[jmclaughlin]

My daughter is insistent on still making it to the game tonight. Anyone else braving the, one day of winter in Texas, elements to make it?

[Sly Fox]

It may a gametime decision for me. My Longhorn wife is complaining about me driving in this mess so I am listed as 'Questionable' for tonight.

[Humble_Opinion]

I'm surprised this thread didn't take off at all after that game last night. I took a chance and stayed up to watch and was not disappointed. Except for our continued abysmal performance when it comes to free throws.

The difference with this team right now, in my opinion, is CP0. I love the kid's unselfish play and willingness to create, but he has a great shot. Him being more willing to take those looks when the defense gives them to him keeps the defense honest and creates opportunities for the others. He's also been great defensively. He may be small, but he's stout and quick and he uses that to his advantage against taller guards. I just can't say enough good things about him... he's fun to watch.

Peter continues to perform well and Maughmer seems to be coming along too. There are still two weaknesses they need to overcome if they want to win this conference. 1) Finding depth down low and 2) FT shooting. For the first, our options are:
1) Yates - can hit open looks and stretch the defense on offense, but he doesn't have a great game in the paint and he's a liability on defense from what I've seen.
2) Yu - it still seems we're in project mode with him... he seems a bit clumsy at times on both ends of the floor and it showed last night during his limited time by making committing a dumb foul on one end and then dropping a pass from Peter when he was wide open on the other end.
3) Spell - like Yates, he has a decent shot as well. In my opinion, he's the longest player we have left on the bench that can play and he seems a little quicker on his feet than Yates on the defensive end. He has not gotten any playing time lately though, which has surprised me. Is he injured? I'd like to see him get a crack at some minutes.
4) Gibson - the true freshman came in last night for his first meaningful minutes. He has a big body but is only 6'6" and he was matched up against the 6'11" guy from SHSU. He tried to play physical, but it didn't go well.

All of that to say... we're really missing Ihnen. We need one of the above to step up.

[olldflame]

I'm a bit confused on the current status of NCAA redshirt rules for basketball. If I understand correctly what Ritchie said last night after the game, we were allowed to play a prospective redshirt for the first 30% of scheduled games (same as for medical) For us, the cutoff was the MTSU game. This would explain why Decker has not been playing, and was not mentioned by Ritchie as he discussed the players on the roster who can potentially give us some production off the bench going forward. It looks like he essentially swapped out Decker for Gibson for this year, and Brett will be redshirted. He also stated that Gibson has been practicing "terrifically well." Not sure how you could look at his 3 minutes on the floor last night and make much of a judgement.

[jmclaughlin]

Good win last night! Some of our crew made the 2+ hour trek down I-45 in horrendous weather. Maybe 300 people in attendance...maybe. The atmosphere sucked but the game was great. Loved the energy LU played with throughout and the fight they showed (almost a literal statement). They talk well, play hard and really seem to be connected as a group.
Was confused on some of the substitutions in the 2nd half. Gibson is not ready for conference / high level play. He just isn't there. Was commenting in warm ups that he just doesn't look the part of a DI player, and then he got in the game! Couldn't understand why he got in and not Blair or Spell? Yu coming in made sense in the moment to get Owen out in a foul potential moment. Interesting the see the rotation moving forward when our bigs get in foul trouble.

Free Throws are this teams kryptonite. Its embarrassingly bad. If you take Porter's 6-6 out of the mix, this team went 7-16. Several misses on the front end of 1&1's. You have to play well in other areas to overcome this.

Still love this team and the improvement from last year to now.

[olldflame]

I love me some Ritchie McKay, but his insistence on saying "we are a good free throw shooting team" (because we apparently make them in practice) is wearing thin. It's like Morning Joe saying Biden is "sharp as a tack" behind the scenes.

[Ill flame]

I'm a bit confused on the current status of NCAA redshirt rules for basketball. If I understand correctly what Ritchie said last night after the game, we were allowed to play a prospective redshirt for the first 30% of scheduled games (same as for medical) For us, the cutoff was the MTSU game. This would explain why Decker has not been playing, and was not mentioned by Ritchie as he discussed the players on the roster who can potentially give us some production off the bench going forward. It looks like he essentially swapped out Decker for Gibson for this year, and Brett will be redshirted. He also stated that Gibson has been practicing "terrifically well." Not sure how you could look at his 3 minutes on the floor last night and make much of a judgement.

It's confuses me too but the reality is the NCAA is probably scrapping redshirts very soon and giving athletes 5 years of eligibility so it probably won't matter.

[Humble_Opinion]

I'm just really confused about Spell. I'm surprised that Gibson, a red-shirt freshman, would be brought in when Spell is sitting right there at 6'9" vs Gibson at 6'6".

[olldflame]

I'm just really confused about Spell. I'm surprised that Gibson, a red-shirt freshman, would be brought in when Spell is sitting right there at 6'9" vs Gibson at 6'6".

While it puzzles me a bit as well, the reality is that Spell has been in the program for 4 years now, and has never played significant minutes, despite being 6'9" 230 and having some ability as a shooter. There has to be a reason, and the most likely one is that he has just not shown he can play defense at the level Ritchie requires. He has a year of eligibility left, but with 4 players 6'8" or taller joining the competition for minutes next year, I'll be really surprised if he doesn't transfer.

[Chippy]

I'm just really confused about Spell. I'm surprised that Gibson, a red-shirt freshman, would be brought in when Spell is sitting right there at 6'9" vs Gibson at 6'6".

While it puzzles me a bit as well, the reality is that Spell has been in the program for 4 years now, and has never played significant minutes, despite being 6'9" 230 and having some ability as a shooter. There has to be a reason, and the most likely one is that he has just not shown he can play defense at the level Ritchie requires. He has a year of eligibility left, but with 4 players 6'8" or taller joining the competition for minutes next year, I'll be really surprised if he doesn't transfer.

He seemed to be street clothes from what I saw.

[West Coaster]

The only way to beat this team is to bully drive and hope to get Cleveland or Aquino in foul trouble. We are going to see a lot of that for the rest of conference play. It is a bit of a bummer that FIU is our travel partner for conference play, because teams will come off a game against them well rested and not banged up at all. It is the reverse for us.