A Sea Of Red

Big game tonight at 7:00 PM EST.
Both teams are undefeated in conference play.
ESPN has Liberty favored to win 79.9%
5.5 point spread
133.5 over/under

Let's hope the Liberty students show up and pack the house. I will be watching on ESPN+.

Geraldos Mustache wrote: ↑January 29th, 2022, 1:04 pm Big game tonight at 7:00 PM EST.
Both teams are undefeated in conference play.
ESPN has Liberty favored to win 79.9%
5.5 point spread
133.5 over/under

Let's hope the Liberty students show up and pack the house. I will be watching on ESPN+.

The game has been sold out for several days.

Bad refs.

So far, Jacksonville State is just flat out better. They are good

Where do they get these stupid halftime shows.

Would not expect them to stay so hot. 8-15 from 3.

If we can quit turning it over and get a few stops we will get back in it.

ballcoach15 wrote: ↑January 29th, 2022, 8:44 pm Where do they get these stupid halftime shows.

I’m sure you are enjoying the music though. Thunderstruck.

LU needs some thunder this half.

Not sure what is more disappointing, getting hammered like we are or the fact that no one even talks about it on here. Nobody posting at all.

Well, we certainly were the inferior team. Haven't seen us so sloppy, but coupled with Jax athleticism, sure recipe for failure. Last time we lost at home, it was to Lipscomb and we ended up winning the tourney (@Lipscomb) and going to the 2nd round with a 14-2 conference record. The time off wasn't kind to us but we will rebound. That is the logical side of me.
The irrational side is ticked... thinks we really sucked and have a slim chance of doing anything this season.

On a side note, too bad I had no chance to see this in person. A 4000 fan sellout is not impressive, in my book. Are the old guys sitting behind Nazigan members on asor?

IMHO, this is a result of the bigs not being able to score and forcing the ball to DM, because he is our only source of consistent, reliable scoring. We shot poorly from beyond the arc. And had waaaaay too many unforced turn overs. I do think that if we score on their turnover, when we were down 10 (early in the second half, we would have won. But we missed a dunk and DM let's the ball go off his foot. Bad sequence.
For the second game in a row, one of our bigs, misses the entire basket at point-blank range, with minimal to no pressure. We can still win the conference, but don't see us making any noise in the tourney. Just not enough balanced scoring or good big man.

Jax St. obviously were bigger and played a strong defense. They had good point distribution. I'm much more of a fan than a tactician but it seemed like Peebles disappeared the entire game, never looking for a shot. Not sure why. Obviously, it wasn't the reason we lost. Maybe it was just indicative of their defense

I heard JSU played a defense we were not expecting. and we never adjusted.
As was posted somewhere above, we had too many turnovers, and DM was our only real scoring threat, most of game.

And does anyone know why the Dog & Pony Show MC, has to scream into his microphone ? The volume in arena PA system is loud enough, that if he whispered in mic, he'd still be too loud.

My thoughts:

1. I agree with Rog above, a 4K sell-out is not & never will be impressive. Also, where were the students? The paid sections were practically/almost full, the student sections weren't even close. we;'ve also had games where it was just the opposite, but the LU fan base needs to fix this.
2. In every game, the Boys have these inexplicable periods of stupid, sloppy play. Typically, as noted above, in each half. Tonight's 2nd half occurrence was around the crucial 6-7 minute range and it broke our back. The ballhandling, butter-fingers, passing, shot selection, etc. all goes to poop.
3. Probably the most frustrating thing to me about our boys is that sometimes it's almost as if they all get scared to take a shot. I know that they live on the one-more-pass-eat-the-shot-clock mentality, but if you're wide open with a good look- TAKE THE SHOT.
4. Along the take the shot theme, Kyle Rode needs to put his role player mentality aside more often and take over the game offensively. The boy can play and tonight he had a good hand. We needed him to step up more tonight. Until recently, IMO, he was the most guilty of passing up the open shot way too much. Also, sometimes when McThree is in a slump, he just needs to start jacking it up more. We needed that tonight around the 5 minute mark, especially since he had a harder rtime driving with their size and aggressiveness. We, also, don't need him on the bench down 8 or 9 with less than a minute left.
5. They were a very big and aggressive team. I don't understand why Preston and Abii didn't play more. I thought both played well and we needed them out there more. I really liked the frontcourt of Preston, Robinson and Rode. I thought they played well together and handled JSU's bigs pretty good. I'm, also, not Abbii's biggest fan cause I think he's really sloppy with the ball, but I thought he changed the flow of the game some as I'm not sure they were able to handle his size and speed ala Myo. I know that there's more players than minutes, but tonight Preston (16) and Abii (30) needed to be out there more. I knoe McKay loves small ball, but sometimes you just have to play the big boys.
6. More than anything JSU just shot lights out. It was almost unbelievable how well they shot. It seemed like they hit almost all of their wide open 3's. To me, this was biggest difference after not having someone other than McThree step up.
7. Someone on the Twitters compared this game t the first Lipscomb game, and other than us being the ASUN Champs, it was. I think when we play them again we'll beat them, although it'll be another fairly close game. I just hope the rematch is in the Lil'Arena and not Jacksonville, AL. So I hope they lose at least 2 more times.
8. It's better to lose now than later. It's also better to lose to them, NET wise, than any other of our conference mates.

Really pretty simple, we uncharacteristically turned the ball over and shots weren't falling. It happens. Jax St did appear to be the more physically mature team, they did start four Seniors and a Junior. They weren't afraid to play defense through the entire shot clock and we weren't able to get great looks. Hats off to them tonight. We looked a little out of sync and perhaps that could be attributed to having one full practice in the last week. Third game in six days on Monday, no rest for the weary, got to have a short memory and move on.

Racenut wrote: ↑January 30th, 2022, 2:48 am Really pretty simple, we uncharacteristically turned the ball over and shots weren't falling. It happens. Jax St did appear to be the more physically mature team, they did start four Seniors and a Junior. They weren't afraid to play defense through the entire shot clock and we weren't able to get great looks. Hats off to them tonight. We looked a little out of sync and perhaps that could be attributed to having one full practice in the last week. Third game in six days on Monday, no rest for the weary, got to have a short memory and move on.

Good point. Definitely thought it may have been different had we not had that Rona pause as we were really hitting a groove prior to.

Racenut wrote: ↑January 30th, 2022, 2:48 am Really pretty simple, we uncharacteristically turned the ball over and shots weren't falling. It happens. Jax St did appear to be the more physically mature team, they did start four Seniors and a Junior. They weren't afraid to play defense through the entire shot clock and we weren't able to get great looks. Hats off to them tonight. We looked a little out of sync and perhaps that could be attributed to having one full practice in the last week. Third game in six days on Monday, no rest for the weary, got to have a short memory and move on.

They not only have Seniors, a couple of them are 6th year guys who redshirted early and are now playing their "covid year".

When you consider our lack of practice recently along with turnovers (probably a correlation there) and Darius having an off night shooting, the 10 point margin is not concerning to me right now. Our last home loss was way worse, and that year turned out just fine. Jax St is really good:...... 2nd best 3 pt shooting team in the country with a ton of experience as well as size and athleticism.

Another terrific game for Kyle Rode. We've been talking for a couple of years about how he will get a triple double some day, and this is the closest he has come so far, with 7 assists and 7 boards to go with his 13 points.

CUSA will be fun. Here's how the new conf teams looked before this game.

Liberty 14-6
JSU 14-6
Sam Houston 13-9
NMSU 16-3
Middle Tennessee 13-6
UTEP 12-8
Western Kentucky 10-10
FIU 12-8
Louisiana Tech 16-4

TH Spangler wrote: ↑January 30th, 2022, 12:55 pm CUSA will be fun. Here's how the new conf teams looked before this game.

Liberty 14-6
JSU 14-6
Sam Houston 13-9
NMSU 16-3
Middle Tennessee 13-6
UTEP 12-8
Western Kentucky 10-10
FIU 12-8
Louisiana Tech 16-4

We’ve got to get better for that league.

JK37 wrote: ↑January 30th, 2022, 1:39 pm

TH Spangler wrote: ↑January 30th, 2022, 12:55 pm CUSA will be fun. Here's how the new conf teams looked before this game.

Liberty 14-6
JSU 14-6
Sam Houston 13-9
NMSU 16-3
Middle Tennessee 13-6
UTEP 12-8
Western Kentucky 10-10
FIU 12-8
Louisiana Tech 16-4

We’ve got to get better for that league.

By the Peebles and Vanzent will be rather prolific. Hopefully, Spell will be a reliable tall, long forward, and Moore and Porter will solve the PG issue. Big men will probably be the biggest need. Se\o we need big, long, and athletic (to fit McKay's system) power forwards and centers.

LUOrange wrote: ↑January 30th, 2022, 2:04 pm

JK37 wrote: ↑January 30th, 2022, 1:39 pm

TH Spangler wrote: ↑January 30th, 2022, 12:55 pm CUSA will be fun. Here's how the new conf teams looked before this game.

Liberty 14-6
JSU 14-6
Sam Houston 13-9
NMSU 16-3
Middle Tennessee 13-6
UTEP 12-8
Western Kentucky 10-10
FIU 12-8
Louisiana Tech 16-4

We’ve got to get better for that league.

By the Peebles and Vanzent will be rather prolific. Hopefully, Spell will be a reliable tall, long forward, and Moore and Porter will solve the PG issue. Big men will probably be the biggest need. Se\o we need big, long, and athletic (to fit McKay's system) power forwards and centers.

Next year's team will be the tallest/longest we have ever had. I feel confident we will be really good defensively. Losing a ton of offense though.

olldflame wrote: ↑January 30th, 2022, 4:46 pm

LUOrange wrote: ↑January 30th, 2022, 2:04 pm

JK37 wrote: ↑January 30th, 2022, 1:39 pm

We’ve got to get better for that league.

By the Peebles and Vanzent will be rather prolific. Hopefully, Spell will be a reliable tall, long forward, and Moore and Porter will solve the PG issue. Big men will probably be the biggest need. Se\o we need big, long, and athletic (to fit McKay's system) power forwards and centers.

Next year's team will be the tallest/longest we have ever had. I feel confident we will be really good defensively. Losing a ton of offense though.

This may be true, we only have 1 guy under 6 feet tall and we should only get taller next year. My biggest concern is post play though. Our tallest starter is 6' 7" and our tallest player on the roster is 6' 9. Meanwhile nmsu who will likely be our biggest competition in c-usa has 4 guys 6' 10 or taller. I understand we play a unique system but that will cause problems later.

When I see that a team has a bunch of guys 6'10" and up, I think of Al McGuire's line. Are they All-Conference or just "All-Airport"? I really believe Ritchie has set us up for next year and beyond with long, athletic players who can kill it in the packline. We need Peebles, Venzant, Rode, Robinson and at least one of the new players to step up on offense to make up for the lost scoring of McGhee and McDowell. I think Warfield also has more offensive potential than he has shown so far.

Dang, though! That ALL-AIRPORT team was LEGIT!