Bad Habits form easily

[Hawk1960]

A chain breaks at the weakest link. Same could be said for team defense. If one of five guys is not giving everything he's got a good team will exploit that. At times last night in the first half it looked like we had a couple guys that were the weak link. Too many easy, uncontested layups. Something happened in that locker room at half time and the 2nd half we were a different team.

 

[PCHawk]

He did play a season high 37 minutes last night and surprisingly had 6 steals. Granted several of those steals were passes thrown right to him vs poking the ball loose or jumping the passing lane.

What's more likely, Bohannon getting 6 steals or Pemsl making 6 threes? That is a crazy stat.

 

[SheagleHawk]

Agreed, the defense locked in the second half and quite frankly the offense should share some of the blame for this game being closer than we expected. We couldn’t get the ball inside to Cook and Garza, and it led to a bunch of crappy possessions.

That was frustrating as hell. Late when we finally took the lead back we had back to back trips down the floor to potentially push the lead from 2 to 6-8 we made absolutely piss poor decisions. One Connor tried some weak ass drive to the right and tried to shoot with his left hand over one of their bigs and ended up eating the ball. Then we get another chance after Pitt missed/TO and Baer(I know he played well) took some 23ft'r running off a screen that hit the backboard a good ft to the right of the rim. I mean that is in NO WAY his game. If he's shooting 3's he needs to be set. He's not JBo who is capable of hit 3's like that. Just horrible situational awareness. Get the gall inside and continue to make them foul you and make some FT's

 

[DDThompson]

I said after the Alabama State game I was concerned about seeing the old Iowa ole’ defense returning for the last 30 minutes of that game. Wouldn’t you know it it returned there the first 20 minutes of the game tonight.

Luckily they went into the locker room at half and committed to playing hard on the defensive end and it got them the win tonight. Hopefully a wake up call for this team and they will continue to improve. Glad we got the win.

Wasn’t worried because Bama State sucked.

 

[NikeHawk21]

Wasn’t worried because Bama State sucked.

You completely missed the point. Bama St sucked and the Iowa guys went back to their lazy ole’ defense because they knew they could score at will because Bama St sucked. The problem was that lazy defense carried over into the 1H of the Pitt game and almost lost us the game. Had we not shot well in the 1H we could have been down 15+.

 

[DDThompson]

You completely missed the point. Bama St sucked and the Iowa guys went back to their lazy ole’ defense because they knew they could score at will because Bama St sucked. The problem was that lazy defense carried over into the 1H of the Pitt game and almost lost us the game. Had we not shot well in the 1H we could have been down 15+.

No I didn’t miss the point. Everybody eases up on defense when they’re up 50-15

Evvvv errrrrrr eeeee buudee does.
That’s why there aren’t many 95-40 games against this level of competition.

Now if they would have played this defense for the entire game against Pitt then, yeah, I’d be worried.

BUT I’m still in the “prove it to me” mode.
5 halves against quality competition is good; there are a lot more halves to play.

 

[hawkeyebob62]

He did do a good job for the second half, but I was just trying to say I thought the reason they played so poorly the first half was they were thinking about Wisconsin.

Or...you could give Capel and Pitt some credit. They knew what they needed to do it, and did it pretty darn well.

 

[DDThompson]

McCaffery did a poor coaching job getting the team ready. I like to think he was probably working on preparing them for Wisconsin this Friday. Anyway, they didn't look like they knew what they were doing the first half.

Doubt very much they were looking past Pitt.

Pitt watched film and did different things than Oregon and Uconn. Fran and Iowa did not adjust well. It happens. Pitt was very emotional 1st half and shot their wad. The D picked up in 2half. Iowa wins.

 

[SidFarkas]

Or...you could give Capel and Pitt some credit. They knew what they needed to do it, and did it pretty darn well.

Pitt is better than people are crediting them for.

They were extremely physical with Iowa last night, tough to come off screens when you are being tackled. ACC refs sucked...a dozen missed traveling calls on Pitt. Not ticky tack, but three and four step travels.

They played 4 guards and one post. FM tried different d combos with Cook and Garza in...it just wasn’t going to work. Plus, Pitt hit everything, that happens sometimes - shot 61% in 1st half.

Major adjustments made at half, credit to FM, and the Hawks grinded it out. Actually, this physical battle was exactly what we need to prepare for UW and MSU.

 

[MelroseHawkins]

Geez people, some of you think we are just going to win every game by 15-20pts. Basketball isn't like that. They have 3 wins over P5 non-conference teams for goodness sakes.

Until they COMPLETELY shit the bed on defense, I'm not sayin' shit.

 

[SteveGarvey1]

I’m not sure what post specifically you may be referring to but the point of my OP was that it appeared to be a carryover effect from the lack of effort and intensity shown the last 30 minutes of the Alabama State game. You can’t just flip a switch and decide to be good at defense, you have to to work at it and commit to playing hard on that end. Luckily they got it figured out at halftime and won the game. Hopefully lesson learned.

Or...you could give Capel and Pitt some credit. They knew what they needed to do it, and did it pretty darn well.

They teach their players to flop well, that's for sure. Must have gotten away with those 4-5 times last night.

 

[thedukeofearl]

The Hawks showed resilience and determination to comeback against Pitt and the Zebras. I despise Jeff Capel for his lowlife style of play on offense and defense where he utilized the Flop strategies. I missed the start of the game, about 8 minutes worth, but it soon became evident that the referees were calling the slightest touch fouls on the Hawks......

It is a strategy by unethical coaches to establish early in the game the principle of flopping whether or not their players actually fall down. They just act as though they have been violently pushed and they stumble as though they have been poleaxed. When this is established the zebras are particularly sensitive to mere brushes by the Hawks on their opponents.....

It became extremely aggravating to watch this over and over. It is a testament to the experience of the Hawks to overlook this factor and play on. They had to play two opponents, Pitt and the zebras. They did well to maintain their composure and rally to lead and hold on the to lead until the final buzzer.....

It became most irritating when they started manhandling Tyler. He was lying on the floor after one encounter under their basket and the referees let the game go on until finally, they decided to stop play until Tyler could be moved off the floor. No call whatsoever, and then they started playing football smashing into Baer the most important Hawk on the floor. I was not certain they wouldn't call the foul on Baer, essentially giving the game to Pitt.....

I believe they were unimpeded on driving to the basket in the first half because we did not want to have the entire team playing soft in the second half because of touch fouls acquired that early in the game. It had to be obvious to our coaching staff what was going on.....

Zebras were intimated by Capel's style of play into almost giving the game away. They should be flogged to death in the University Student Union.....