The Matt Daniel File

Matt Daniel is being reported as the the Sugar Bears next head coach.

Matt Daniel is the ultimate recruiter and coach. He brings high energy and passion to the game of basketball and is an outstanding recruiter," said Stein. "His knowledge of what it takes to be successful on and off the court was a definite factor in us bringing him to Mizzou. He is a great addition.

Missouri Head Coach Cindy Stein

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The Matt Daniel Timeline

Overtime Loss

It’s the little things that can win or lose a game sometimes. Little things like getting the ball across mid-court within ten seconds. Like taking care of the ball in crunch time. Like taking good shots and blocking out on missed shots.

Lamar did more of those little things Thursday night, and the result was an 89-86 overtime loss for the Bears.

UCA was able to fight back at the end of the second half and somehow force overtime. After seeing how things seemed to work in our favor, I had high hopes for the overtime period. The Bears even scored the first two points in OT.

Even after allowing the Cardinals to score on their fourth attempt – meaning a block shot and two offensive rebounds later – the Bears were back in the lead, 83-81 after Brain Marks made two free throws. But once again, Lamar was able to pull down two offensive rebounds on the next possession and get a put back on the third attempt.

This hadn’t been happening the entire game. In fact, UCA actually won the rebounding battle overall.
But in the last five minutes (not counting "team" rebounds), the Bears lost that battle 8-3.

Those four second-chance points and a fast break layup still weren’t enough to secure a Lamar win though. Marcus Pillow’s three-pointer with 2:28 remaining put the Bears back on top, 85-86. But the Bears missed their final four shots and committed the third 10-second penalty of the game. That allowed the Cardinals to escape with a three-point win.

The Bears shot a better percentage from the floor in the first and second halfs, but it was the 2-of-8 shooting in overtime that hurt.

Brian Marks played what might have been his best game as a Bear. He finished with eight points, on 3-of-4 shooting, and 16 rebounds.

UCA’s starting guards – Nate Bowie, Marcus Pillow and York Sims – combined for 59 points and were able to penetrate for layups throughout the game. I really believe we had a quickness advantage with our guards. Those three had quite a few of the 46 points in the paint.

But as coach told Monty after the game, the team made "a million good plays", but they also had "a million bad ones."

The 20 turnovers were costly. Those three possessions where the ball never crossed half court (sounds like I’m just rewriting the Sugar Bears’ story from last week) might have been the difference in the game. And let me be clear in that two of those turnovers weren’t caused by pressure defense, it was just a mental lapse both times. (The middle 10-second call was after Marks grabbed a rebound and couldn’t find a guard. When he finally did, there were only a few more seconds to get it across. Probably still could have done it if they had an idea the clock was so close, but it was more acceptable I guess.)

The offensive talent is there. The defensive and mental talent is sometimes lacking. But if you want to look at the bright side – and I usually try to – all of this is being done with two key players (Reuter and Nevels) on the bench with injuries.

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