treyuca wrote:
We (including myself) probably let the bad Philander Smith loss carry too much weight.
No way around it, that's a bad loss, sure – primarily because of the name and affiliation of the school, not nearly as much because of the talent level. It's more a perception thing.
There are a lot of teams we've played who would trade guards with Philander. Ken Brown, the guy who had 28 points, 5 rebounds, 6 assists and 6 steals against the Bears, was starting games for Western Kentucky last season before he got dismissed from the team. WKU is about as good a program there is in the Sun Belt, and they had a down year last year with "just" 16 wins (their second-worst season since 1999-00). You have to be pretty good to play there. And he was a starter. Had 12 points, 5 rebounds, 3 assists in a two-point loss to South Carolina. Not bad at all.
The guy is averaging 30 points a night. Had 23 against ULM and 22 against UALR, so that's 24.3 points per game against D-I schools. Has had plenty of success with the D2 schools as well – had 30 vs SAU and 37 vs UAM. Has nine 30 point games this year.
The other two guards who hit us for 23 and 20 aren't bad in their own right. DaMarkus Lipscomb was an all-metro player at North Little Rock and probably was under recruited because he's 5-9. He had 23 against ULM. Brandon Bell, the dude with all the hair, is averaging 15 a night and had 14 against UALR.
We were without Jordan Harks, easily our best inside scoring threat. Borden and Tidwell, who aren't typically big scoring threats, were 9-for-11 for 19 points in that game. You put a more competent scorer in there to exploit what would have been your major matchup advantage and who knows what happens.
So yeah, a bad loss – particularly from a perception standpoint – but not quite as bad when you look at the actual team on the floor and not just the "Philander Smith" on their jerseys.
treyuca wrote:
The Bears can still win several games this season. We just have to get some kind of foundation for the future.
Absolutely. The Bears are probably as long and athletic as anybody in the league and have several competent scorers but, outside of maybe Miles, no one guy you can just lock in on and say "shut this guy down and we're fine." Crawford has been solid the last few games, you know what you've got in Rutledge, and Garner and Harks have shown flashes but haven't been there every night.
Bremner just came out of nowhere against the Demons. Had 27 points all season long, then pumped in 17. If he can be a viable threat from outside, then that helps things out quite a bit. He was a big scorer in high school, but hadn't really found his place here. Sometimes it takes a while for the freshmen. Maybe the light turned on and that wasn't a one-game deal.
treyuca wrote:
I think we all knew that the SOS was pretty brutal in the pre-season.
Had some blowout losses that looked really bad. Then started conference with a total blitzing at Lamar, which looked as bad as any of the losses. No way around that. I think it's a sign of the inconsistency, which you'll get with a developing team, but also of the way they play. It can be extremely effective, but it can also lend itself to letting things spiral out of control in a hurry. You could play Rand Chappell ball and limit possessions and grind it out and maybe only lose to Lamar by 13 instead of 36, which looks better on paper but doesn't mean your team is actually any closer to being as good as Lamar.
I think this team can win some games – and hopefully getting that first one out of the way will mean something moving forward. It's a lot tougher to pick yourself up and go out there with any focus and positive chemistry every night when you're getting beat on all the time. You get a win, some confidence, team comes together a little bit. Focus a little better in practice. Play a little harder. Win a few games.
We'll see where it goes from here. It's been a decent arc in conference play from road blowout to close loss at home to road win. Would be really good to get a win at home Wednesday vs. Nicholls (hopefully, a weeknight game coming off a road win, there will be a good, rowdy crowd) before Lamar comes to town on Saturday because that's not a high probability for a win. Would rather that be a hiccup than game two of a losing streak.
If they can scrape together a 4-9 record the rest of the way, that's wonderful. That's five conference wins – which would be our best Southland total to date. That's decent progress. Which, heck, one more would be progress over last year. Not a conference champion contender by any stretch of the imagination, but the talent is there to not be everybody's whipping boy either.
It's really just a matter of playing with some confidence, cohesion, and control. That'll be the key. It's not a bad set of players, they've just got to grow as a team. Wins help with that tremendously.
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