No MBB Thread with Seattle U.

I wasn't able to watch all that closely - but sounded like we went small in the second half?

Nice win for the Beavers. Fell asleep relatively early last night, so ended up watching replay early this morning. In opponent preview thread, I said Beavs had a chance if they limited Tyson’s touches/shots. That’s exactly what they did. He had been basically averaging 17.5 shots per game with 12 from 3. Last night he was at 10 and 8 respectively — and really pressed when the shots he did get weren’t falling.

Beavs had their issues first half — mainly seemed like lack of hustle and focus. Rataj being in foul trouble didn’t help. But they cleaned things up well in second half. Seemed like every player gave at least an average performance for themselves — and several stepped it up. And shooting 47% from 3 was a nice thing to see.

— Taylor played better. I think some of it had to do with the Beavs being able to get out on the break some (17 fast break points) when he can get going downhill to basket and get to the line. Still had some problems in the half court game though, but I think we’d take 13-7-4 from him most games.
— Rataj was limited by foul trouble, but still had a fairly productive, efficient game while being asked to man the post. I think my favorite play of the night was Rataj not panicking when he ran into trouble in the post and finding Ryuny in the corner. Three quick perimeter passes later the ball was in Pope’s hands in the opposite corner for a open shot.
— Pope and Ryuny continue to be our most consistent and best players. I just love watching Pope — plays so within himself and has such a sweet shot. And Ryuny has a relatively quiet nigh offensively but chips in career high 12 rebounds.
— Best game from Bilodeau to date. Looked the most relaxed I’ve seen him with ball in his hands. Just very efficient. Later in second half he got fouled and looked to be breathing fairly hard waiting on the foul line. My first thought was he needs to work on conditioning. But to his credit, he took a couple of deep breaths and sank both free shots.
— The two recently injured guards got some good minutes. Neither shot very well from field — combined 1 of 6 — but they were 5 of 6 from line and combined for 5 assists and 7 steals. A couple of Rochelin’s 5 steals were more a result others’ D leading to bad passes almost directly to him. But being in right place at right time is a skill too.

Having the injured players back seems to have really helped with the player rotation. Not to get down on Akanno, but having him play only 26 minutes versus 35 is a step in the right direction. I think a lighter workload and not being asked to do as much will help him in the long run. Still a lot of work to be done by this team, but on the right track compared to last year.

It was more like 1K in the seats. One of the emptiest games I’ve been to. No band, so they had a DJ. 3 cheerleaders and about 20 students there.

You have a week night game, students gone and a good chunk of the season ticket holders are in Vegas. Not surprising that it was a light turn out. Expecting the same for Sunday.

I remember going to a game against Idaho during Christmas break in ‘79. Can’t remember the actual attendance number but it was low low low, might have been closer to 1200 than 2600.  And that was during the heyday, a 3 loss regular season, no pandemic worries (heck, before the 80s herpes panic) and high rankings.  The Beavs about doubled Idaho’s score and there were few to watch it.

It was like the day after Christmas so you’d expect low numbers, but have we ever really had good attendance during the holiday break against no name schools?

I like the fact that Tinkle is trying to get Wright and Rochelin minutes and bring them along in the fold. It needs to be done. It is a common complaint a lot of people have had with Tinkle: the failure to get the new guys integrated. Wright and Rochelin have to be brought along to develop with the team. 

I even liked it against TA&M and attribute some of the difficulty in that game to Tinkle trying to get those two players ready for the season. It was an acceptable loss if we gained the future contribution of those two. 

This whole early part of the season, maybe the whole season (hope not) is about getting players ready for the season. The only "old guys" basically are Andela, Taylor and Akanno and they need to get integrated with the new guys as much as the new guys need to get acclimated. We're probably going to have some ups and downs, but it's looking promising as far as improvement goes.