It's a guard driven game in college, ours did not play well today, and will have to play better for us to advance.
*** Official #16 Texas Tech vs #4 IOWA STATE Game(Day) Thread ***
- Thread starter CycloneRulzzz
- Start date
Cyclonepride
Thought Police
Giving up too many points is a definite trend in our losses. I'm not terribly concerned, as TT is a very good offensive team and shot lights out.
You could at least take injuries into account for last year. I don't know why people ignore that.
Maybe the Vegas lines aren't built on reality and shouldn't be set as 'as is'.
The back end of the schedule was going to be tough no matter what.
This is a really good team, not truly elite; that's been the case all season.
No, it's not luck. They are a very good shooting team. But we have seen many times in a tournament setting, a team playing back to back and maybe 3 days in a row will physically get "tired legs" and won't hit those 3s like they would in a normal week to week routine setting. The mind-is-willing-but-the-body-isn't... sort of thing. Even for 19-20 year old kids. That is how Tech has to win games now that Toppin is out.
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This team got overhyped because we beat 3 teams in Vegas who turned out to be not that good and we shot lights out at Purdue. In reality we lack shot makers and to make a deep NCAA tourney run you need multiple shot makers. I think a return to the Sweet 16 is the ceiling for this team, although they could easily get knocked out in the 2nd round like last year.
If you start seeing Jefferson dribbling neck high in the first round it's gonna be over then. I think this team could get hot and get to the elite 8. We don't have good enough guard play to truly be elite though.
I still think Toure's D is why id keep him in. Nelson panning out would have meant the world to this team.
So I guess the top 10 wins over Kansas and Houston didn't matter. Or the fact that we have been ranked in the top 10 nearly the entire season (which means quite a few basketball experts think we are pretty da## good) and we are challenging the school record for wins. Yep, certainly overhyped. Good Lord.
Friendly reminder that an opponent shooting really well is not entirely a "Well shucks they got lucky, nothing we could do about it" situation. TTU hit some difficult well-defended shots yes but they also hit many poorly-defended shots.
Appreciate the reply. I wasn't insinuating what you are insinuating that I was insinuating, though (lol).
I wasn't blaming anyone. There are an infinite amount of reasons why individual games are won and lost.
I was providing perspective as to why it is very logical and normal for fans to be bummed about yesterday; and specifically yesterday because of what it means for the season on a macro level. I did not state that they "should" win because the opportunity was there (to keep the hope for a 1 seed alive, etc.) -
I do think the players want to win, that is pretty obvious to me and would be silly to question at all. Do they want to "win" as badly a crazy diehard Cyclone fan that's been rooting on the Clones through thick and thin for 4 decades!? Man, I don't know. I think that's why sports in general are so silly and yet so personal and awesome in our society. I always use the analogy, if aliens came to our planet and saw our passion for sports, they would be so confused.
My personal view - I think the team plays really hard, I'm not going to question the effort of the players or coaches. I do not, however, believe the players are playing with a high amount of confidence consistently right now, losing 3 of 6. I see it only in spurts. I see players that sometimes just do not believe what they're being asked to do is actually going to work. Mostly on offense, but also on defense too. I of course have no data to back this up. This is just my weird observational fan perspective watching from the bleachers. You see a lot in game threads people will say things - "why do teams always make these lucky shots against us" - I do not believe it is luck. These are all good college basketball players playing at the highest level possible for college. If college players are allowed to play loose and confident, they're more than capable of making basically any kind of shot. I think Texas Tech got comfortable and confident yesterday, largely dictated early by how we played, driven by our game plan.
Tech has been an awesome offensive team all. That most certainly was not a once a year shooting performance by then. The defense yesterday allowed really good players to get really, really confident shooting the ball.
Yeah, basketball is essentially about scoring. A team can play 4-on-5 on the offensive end and still be successful against good teams by playing really good defense. Unfortunately, ISU has devolved as of late into playing 3-on-5 offense, and overcoming that takes absolutely stellar defense.
TT shot really well yesterday, but ISU did not play stellar defense. They gave up too many open 3pt looks...no adjustments on defense. This was the most disappointing thing to me.
Hopefully one or more of Lipsey/Toure/Batemon can defunk on the offense side.
That could be the case, but we could also be tired. We have seen fresh Iowa State teams beat and even take it to some teams that are more athletic. I heard the After Dark podcast and one of them made the point the he did not buy the theory the Iowa State is tired because Houston pratices just as hard and plays the same physical style as us. To that I would counter that Houston has athletes that genetically can handle a higher training load over time. Sampson truly always has those type of guys. So yesterday, in the opening minutes you could just see how much more active Tech was, they were faster, getting loose balls, rebounds, cutting and changing directions super fast. Our guys looked like their legs were in cement. Even when Tech was missing wide open shots, they looked to have so much more bounce in their step. Fatigued or less athletic? I guess there is no way to know for sure.
They were great at making the extra pass. There is no adjustment that can be made for that. There just isn't. Sometimes teams are on fire.
and don't forget Padilla's 5 point swing on the Lipsey ghost pull down.
It’s the NCAA Tournament.
There’s no 5 games in 5 days. Or even Back to Back.
This is
Thursday- Saturday
Thursday- Saturday
Thursday- Saturday
Is it likely for a team to shoot lights out for 6 games in a row?
No. Of course not. But it does happen.
And BTW, UCONN in 2011 won the Big East Tournament. 5 games in 5 days as a mostly shooting team.
Then WON THE NCAA CHAMPIONSHIP.
6 games in 3 weeks.
Kemba Walker
Hoping they get tired is not a strategy either.
When you shoot 30-35 threes a game, and you typically shoot them well,
You’re a very dangerous team.
Thursday and Saturday.
Even Friday and Sunday.
Yes there is. The coaches made adjustments at halftime, and they should get credit for that. Hell, they cut a massive lead down to 6 because of the adjustments that were made. TJ often uses the term "playing ahead" on defense, which generally refers to the timing and anticipation on rotations defensively. There are times this year (like against Kansas) where our defense is like Tom Brady reading coverage - we know what you're going to do and we're going to react faster than you.
