Fran got beat by Izzo

Yup. It's almost as if he doesn't believe in momentum. The use of timeouts on the road should be exclusively for breaking momentum. The home team hits back to back 3's and the crowd is roaring....TO! Settle your guys. Draw up and inbounds play and score. That will shut the crowd up and stem the momentum. Appeantly Fran does not subscribe to this school of thought.

Exclusively ...no. but it is a good tool. Until this year I thought momentum considerations were illegal given fm and kf.
 
In all fairness, I don't think this team is going to slide. I think they have proven that they will keep competing. They have enough talent to play with just about anyone. I think we might steal the Maryland game still. We play so much better the 2nd time against teams we have seen. I also expected to lose the MSU game. I was more surprised that we were in it for so long and was sad for the players the way we lost it. The 2nd half press was like pounding nails through your own feet. I was just disappointed that Fran had no back up plan.
While I HOPE you are correct. I think what we've seen from Fran, no matter where he has been, he is good at making teams competitive but he has not been great in NCAA tournament play. He made one run in the NIT only to get embarrassed in the final game and we have seen some unexplainable complete collapses since he's been here. I am only optimistic in the thought that he can recruit and coach well enough to make it into the Madness of March but he has NOT demonstrated anything beyond that.
 
Fran does call timeouts to stop momentum now. This is an argument for previous years.

I have seen him call them when we're ahead and losing a lead. This doesn't necessarily prove that the time out was deployed because of sensing momentum. The masters know how to stop another teams momentum with the lead or trailing. Watch an Arizona game. Sean Miller only uses timeouts when momentum is slipping no matter when or what the score is. 3 games ago he called a timeout within the first minute of the game. Arizona was down 4 to zip. Oregon started off perfect. After the TO Arizona scored and kept the game within 1 possession for another 10 minutes. Oregon still beat the piss out of Arizona, but even the commentators commented on what a nice TO it was and how flat AZ looked to start. Had we done this during that 6 possession run by MSU it could have changed the whole game. If we had also switched from press back to zone. I think we could have been in a great position to win.
 
While I HOPE you are correct. I think what we've seen from Fran, no matter where he has been, he is good at making teams competitive but he has not been great in NCAA tournament play. He made one run in the NIT only to get embarrassed in the final game and we have seen some unexplainable complete collapses since he's been here. I am only optimistic in the thought that he can recruit and coach well enough to make it into the Madness of March but he has NOT demonstrated anything beyond that.

Fair assessment. It does suck that we always lose to someone in the tourney that ends up in the final 4 or eventual champion. Seems like bad luck a little. I mean Nova beat Oklahoma in the final 4 by 40 some points. Getting Nova in the second round was a really bad draw. We could have beat alot of other teams. A sweet 16 would have improved Fran's overall review I'm sure.
 
I wondered if fatigue was the primary factor.....

Brutal game at extremely hostile arena that is one of the toughest venues in the Big.....

Apparently took some of the wind out of the Hawks sails.....

Vast difference between the first and second half.....

Lads ran out of fuel.....

:cool:
 
While I HOPE you are correct. I think what we've seen from Fran, no matter where he has been, he is good at making teams competitive but he has not been great in NCAA tournament play. He made one run in the NIT only to get embarrassed in the final game and we have seen some unexplainable complete collapses since he's been here. I am only optimistic in the thought that he can recruit and coach well enough to make it into the Madness of March but he has NOT demonstrated anything beyond that.

I've never understood this narrative. Fran is what 2-3 in the tournament at Iowa, with two losses to #2 seeds with Iowa. Did you expect to beat the team that won it all last year? If Fran starts getting Iowa to higher seeds and losing, than this argument would make sense.
 
I wondered if fatigue was the primary factor.....

Brutal game at extremely hostile arena that is one of the toughest venues in the Big.....

Apparently took some of the wind out of the Hawks sails.....

Vast difference between the first and second half.....

Lads ran out of fuel.....

:cool:

Yet another reason why the second half press was ill-advised.
 
I've never understood this narrative. Fran is what 2-3 in the tournament at Iowa, with two losses to #2 seeds with Iowa. Did you expect to beat the team that won it all last year? If Fran starts getting Iowa to higher seeds and losing, than this argument would make sense.

Not that I fully disagree, but isn't Fran partly responsible for the teams performance and subsequent NCAA seeding?
 
As I've written on another thread - they lost the game because they couldn't make baskets outside of the layups and dunks. They had good looks, it's not as if they were being smothered all the time on defense, they weren't going down. If Jok, Bohannon, Moss and Ellingson make 4 3-pointers between them, it's going down to the wire. They collectively went 0-13. 4-13 is only 30%, hardly setting the world on fire. You can analyze the stuff out of this game, and it will always come back to poor shooting as the reason they lost this game.
 
Not that I fully disagree, but isn't Fran partly responsible for the teams performance and subsequent NCAA seeding?

Yes. But that doesn't make him a poor NCAA tournament coach. That would make him a poor regular season coach, if folks have expected more than the turnaround we've seen with Fran.
 
As I've written on another thread - they lost the game because they couldn't make baskets outside of the layups and dunks. They had good looks, it's not as if they were being smothered all the time on defense, they weren't going down. If Jok, Bohannon, Moss and Ellingson make 4 3-pointers between them, it's going down to the wire. They collectively went 0-13. 4-13 is only 30%, hardly setting the world on fire. You can analyze the stuff out of this game, and it will always come back to poor shooting as the reason they lost this game.

Uh....every team loses because of not making enough shots. Plenty of good teams can win on poor shooting nights. We were right with MSU even with the poor shooting. Something else happened. My opinion is the 6 possessions I started this thread about.
 
This MSU squad not better IMO. About equal is how I feel. They are more athletic though. That is what 22 years of being great does for you.


This isn't a great MSU team, but you can see the upside, you would have to be blind not to see it. Wright who has the ugliest shot I have ever seen was making long distant jumpers last night. Everyone and their Mom knew MSU would make a run in the 2nd half, Iowa needed to withstand it or counter they did neither.....end of story.
 
Uh....every team loses because of not making enough shots. Plenty of good teams can win on poor shooting nights. We were right with MSU even with the poor shooting. Something else happened. My opinion is the 6 possessions I started this thread about.
They should have been up by double digits in the first half if they'd have made more baskets, which then impacts how the second half is played. Nope, it was poor shooting that cost them this game.
 
With respect to your JOK being mugged comment. Honest questions: First did you even watch the game? or Second do you not know what a Basketball Mugging looks like?[/QUOTE
With respect to your JOK being mugged comment. Honest questions: First did you even watch the game? or Second do you not know what a Basketball Mugging looks like?

I saw only the first half because I had a family function to attend during the second half.

But with respect, did you read Jok's comments after the game? He said MSU was playing "illegal" defense by constantly grabbing and holding him. "Illegal" was his word, not mine. In basketball lingo, that means he was being mugged.
 
I saw only the first half because I had a family function to attend during the second half.

But with respect, did you read Jok's comments after the game? He said MSU was playing "illegal" defense by constantly grabbing and holding him. "Illegal" was his word, not mine. In basketball lingo, that means he was being mugged.

I read his comments and IMO it sounded like Jok went the excuse route for his poor performance.
 

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