Where were Woodbury and Gabe when MSU went on there run?

[HaydenHawk56]

Why Iowa lost came down to these 3 things:

1. Not having size in the game down the stretch.
2. Poor Guard Play by Iowa.
3. Poor Officiating. Actually really bad.

I just don't get our sub patterns. Someone needs to ask Fran about not having Woody and Gabe in the game more in the 2nd half.

 

[CPHAWK82]

This is what I thought as well. Maybe he thought he wanted to get his best scorers out there, but Woody and Olaseni owned the paint in the first half and forced MSu to chuck shots. Marble also should of been handling the ball more when Gessell went out. Clemmons just looked like he was driving for a hope and a prayer with no real thought on what to do with the ball.

 

[pacoyal]

Agreed here. When O and Woody were out, their PG drove and had many layups. That was huge. How many layups can you get to get back into the game?

And yes, bringing in Ogelsby didn't work for the 6th of out 8 times (not scientfic, but pretty close).

It would have been great to have Ola or Woody in there to have a presence or at least get a real foul

 

[PCHawk]

It's gotta be disheartening for woody to play like that then sit the whole 2nd half basically.

 

[smhawk]

It's gotta be disheartening for woody to play like that then sit the whole 2nd half basically.

This has been the consistent thing Fran has done, going smaller at end of play. But I agree, with who MSU had at front court I was frustrated to see Mccabe in the game nearing the end. He was pretty much a liability on defense and non factor this game on offense.

 

[ILHawk]

A team consistently loses late games and it's about refs...ok

 

[SpecialKHawk]

This has been the consistent thing Fran has done, going smaller at end of play. But I agree, with who MSU had at front court I was frustrated to see Mccabe in the game nearing the end. He was pretty much a liability on defense and non factor this game on offense.

I agree.... there has been a consistent theme in the majority of these close loses down the stretch where we gave up a big run and it's the small lineup. Especially the lineup featuring McCabe who is a huge liability defensively, does not rebound and is not a post player. When they elected to go small we were up 46-36 with about 6 minutes to play. After that we gave up a number of drives (no one to contest at the basket) and could not rebound the basketball off of the first miss. Why on earth Fran went small in this game I have no idea but it cost us big time.

The officiating in the second half was about as bad as I have seen it since the last time we played MSU in carver. It may have been worse and I'm not sure how that is even possible.

I still think if we had stuck to playing our big men and gone with Eric May at the small forward instead of McCabe at the post we might have pulled it out. Several of those baskets in that run where off of second opportunities where McCabe and others did not secure the rebound. It's like we completely lost sight of what got us rolling in many of these victories. I love Fran but I do have a complaint on how critical he is of our big men. I think they have been very good this year but if they make one mistake he loses 'trust'.... meanwhile the guards turn the ball over routinely and somehow he trusts McCabe down the stretch (who I do like but not in those situations)?

In my mind playing small too often this year is what cost us a tourney bid. You cannot do that in the B1G and get away with it consistently and it's the same exact issue we had the season before (trying to play Basabe, McCabe, etc. in the post). I was very excited for this season as I thought we finally had the post issue solved but then we completely go away from playing a true post?????