free throws!!!!

antwi comes in and gets five straight and gets pulled and doesn't play for a long long time and when he does get back in he's yanked and gets a talking to from jones???

....other than that old out dated big sky logo on the court, the brains at the besc still haven't put up banners of member schools or put up anything else that would tell the casual fan that we are a member of the big sky conference (unless the brains at the betty want people to think that university of altru, university of community credit union, university of subway, and the university of rydells are our conference mates)

[sioux2013]

If you told me we would shoot 50% from the field and only have 9 turnovers I would have thought we won this game easily. 14-30 from the line you've got to be kidding me. Webb scored 20 but his turnovers and free throw shooting are killing us. Webb has got to be averaging a league lead in turnovers. Jones maybe needs to rest Webb more cause his minutes are around 34-35 game which is too much. 6-16 from three is not bad either with Schuler having an off night from 3 but we need him to keep shooting. Many shots appeared in and then rimmed out. No idea what is wrong with Traylor but I still like how hard this team plays even when things are not going well. They always seem to fight back. Lets get healthy with Huff and Traylor and I like our chances in the Big Sky. We were highly ranked in FT% until tonight.

[SWSiouxMN]

For those who are wondering about Traylor, on the chat today Tom Miller said that Traylor landed hard on his back during practice before the SDSU game and was day to day

[the green team]

We didn't get the foul, nearly 20 seconds come off the shot clock, Might as well settle in "D" wise and try get the stop at that point down 2. Why does Schuler foul there? Not very heady there. Foul as soon as they inbound it, if you dont get the foul right away, and they manage to run some clock, I think the decision has been made for you at that point. Thats to hunker in and play defense. Sorry, don't agree with bringing Webb off the bench. I realize we are all frustrated about the free throws right now, but for the money he is the best perimeter defender we have. Yes, he had 5 to's but what did he play 36 minutes as our pimary ball handeler? Besides 1 of those went right through the hands of our player, meaning the pass should have been caught. So really 4 to's in 36 mins, I can't get worked up about that. Free throws yes, but we dont even have a chance to win if he doesn't go 9 of 11 from the floor.

I don't think Traylor is 100 percent yet, but he didn't wow me that we need to keep him on the floor. At least tonight. Sorry, but lately Archer has worked himself into consideration for minutes. There is no denying that.

The free throw shooting is majorly disappointing, but when our guys that should be automatic from the line like Anderson & Schuler are misssing, then Webb, clearly isn't the only problem. He is a part of it, unfortunately, he knows it, and it is effecting everytime he gets there now. Its in the head for him. Antwi, has to be better from there too. But what can we really do? Cut everyone and get new players before the next game or just suck it up and move on?

[bincitysioux]

We didn't get the foul, nearly 20 seconds come off the shot clock, Might as well settle in "D" wise and try get the stop at that point down 2. Why does Schuler foul there? Not very heady there. Foul as soon as they inbound it, if you dont get the foul right away, and they manage to run some clock, I think the decision has been made for you at that point. Thats to hunker in and play defense. Sorry, don't agree with bringing Webb off the bench. I realize we are all frustrated about the free throws right now, but for the money he is the best perimeter defender we have. Yes, he had 5 to's but what did he play 36 minutes as our pimary ball handeler? Besides 1 of those went right through the hands of our player, meaning the pass should have been caught. So really 4 to's in 36 mins, I can't get worked up about that. Free throws yes, but we dont even have a chance to win if he doesn't go 9 of 11 from the floor.

I don't think Traylor is 100 percent yet, but he didn't wow me that we need to keep him on the floor. At least tonight. Sorry, but lately Archer has worked himself into consideration for minutes. There is no denying that.

The free throw shooting is majorly disappointing, but when our guys that should be automatic from the line like Anderson & Schuler are misssing, then Webb, clearly isn't the only problem. He is a part of it, unfortunately, he knows it, and it is effecting everytime he gets there now. Its in the head for him. Antwi, has to be better from there too. But what can we really do? Cut everyone and get new players before the next game or just suck it up and move on?

I agree 100% about Archer's contributions. The class of Archer, Wilmer, Allard, Goodman, etc, was built up to unrealistic expectaions and have taken alot of flack. But I certainly wouldn't want to be without them at this point, specifically Wilmer and Archer.

Traylor had looked quite athletic and more physical around the rim prior to his injury. He only played 2 minutes tonight.

Webb is a fantastically talented player. But he is overworked in my opinion. Anderson, Antwi, and even Huff are all very capable of handling the ball.

[Teeder11]

We didn't get the foul, nearly 20 seconds come off the shot clock, Might as well settle in "D" wise and try get the stop at that point down 2. Why does Schuler foul there? Not very heady there. Foul as soon as they inbound it, if you dont get the foul right away, and they manage to run some clock, I think the decision has been made for you at that point. Thats to hunker in and play defense. Sorry, don't agree with bringing Webb off the bench. I realize we are all frustrated about the free throws right now, but for the money he is the best perimeter defender we have. Yes, he had 5 to's but what did he play 36 minutes as our pimary ball handeler? Besides 1 of those went right through the hands of our player, meaning the pass should have been caught. So really 4 to's in 36 mins, I can't get worked up about that. Free throws yes, but we dont even have a chance to win if he doesn't go 9 of 11 from the floor.

I don't think Traylor is 100 percent yet, but he didn't wow me that we need to keep him on the floor. At least tonight. Sorry, but lately Archer has worked himself into consideration for minutes. There is no denying that.

The free throw shooting is majorly disappointing, but when our guys that should be automatic from the line like Anderson & Schuler are misssing, then Webb, clearly isn't the only problem. He is a part of it, unfortunately, he knows it, and it is effecting everytime he gets there now. Its in the head for him. Antwi, has to be better from there too. But what can we really do? Cut everyone and get new players before the next game or just suck it up and move on?

This.

[UND-FB-FAN]

Difference in the game was the free-throw shooting. At this point, it appears last year was not just an anomaly and that this team's free-throw shooting % is a serious concern that will be a large detriment to the team.

[NODAK13]

I agree 100% about Archer's contributions. The class of Archer, Wilmer, Allard, Goodman, etc, was built up to unrealistic expectaions and have taken alot of flack. But I certainly wouldn't want to be without them at this point, specifically Wilmer and Archer.

Traylor had looked quite athletic and more physical around the rim prior to his injury. He only played 2 minutes tonight.

Webb is a fantastically talented player. But he is overworked in my opinion. Anderson, Antwi, and even Huff are all very capable of handling the ball.

Agree that Webb needs more rest. As you said we have Anderson, Antwi and even Schuler can handle the point so Webb does not need to be out handling the ball and playing hard defense for 35-36 minutes a game. Being tired could easily contribute to some of the turnovers and poor FT shooting. As well stated this game came down to free throws and rebounding. The rebounding will improve with Huff and Traylor at full strengh and who would think our best FT shooter last night was Brekke. Was not at the game but watched it and the announcer stated Huff had lost 15 pounds to date, WOW. It will definately take some time for him to be full strength I would imagine. I'm still very optimistic about our chances in the Big Sky.

[Teeder11]

Agree that Webb needs more rest. As you said we have Anderson, Antwi and even Schuler can handle the point so Webb does not need to be out handling the ball and playing hard defense for 35-36 minutes a game. Being tired could easily contribute to some of the turnovers and poor FT shooting. As well stated this game came down to free throws and rebounding. The rebounding will improve with Huff and Traylor at full strengh and who would think our best FT shooter last night was Brekke. Was not at the game but watched it and the announcer stated Huff had lost 15 pounds to date, WOW. It will definately take some time for him to be full strength I would imagine. I'm still very optimistic about our chances in the Big Sky.

I was at the game last night and Huff definitely looked a tad gaunt, like a stiff wind could put him down. I was hoping that he could continue strength training and low-impact cardio during his injury, but it appears that an all-liquid diet has taken more of a toll than I would have thought.

When is the hex going to be lifted from this team? First Nash, then Huff, then Traylor, then Chad White and SDSU, then untimely poor FT shooting.

[sioux2013]

I was at the game last night and Huff definitely looked a tad gaunt, like a stiff wind could put him down. I was hoping that he could continue strength training and low-impact cardio during his injury, but it appears that an all-liquid diet has taken more of a toll than I would have thought.

When is the hex going to be lifted from this team? First Nash, then Huff, then Traylor, then Chad White and SDSU, then untimely poor FT shooting.

Good point with your last paragraph. This team is 1-5 and at worst should be 3-3 and probably with Huff and Traylor at full strength this team could be 4-2 with just alittle bit of luck. The last 3 games could have easily been won but lost. Did not include Nash cause I have not seen him play yet or know much about him outside his stats. This team has definately been hit by the bad luck bug but hopefully once league play begins we are at full strength and doing what we know this team and players are capable of. Go Sioux

[bincitysioux]

Frustrating thing for me right now is that in the Hawaii and SDSU games, North Dakota got off to terribly slow starts and had to play catch-up all night but did have a chance to win each game at the end. The opposite was true last night against KC, got off to a good start, had a 9 point lead midway through the first half, and then let the Kangaroos back in it to the point where we were playing catch-up again.

It is not so much unlike what we saw from the football team this season............good play for certain stretches, countered by significant stretches of uninspired play.

[NODAK13]

Back to a point I want to make about Webb. Webb has rested only 7 total minutes in the last 3 games. Too me that is way too many minutes at this level for a point guard to be playing. This could easily be one of the reasons for poor FT shooting at the end and careless turnovers. Coaches, lets give him alittle more rest with Anderson and Antwi at the point so we are strong at the end of these games. Basically we do have 3 solid point guards so no need to play one so many minutes.

[Feff]

My two cents, although much of what I was thinking has already been mentioned. Going to agree with folks that Webb is simply playing too many minutes. Get him more rest in games, especially for when we get into the bulk of conference games. We need him strong at the end.

I thought that Allard looked good when he was being aggressive in his limited minutes. He was actually attacking the basket with a bad shot, drawing a foul, and making a nice pass to Brekke for an easy layup. Need to see more of that out of him, but that is also something that we should see more with Huff returning.

Everyone is talking about the poor free throw shooting of Webb, but something that needs to be looked at in this game is the performance of our bigs. We got out-muscled on the boards and that comes back to Wilmer and Brekke. A single offensive player pulling down a rebound and putting back a basically uncontested layup when there are 4 white jerseys around him is just sad. Other than a few plays, we had almost no post presence all game in the offensive zone. Wilmer sounded so good against SDSU that I was hoping to see him develop that. Last night he showed nothing other than a few blocks and the early on pick and roll which disappeared through the course of the game.

[the green team]

Back to a point I want to make about Webb. Webb has rested only 7 total minutes in the last 3 games. Too me that is way too many minutes at this level for a point guard to be playing. This could easily be one of the reasons for poor FT shooting at the end and careless turnovers. Coaches, lets give him alittle more rest with Anderson and Antwi at the point so we are strong at the end of these games. Basically we do have 3 solid point guards so no need to play one so many minutes.

I guess I will take the opposite approach. Do you know how much time Damian Lilliard at Weber St. or Will Cherry from Montana saw last season? Averaged 35 Minutes each. They rarely come off the floor. It's not uncommon to have basketball players have their minutes in the mid 30's. Especially at the low to mid major level.

No offense but, when he's off, our perimeter defense suffers immeasurably. Again, he can improve turnovers, but as mentioned last night he had 3 that were definitely on him, 1 was a result of direct failure to catch to the ball, and one was just slightly missing a pass in transition that Antwi just quite couldn't come away with (that's an agressive to, that I can accept). If you have a guard with decent size at this level who can guard, and can inside the lane when it's crunch time I think it would be hard not to have him on the floor for a minimum of 32 minutes a game. Maybe I'm misunderstanding, but it sounds like we would be a better team with him averaging 27 minutes a game as opposed to 35 plus. I disagree. Again, if he makes his free throws, we win, and we are not even discussing how many minutes he's playing. The fact of the matter has been these guys have been missing free throws early and late, I think fatigue is just us looking for an excuse when one really isn't there, or needs to be made.

The current climate is that Jamal is going to take a lot of the heat on this board right now,because of last night, but there isn't anyone on that roster that is blameless for last night. We had players not rebound because of poor closeouts, we had players lose cutters that led to easy baskets (especially in that first half) We had late help rotations on their drives that led to, too many- and 1, situations and soft fouls that led to the made basket and resulting free throws add on top of that, I felt we had some poor situational awareness late.

I was frustrated when I left The Betty last night, and the worst part is, no one is going to feel sorry for us. Isn't it the worst when no one feels sorry for you (sarcasm). The reality is we need to get better in a lot of phases. At the same time there are glimpses of positives too. But I will say, we've had our fill of close losses- we need to be mentally tougher from here on out and turn some of those scores our way. A good team (which we think this team is, and I think the team itself does as well) will get it together in short order.

[UNDsportsFANATIC]

According to Huff's twitter account, he stated: "I'm freeeee, wired no more"....so I'm not sure if that means he will start hitting the hardwood sooner than later?

[SWSiouxMN]

According to Huff's twitter account, he stated: "I'm freeeee, wired no more"....so I'm not sure if that means he will start hitting the hardwood sooner than later?

It means we need to get him to the nearest buffet... fast . Seriously thought, this is very good news. Im taking it that we will be seeing the Honey Badger back sooner rather than later.

[UNDsportsFANATIC]

[UNDvince97-01]

14-30 from the line tonight. Numbers matched by your average junior high team.

Funny - the Timberwolves shot the exact same from the free throw line last night against Boston.

How about we play some defense too? Could NOT get a stop last night.

I agree, these 'characteristics' are getting old.