Rotation without CJ

Bottom line - Kriener must elevate his play. If he continues to muddles about, without CJ, this team is in trouble. I don't like being reactionary (except while the games are going on, at which point I am nothing but reactionary), but, he's a senior, the time is now - he must step into the breach.

Once more unto the breach, dear friends, once more;
Or close the wall up with our English dead.
In peace there's nothing so becomes a man
As modest stillness and humility:
But when the blast of war blows in our ears,
Then imitate the action of the tiger;
Stiffen the sinews, summon up the blood,
Disguise fair nature with hard-favour'd rage;
Then lend the eye a terrible aspect;
Let pry through the portage of the head
Like the brass cannon; let the brow o'erwhelm it
As fearfully as doth a galled rock
O'erhang and jutty his confounded base,
Swill'd with the wild and wasteful ocean.
Now set the teeth and stretch the nostril wide,
Hold hard the breath and bend up every spirit
To his full height. On, on, you noblest English.
Whose blood is fet from fathers of war-proof!
Fathers that, like so many Alexanders,
Have in these parts from morn till even fought
And sheathed their swords for lack of argument:
Dishonour not your mothers; now attest
That those whom you call'd fathers did beget you.
Be copy now to men of grosser blood,
And teach them how to war. And you, good yeoman,
Whose limbs were made in England, show us here
The mettle of your pasture; let us swear
That you are worth your breeding; which I doubt not;
For there is none of you so mean and base,
That hath not noble lustre in your eyes.
I see you stand like greyhounds in the slips,
Straining upon the start. The game's afoot:
Follow your spirit, and upon this charge
Cry 'God for Harry, England, and Saint George!'
 
We beat Maryland without CJ. I still think we win the home games and have an outside chance at MN Sunday. It will help to get some practice time with the new shorter rotation. Guys should start to figure it out by our next home game. I think Fran should be BT COY if we get to 11-9 in the conference.

I've heard Hansen say that they basically don't practice right now. Mostly just walkthroughs, film, and shootaround for rest purposes. My guess is that isn't rare among many teams this time of year.
 
I think given our injuries and lack of bench talent it would be a good move for Fran to use all the timeouts he has, spaced out, to rest our best players, rather than subbing for them. Saving timeouts for an exhausted team, short on players is a misuse of the timeouts.

That said, at Minnesota, if they come out unconscious vs Iowa from three, similar to Purdue and Indiana, it won't make any difference how you use the timeouts.
 
I should also add we need to slow down our tempo. We don’t have the firepower to play into the high 70s and 80s right now. Slow the game down and hope the efficiency of Garza and Wieskamp is enough. Need the games to be in the 60s or 70s at this point.

I went to Mt. Pleasant to watch Iowa Wesleyan play Greenville University. Greenville is leading DIII in scoring at 133 points a game. They beat Iowa Wesleyan 136-119. Iowa Wesleyan had three players score 41, 29 and 26 but no one else made double figures. To contrast that, Greenville had 8 players in double figures. Greenville wanted to play fast an pressed the entire floor the entire game, swapping out 5 players at a time every several minutes.

The gist of this is that not having enough scorers on the floor will hurt you, no matter how talented your other players are.
 
If Fran goes with the starting 5 I predict we are going to just have to change our style a bit. Our strength there will be our size. Post Kriener on a smaller guy. Wieskamp should get some nice posts.

Toussaint to me just needs to initiate the offense. Get it started and move. Pass and go to the corner. That’s why I said I don’t mind Cmac having more usage with the ball in his hand. Toussaint pick and rolls are so clunky because his defender sags so far in. He should play like Jamari Wheeler on Penn State. Don’t shoot unless it’s the end of the shot clock, pass and move and lock your man up on defense. If you get a chance in transition go get a bucket, he’s actually more gifted on offense than Wheeler is. I really think Joe T can handle it, he’s had really good games, he needs to play smarter and we need to have smarter game plans.
Joe T biggest headache right now is no respect from the league. The refs just are not gonna let him compete like an upperclassman. He gets called for ticky tack and when he doesn't get the same call on his drives it takes him out of his game. I like to say this will change but it won't. Freshman in the Big, especially from non-blue bloods, just don't get many calls. I can see his frustration is growing. Fran will have to let him play through this and hope they let up on him. He is a salty defender but I think he's just realizing in this league closing out on a shooter is not enough, you have to actually be a threat to block or play grill defense. He learned that the last three weeks. Guys in this league, elevate over and shoot plus put it on the deck.
 
Let's not forget, for all intents and purposes, we played PSU without CJF the first time. While we lost, it wasn't a bad loss.

Simply my 2 cents .. ..
 
With Fredrick out our advantage is our size. Kriener had some nice moments and Pemsl had a decent game as well.

We also need to keep the tempo down which we kind of did today.
 
With Fredrick out our advantage is our size. Kriener had some nice moments and Pemsl had a decent game as well.

We also need to keep the tempo down which we kind of did today.

Is there any way Pemsl steps up big time now? Sometimes hitting rock bottom helps get you rolling again. We need him bad.
 
Was it just me or did he look more athletic today?

He looked more sure of himself and had his head in the game. Those plays he made today are there to make every game but he doesn't even try to make them. I'm not saying he doesn't have some physical limitations now, but his problems are almost entirely mental. Hopefully thos game is just what the doctor ordered.
 
Is there any way Pemsl steps up big time now? Sometimes hitting rock bottom helps get you rolling again. We need him bad.
If ever he were to play his best basketball since his freshman year, this would be the time. He could make teams pay dearly for doubling Garza by feasting on weak side putbacks.
 

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