*** Official #2 Houston vs IOWA STATE Game(Day) Thread ***

Clone95

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Dumb fans think the EXPECTATION is to never have a bad game or lose a game. Thats the GOAL, not the expectation.
Exactly. I think most of us know we'll lose some games when our offense doesn't perform, but also aren't acting like our offense is going to keep us from the tourney.
 
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PantherCyclone

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I bet we score 70 on Saturday

Most efficiency metrics are adjusted for an average opponent and by pace, so if we mostly only play top 20 defenses the rest of the season at an extremely slow pace (as the last two games have been), we don't need to score 70 to have a top 30 offensive efficiency.
this is exactly right. When Houston wasn't turning the ball over, they were working the shot clock. They didn't have many possessions that didn't get under 10 seconds on the clock.
 

2forISU

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With a very different roster than that game almost a year ago in a different season? How are they connected?

Yes I would guess we as fans wouldn't want to see the team have their worst collective performance of the season.
Lipsey, Ward, Watson, King and Jones logged 101 minutes in that tourney game. That's a sizable amount returning.
 

CYEATHAWK

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IMO Houston's back court is a bit over rated. Everyone knows Pryor from his days at Baylor and when hot he can absolutely fill it up.....when he is on. Shead on the other hand I think made most of his press on the coattails of Sasser. He is good, but Sasser made the game with those two.
 

madguy30

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Lipsey, Ward, Watson, King and Jones logged 101 minutes in that tourney game. That's a sizable amount returning.

But is it the same roster? Is it the same season?

What's going to happen if they don't make the tournament?
 

Sigmapolis

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50% of the minutes coming back from a tourney game is a lot of minutes in today's college game.

We're talking about offense. Usage and shooting might be better to look at then.

Holmes (6/11 from two and 0/6 from three) and Kalscheur (3/6 and 1/8) took and missed a TON of shots.

Lipsey had similar minutes but way lower usage (1/7 and 1/2) compared to them.

The shots Holmes and Kalscheur were taking last year are now being taken by an up-gunned Lipsey who now seems to have a jump shot, Milan, and to a lesser extent Gilbert, C. Jones, and Pav.

Robert Jones TS% last year was 46.4% (awful for a big man). It is 64.9% this year (elite for a big man). Ward went from 64.9% to 66.6% in the same metric (so some marginal improvement). Osun was good in this department for a big man (58.4%) but has been replaced by even better options now.

Torvik rated the offense the first two TJ years as #184 and #122. It has this year at #52. It's not hard to see why when so many high-volume, low-efficiency options have been replaced with better shooters and when Big Rob has seemed to have "clicked" finally on offense. It's not an elite offensive team, no, but it is definitely a huge improvement from last season -- plus the defense is still #5 in the country!
 
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goody2012

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Our offensive #'s are skewed cause of crappy teams we played. Only team that we have scored over 70 points on that has a pulse is Iowa (90)
VA Tech-62
A&M-69
OU-63
Houston-57
The numbers are adjusted for opponent...
 
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2forISU

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But is it the same roster? Is it the same season?

What's going to happen if they don't make the tournament?
Of course not, but a lot of similarities between last years team and this years team from offensive standpoint.

They don't make it.
 

bawbie

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IMO Houston's back court is a bit over rated. Everyone knows Pryor from his days at Baylor and when hot he can absolutely fill it up.....when he is on. Shead on the other hand I think made most of his press on the coattails of Sasser. He is good, but Sasser made the game with those two.
Cryer had been awesome this year - prior to last night. He had 9 turnovers in 14 games before we forced him into 3 last night. And he's scoring 17ppg on 40% 3pt shooting at 87% from the line.
 
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VeloClone

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I will say if I’m a coach and I want to have my team as hungry as possible I would say the same thing. There’s no burden of truth or requirement to congratulate. Those things can work to motivate as well, but the coach is ALWAYS talking to his own team first.
I totally disagree. If I want to motivate my team I'm telling them that they got beat by a team that was better that night and they need to play better if they want to win night in and night out. Why build in an external excuse for them if they got beat? Losses do a better job of getting a team's attention if they know they weren't good enough to win rather than they played fine and it was stolen from them.
 

MJ271

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With that said, offensively - while acknowledging again that Houston is REALLY freaking good offensively - I do worry a bit on this side of the ball. The numbers/metrics do NOT back up my statement here, but I will say it anyway - I do not think we are a better offensive team than we were last year. Obviously, Tamin has improved, and there are a lot of positives. But I really worry about our ability to score in conference play - moreso than last year. I know the narrative tells us that this years' squad is full of better shooters and scorers - I'm just not seeing it. Against Q1 type teams thus far, our guys really struggle to shoot, struggle to finish at the hoop, struggle to dribble/take care of the ball.
I agree on some level that we just haven't seen the offense show out against Q1 teams. But I'm still not reading into it too much, because I do think the non-conference cupcake games showed that the team has better shooters and scorers overall. Last year's team wasn't as consistently scoring against those kinds of teams as this year's team was able to. Versus Q1 opponents, I think it's a bit up in the air what the issue is still. But I think part of it might just be guys getting used to the increased intensity. Tamin is the only guard with even a year of P5 experience, and he's still getting used to a completely new offensive skill. I think the decreased turnovers last night (relative to both the non-conference tournament and the opponent) were a great positive that they're getting used to that intensity, even though it didn't come through in the scoring as much.

Overall, I feel confident that Houston's defense will be the best, most physical that we face all season. There's no better trial by fire and confidence-builder than that win--especially for a guy like Momcilovich with how he was harassed all night, had a pretty rough offensive night for most of the game, but was still able to make the game-winning shot. I'm optimistic about how they'll be able to perform on Saturday against a much worse defense, but they'll need to make sure they don't have a letdown in intensity, especially with how OSU has given Otz's teams troubles the past couple of years.
 

madguy30

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2forISU

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We're talking about offense. Usage and shooting might be better to look at then.

Holmes (6/11 from two and 0/6 from three) and Kalscheur (3/6 and 1/8) took and missed a TON of shots.

Lipsey had similar minutes but way lower usage (1/7 and 1/2) compared to them.

The shots Holmes and Kalscheur were taking last year are now being taken by an up-gunned Lipsey who now seems to have a jump shot, Milan, and to a lesser extent Gilbert, C. Jones, and Pav.

Robert Jones TS% last year was 46.4% (awful for a big man). It is 64.9% this year (elite for a big man). Ward went from 64.9% to 66.6% in the same metric (so some marginal improvement).

Torvik rated the offense the first two TJ years as #184 and #122. It has this year at #52. It's not hard to see why when so many high-volume, low-efficiency options have been replaced with better shooters and when Big Rob has seemed to have "clicked" finally on offense. It's not an elite offensive team, no, but it is definitely a huge improvement from last season -- plus the defense is still #5 in the country right no!
It might turn out to be a huge improvement from last season, we will see. I don't disagree we upgraded talent wise on the offensive side, but how much is still the question.
 

AuH2O

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50% of the minutes coming back from a tourney game is a lot of minutes in today's college game.
You may as well change the names for Lipsey and Rob Jones. They are such different offensive players this year that it's not a good comparison. It's a lot more than Tamin shooting, which on its own is massive for the entire offense and spacing. He was making good decisions last year. This year he is attacking and making plays at another level.

And Rob being competent at the line and scoring around the basket are the obvious things, but he has become drastically better when they run the high post stuff through him. Of all the guys on last years roster and this years roster, Gilbert, MM, and Soph. Lipsey are the three best offensive players. Holmes and Gabe were asked to do more than they should've offensively, but we really didn't have a choice. They did a great job with what they were asked to do, and were absolute bulldogs, but they just weren't consistent, efficient offensive guys.

And I get people pulling their hair out a bit with Gilbert at times, but man, he is a special blend of quickness and motor/effort.