OU vs Maryland Eastern Shore 7pm FSOK

[Zimwillett]

did you WATCH them play? I get so tired of people and all their statistics and BS - did you WATCH them? that was not "the worst team in the ncaa". they're undermanned and not on a familiar court yet they played hard and didnt make a ton of mistakes defensively. offensively they moved the ball pretty well and had some timely shooting. add in some tenacity and that's a winning formula. maybe achieving consistency will be this coach's forte? seems like they're on the right path if this is how they play. so stop knocking them down to build yourself.

Yes. I watched them. For one game. I thought they played well. For one game. I suspect you watched them for one game as well. Let me know how you thought they looked vs. Longwood and/or Morehead St. (if you saw those games).

Further, me pointing out the facts is not intended to tear OU down. I really really like this OU team. I think they have tremendous upside and I'm not taking any part of last night's performance as a negative. I'm just trying to provide some support for why I stated that MES is "one of the worst teams in the NCAA".

You are free to die on the "Maryland Eastern Shore is a good team" hill if you like. Maybe at the end of the season you'll be right. I'm open to that possibility. But based on the numbers I'm seeing (and I'm someone who finds numbers fairly reliable), that will not be true.

Have a great weekend.

 

[skyvue]

Well, the first half was better than I feared -- except the final four minutes, which were brutal.

Second half was satisfying -- MESU had a couple of brief runs, but the Sooners were in control throughout.

Nice to see Kuath contribute a few good minutes and Iwuakor was great fun to watch. I loved him snagging a rebound while lying on his back on the floor and then immediately zipping a pass out to a teammate to save the possession.

 

[sybarite]

did you WATCH them play? I get so tired of people and all their statistics and BS - did you WATCH them? that was not "the worst team in the ncaa". they're undermanned and not on a familiar court yet they played hard and didnt make a ton of mistakes defensively. offensively they moved the ball pretty well and had some timely shooting. add in some tenacity and that's a winning formula. maybe achieving consistency will be this coach's forte? seems like they're on the right path if this is how they play. so stop knocking them down to build yourself.

Since the assumption has been made that UMES is one of the worst teams in the US, I won't challenge it. I don't accept it. What I saw was a green team that had some good athletic ability. If they knew how to play together, they might be pretty good.

But, this is their first year under Jason Crafton. If you look him up, you'll see that he took over a 1-27 Nyack U team (did you have any clue there was a Nyack U?) which is a small religious school in NYC. They were ranked next to last in the nation the year before he came. I don't think he ever won more than about ten. But, he got them out of the 1-4 range. Who in the world ranks NyacK?

From the roster, it looks like he brought in about seven freshmen, and they are the best players on his team. Then, they indicated that they had lost three starters to injury and seven overall. New coach, bunch of freshmen? I would bet that they win at least five in their conference. They have more talent than the worst team in the NCAA. It is just inexperienced. If they had been seniors, we might have found that halftime deficit more difficult to overcome.

They weren't that bad. How many teams do you think will hit 13 threes against us? Even unguarded, most teams won't do that.

 

[Stikboy]

I’m not going to call that outside shooting performance by them an outlier, but I knew when they started banking threes it was going to be one of those nights. It’s uncanny how many teams come into LNC and have incredible shooting against us though. Like, uncharacteristically great. Opposing teams must love the sight lines or something. Then how we, the home team, can be so cold at the same is a brain buster. Sigh

 

[BCSooners]

UMES played solid 1st half, OU was very poor the last 4 mins of that half. OU turned it on & UMES didn’t play as well. They are a pretty bad team though even if they played solid. Both can be true.

 

[WichitaSooner]

Seems to be a lot of angst about our three-point defense. That seemed odd so I checked the numbers and they show that our opponents are making 31 percent, assuming my math was correct. I'd sign up for that any day of the week. Take away a hot half in each of the last couple games, which was certainly an aberration in Eastern Shore's case, and it just hasn't been an issue. I think our numbers were also very good last season, but there always is the perception that everyone lights us up from three. Maybe it is natural for people to focus on/remember the times opponents get hot and forget the many times where teams struggle from distance.

 

[inoref]

Could be...when a team misses a 3pt shot they tend to get rebound makes it seem worse than it really is (3pt defense)..But I seen many times the other team had open looks.

 

[coolm]

our shooting has been taking a bit to warm up and the quick 3's some of our guys tend to take lead to open looks on the other end of the court. MES took advantage of that early and it got them warmed up. that's all. when our guys settle down and find their spots quicker a lot of that goes away. plus we still don't have our defensive rotations down pat just yet so we're behind on some switches which exacerbates the problem. experience will cut much of this out.