I'm going to take the same attitude that I took about MSU, as I did about PSU and Nebraska. UW outplayed MSU, but they are just not a good enough shooting team to beat them the way the did PSU and Nebraska. UW was +7 in offensive rebounds and +1 in turnovers in this game. They had 7 more field goal attempts and 6 more free throw attempts than MSU. That should equal a win, especially when you hold your opponent to 38% shooting. It's just going to be tough for this team to string together wins unless they find some magic shooting fairy dust.
UW definitely should have won that game. The silver lining, I guess, is that their defense appears to be the real deal. But the three seniors just are not that good at shooting, and their point guard problems are really severe. Hard to think of a single player who had a good game. Bruesewitz was the only one who distinguished himself, but he did so mainly with great defense.
ReplyDeleteI feel like some of my posts read like I'm giving the Badgers a pass when they shoot poorly. As if shooting is just a random part of the game instead of a vital skill, and probably the most important skill. While there is some randomness to shooting on any given night, there is also randomness to other stats. How many times have you watched a game where it just seemed every rebound came off the rim hard and went right to the opponent despite being blocked out, or in poor position.
ReplyDeleteDukes performance tonight certainly showed the randomness of shooting. They laid an egg and got trounced by Miami 90-63. Duke was as horrible in this game as the score indicated. Most of the game it looked like they were playing with led shoes. On offense they couldn't hit anything. This is a team that is 13th in the NCAA in scoring and 28th in FG%. Their 4 guards were a combined 5-38, including Seth Curry's 0-10 (0-5 from 3). On the year Curry shoots 48% and 46% from 3.
This game was an anomaly for Duke, and my guess is this was one of the worst shooting games Duke has had in a decade. For this years Badgers the anomalies are the games they shoot 50%. The Badgers have been such a good offensive team under Bo it's hard to watch this team shoot so poorly. Especially since there doesn't seem to be much hope that it will get any better this season.