Norm Peterson

Swap Banton for Cheatham basically. And then who for Kavas? And then who rebounds? And who shots threes?

Don't forget Mack.

Awesome! We’re moving up in the world!

We won; therefore USF must suck. If we’d have lost, they might have been mediocre. Do I have that right?

If Banton harbors any NBA aspirations -- which I believe he does -- he needs to find a jump shot. NBA guys his size are good shooters or they're not in the NBA.

We can tweak the offensive sets and fine-tune how we run them, kinda polish the execution and whatnot. But if we still can't shoot for crap, that won't matter a lot. Our outside shooting is atrocious for a system that relies on it. And our free throw shooting is embarrassing, even in a transition year. Mystifying that a guard-oriented roster is so bad from the stripe and beyond the arc. Aside from Kavas, our best FT shooter with more than 2 attempts is Dachon Burke at 61%. Green and Mack are both under 60% and Cheatham is under 50% from the stripe. Which is shocking. This is just my opinion, but we need to find some shooters for next year. I'm talking legit shooters, not a one-hit wonder with an odd hitch in his giddyup who's sometimes on and sometimes not. I'm talking about an athlete or two who has some skill and can catch, turn and shoot with good balance, form, and technique. And speed. And who can reliably hit that shot when he takes it.

What will it take to transform this team from a doormat to a contender in year 2?

Perhaps develop a jump shot. Season Totals season Team 2018-19 WKU FG FG% 3PT 3P% FT FT% OR DR REB AST BLK STL PF TO PTS 39-97 40.2 8-37 21.6 19-34 55.9 16 76 92 65 16 14 27 52 105

Watcha doin? Is there time, while you're sitting out, to work with, y'know, the special assistant to the head coach, and completely overhaul your free throw shooting technique? Season Totals season Team 2017-18 TENN 2018-19 TENN FG FG% 3PT 3P% FT FT% OR DR REB AST BLK STL PF TO PTS 28-47 59.6 0-0 0.0 10-25 40.0 29 46 75 9 7 3 43 21 66 10-19 52.6 0-0 0.0 5-19 26.3 8 24 32 7 3 6 28 6 25

He better work his ass off so that he's ready to go and be a big time contributor from the word go next year. He has a year to maximize his skills and then two years to put those skills to use. He has the physical tools to be a good rebounder: a reasonably wide body, long arms and good leaping ability. He also has the potential to be a reliable threat from long range. At Pitt as a freshman, he averaged 37.5% from deep. We need those things from him.

In a just NCAA, a combined total of 8 minutes played in the first 4 games following a coaching change where the guy who recruited you was fired would not count against a young man as an entire season of eligibility. At the very worst, he should have sat until semester and been eligible from that point as a sophomore. But the NCAA isn't just. They're just stupid.

They doubled us up on rebounds and we can't shoot. That's not a recipe for success. Not gonna win a lot of games this year doing that. If you were expecting us to win a lot of games, you should adjust your expectations.

You mention Thor, we all have mentioned Thor. Thing about Thor is he has some intangibles that Hoiberg really likes and no player has benefited more from the new coaching staff than Thor. My guess is he likes it here and there's no reason at this point for him to go anywhere else. He's going to help us make history in year 2 when we get that damn monkey off our backs. Why would he want to not be here for that?

He'll be the biggest dude on the floor at any point during the game.

GMU's starting lineup runs 5'10, 6'1, 6'2, 6'6, 6'7. The two taller dudes weigh about 190# and 210# respectively, but they both average about 13 ppg. They have a backup big who runs about 6'8 and 230#, but @hhcmatt reports on Twitter he might be out with a hurt toe suffered last night. So, it's a short bench in more ways than one for the fighting GMUs. I can see why the line favors us.

On the luck side, I would also count how we came back and scored like 14 points in the final 45 seconds to force overtime and eventually get the W, with Thor blocking a shot at the buzzer to preserve the victory. You'd have to kinda count something like that.

OK, yes, that's exactly the kind of thing I'm talking about. We had that game won. And then Glynn has that misfortune, etc.

I bet you're probably right. But right now, when we're looking at and trying to assess what we got (as we're getting outrebounded and tossing bricks from the FT line) we can look at some of the players that got away and think, at least for now, hey, we didn't do too bad after all.

I think one of the things he talked about was defending ballscreens and having Cross stay square to his man or whatever. Technical stuff. Surely there's a radio thing of the post game? I hope?

One thing that seems apparent to me: In spite of how deep we all thought we were at the guard position, we still had three of our starting guards in foul trouble last night. So, when you play a 4-guard offense, we're maybe not as deep as we need to be. If Shamiel Stevenson can help out on the boards, it'd be nice to have him cleared IMMEDIATELY. (He was screwed by 2 coaching changes and now he's being screwed by the NCAA slow-playing his waiver determination. And in a just NCAA, the 8 minutes he played in 4 games at Pitt following a coaching change should not count as a used season of eligibility.) When we're running 4 guards and either Kevin or Yvan, it tests our depth at guard, particularly when we get in foul trouble. Having Shamiel in there alongside Cross/Ouedraogo would probably improve our rebounding significantly, shift Cheatham to one of 3 guard spots, and probably keep us out of foul trouble.

Hoiberg discussed adjustments on his post-game radio program. It sounded kinda complicated. Maybe one of the coach types on the board could explain.

True. But ... The guy playing for Virginia was being recruited as a sharpshooter from deep. He's currently hitting 13%. Small sample size, but still. As to the two bigs who went to ASU, you think those guys would command minutes over Yvan and Kevin doin' it to 'em? Maybe. But I'm skeptical. Especially the Andre Allen dude. If memory serves me, I don't think I was ever all that impressed with him.

If I didn't know better, I'd say we're getting some buy-in.

Strangely, in terms of placing in this tournament, it's better to win your first and lose the next two than lose your first and win the next two. Win your first game and your worst place scenario is 4th place; lose the first one, and your best possible finish is 5th.

By the way, here are the season stats for Khalid Thomas, another 6'9 juco (among the top-ranked juco propsects in the country last year) who spurned us for ASU: Season Averages season Team 2019-20 ASU GP GS MIN FG FG% 3PT 3P% FT FT% OR DR REB AST BLK STL PF TO PTS 5 0 2.2 0.0-0.4 0.0 0.0-0.4 0.0 0.4-0.4 100.0 0.2 0.4 0.6 0.2 0.0 0.6 0.4 0.0 0.4