ST JOHNS GAME THREAD

[pdxmuskie]

Fun game to watch. Craft did a lot of good things out there. He showed confidence and got his hands on a lot of balls. He allowed a couple of those to get away from him so he might need to work on grip strength (possibly just a random event).

X did not rebound well. The bigs got pushed around a bit. That was the 1 area of concern. Hunter was great on the offensive glass and Jones did well rebounding. Hunter didn't consistently find his guy and box out on the defensive glass. A ton of multiple shots at the rim were given up but those can be difficult to stop once players have position.

Claude seems to have found his shot from deep. This could be huge.

[Timeless]

Fun game to watch. Craft did a lot of good things out there. He showed confidence and got his hands on a lot of balls. He allowed a couple of those to get away from him so he might need to work on grip strength (possibly just a random event).

X did not rebound well. The bigs got pushed around a bit. That was the 1 area of concern. Hunter was great on the offensive glass and Jones did well rebounding. Hunter didn't consistently find his guy and box out on the defensive glass. A ton of multiple shots at the rim were given up but those can be difficult to stop once players have position.

Claude seems to have found his shot from deep. This could be huge.

Kunkel, Jones, Claude, and Nunge all shooting the threes effectively will be a big factor for X going forward with Craft, and IF Kyky can find the range consistently will make this team a bear to defend. I thought X played decent defense against St Johns and with Claude, Jones, and Humter being the tougher defenders all Sean needs to figure out is how to make Kunkel and Boum more effective. Kyky just can't seem to find the grove although his tries have been the in-and-out kind, so I hope he is in the gym doing extra shooting because it would be good for him as well as the team.

Miles needs a big man camp, and so does Edwards, this summer and someone to keep on both of them. Miles reminds me of a cartoon where the feet get spinning, but the forward momentum doesn't happen right away. You would think playing against the starters every day would improve him. Didn't he come to X at a very young age?

[skyhops]

Miles just isn’t coordinated and is not a basketball player. Edwards is slow and doesn’t know where to be or what to do unfortunately. Neither are the type of big that Miller envisions for a rotation player. We will pick up a couple in portal and the fresh next year will make an impact. Claude has really helped out lack of depth with his ability to defend at multiple positions.

[X-lucidity]

Agree ‘Hops. Edwards is a step slow, especially on D. Hopefully he is coachable and can keep progressing. He had nice size and seems fairly strong. As for the overall St. Johns game, impressive on multiple fronts. However, my take- let’s not get too carried away with ourselves. The combo of their travel issues, getting to arena less than 2 hrs before the tip, combined with learning the day prior of the death of one of their key player’s father, looked to take a heavy toll on their collective psyche. Once again, X looked fabulous and did their part. But there was little to no pushback. On to Butler, with a much needed mini break to allow Coach Miller to iron out a few more wrinkles caused by Free’s absence.

[muskieman]

I watch St Johns vs. Butler last night. St Johns was up most of the game. I think Butler was only in the lead for about 3 minutes. St Johns just melted in the second half, and their playground basketball caused them TURNOVER after turnover. Toward the end of the game, they had multiple chances and even made a tying basket only to have it called too late. St Johns is snakebit, and their playground basketball only works for a time before the mental mistakes begin to happen. For example, St Johns had a breakout, and instead of making a layup the St Johns player tries to be fancy and threw a behind-the-back pass that surprised the trailing player and causes a turnover and talk about missed bunnies.