Musketeer Madness

No Shadow not asleep but just at the game.

Impressions.

X needs TH as soon as possible. I talked to TH tonight and he was wearing a boot but smiling.

Miami good but X not playing well is better. Charlie has to be the most entertaining coach I have ever heard. His after game media session had the fans that were left in stitches. From his comments about West to his comparison to Brown...asking him not to be like West and t leave early.

Game....CJ was a man on Miami's true star and Had him scoreless until late in the game and then fouled the guy out, Bramos scored 10 in first half only 5 in the second. He also made him turn it over 4 times. CJ continues to make plays I have never seen a guy make. Two stood out tonight...One when he was about 5 foot inside the center court whee he turned his player and then drove to the basket. The second was one were he was driving the base and just was swallowed up by three guys and one ad his hand on the ball but CJ was strong enough to make the basket. I scratch my head that he has a end of game coolness to make foul shots but at the beginning looks like he has no clue.

D Brown, the only consistent scoring machine X had tonight. He looks like the ankle is getting better because he had some jump in his step and a nice dunk. I still like that he is shooting the 3s this year.

BJ Raymond. This guy is the guy I take into that dark alley as my wingman. Tough is not a good enough description. His shot from the threes has not come yet but his work at the point was unbelievable. Obviously X needs a healthy TH and Jackson (who had cramps in the second half) to compete but when in a pinch BJ was there.

McLean...he can jump....he can really jump. 2-2 from the field but 0-2 from the FT...did I say he can jump! One inbound play he jumps and blocks the ball back to the guy out of bounds...great play.....I did say he can jump, didn't I.

Love solid on the boards and a nice 6 points.

Redford...they took him under the boards every time he got in the game. He is having a tough start.

Kenny...more time than Redford but slightly better stats. He is learning

Walsh...He played some nice D when it was needed.

The bad.........4 times X went to the line to shoot two and missed both...just like 4 tos.

The ugly....the O side at times.

The good....The D side of the game.

The real good...just a mean and nasty team that finishes the game and will not accept anything but a W.


In the house...the Xavier Walker brothers Jamal and Tyrice. Just kidding about the brother comment.

See if Jamal has any eligibility left!

All good points, mm. X has shown tremendous toughness and will so far this season, and we can only hope that the O comes together as the season moves on and we get Holloway back.

Without Holloway, we're going to really struggle against Duke, and likely against UC as well. It's a shame that we'll be facing the Blue Devils with our PG situation so muddled.

Mr. Neutral wrote:See if Jamal has any eligibility left!
All good points, mm. X has shown tremendous toughness and will so far this season, and we can only hope that the O comes together as the season moves on and we get Holloway back.

Without Holloway, we're going to really struggle against Duke, and likely against UC as well. It's a shame that we'll be facing the Blue Devils with our PG situation so muddled.

I spite out my drink on this. Jamal is now as wide as he is tall.

We will see what a team like Auburn does with X's point problems. The quickness of Kelly tonight would have been nullified by TH and X would have gotten to the line about 10 times more with TH's cutting and driving.

Redford's teammates appear not to have confidence in him. Late in the game he was open for an in-bounds pass and ignored. The ball went to CJ instead and he fortunately made both free throws. The next series, forget if it was BJ or Derrick who actually took the ball away from him on an in-bounds pass.
The one good thing about Redford when he is in the ball game, he draws help defense at all times and often is double teammed leaving one or two teammates open and Dante or TH usually fount the open guy.
He appears to be trying too hard and has yet to let the game come to him. Neither he,Freasee or Walsh lets the game come to them and none of the three as yet simply reacts to the situation and the play and acts without thinking. They're learning. though. Neither Walsh nor Redford turned the ball over in the 14 combined minutes they played. And Frease only had two turnovers. Anderson and McLean have to improve ft shooting, so does Frease.

Sean said on the postgame it was leg cramps for Dante and the paper story this morning confirmed it. Sean said that BJ hadn't played a minute of point since he was at XU. He was also right when he said that sometimes you just have to put your five best players on the court and see what happens. BJ is no long term PG but he drove it hard and made things happen aggressively.

Miami's tough, man. They don't have much depth, but play hard. You could see at the end of the first half they started to wear down and only Bramos' long distance connection gave them the lead. They wore down at the end too. I figured if it could be kept close, that XU would take it late.

2-12 from 3, 22-38 (57%) from the line and a 41-38 rebound deficit. Usually those are games that aren't W's, but tough defense, tougher mentality and depth caused the win.

Players? Damn good thing DBrown brought it today. We could have been down 20 in the first half. BJ? ONIONS! Freshmen? Yep, freshmen. Takes time for the game to slow down for them. JLove JMac and CJ, tough as nails, but about those free throws.....

BUT, a win and we move on.

Foul shooting needs to be better.This game could have been a lot easier if we shot better at the line.This is going to catch up with us at some point if it doesn't improve.BJ,CJ and Derrick were huge. Love was solid again.Freaze looks like a freshman a lot but with more playing time he'll be better.Redford has a long way to go.The fact that Sean went with BJ at guard says a lot.Dante's shooting percentage has to be in the 20's.He's done a decent job at point but we need Holloway back soon.

They play with an attitude and toughness and thus have won 6 games. But they are NOT putting the ball in the basket at a high percentage rate and that may catch up to them with a lot of losses. They play good enough to win, which is fine......but the play is very ugly at times.

My thoughts:
easy

6-0

BJ has really stepped it up this year. He is not making his threes at a very high rate yet, but I think we can all be pretty confident he will find his stroke. Even without the three ball though, he has been able to make some nice drives and post up on smaller defenders for closer high percentage short. I do not think he did that very much last year. His defense has improved a lot to the point where he is getting to be an above average defender, as opposed to last year when he was sometimes a liability on that end. Once BJ's threes start falling, he could go off for a couple of big nights when we need him like Derrick did last night.

We said the last few years that this or that guy had an off night but someone else picked him up. Against Memphis, Brown had an "off game on the O side" last night he was the man. I could care less if the team had an ugly game or a "pretty" game as long as they fight hard for the W. Considering we don't have TH, Crawford and Lyons, and Jackson had cramps last night I would say the team did okay.