Oh where to start......................
My God that was just plain awful.............
Ok, the Good, the Bad and the Ugly
First, the good - Robert Dozier (Grade: B). I thought it was his best game of the season though he was out of rhythm a few times. I attribute some of that to missing a lot of practice over the past two weeks trying to heal the foot. The jump shot looked pretty solid and the rebounding was excellent. Please, no more behind the back passes.
Shawn Taggard (Grade: B). Pretty good game for Shawn. Very good interior defense. Nice amount of blocks and a huge offensive rebound at the end of overtime.
Willie Kemp (Grade: B-). Not a great game, but solid. He played with some good energy, but defensively he is still a liability (but much better than Mack).
Team defense (Grade: A-) - saved the day, won the game (or at least gave the Tigers a chance to finally win the game).
Joey Dorsey (Grade: B-). Joey played within himself tonight. He didn't appear to get frustrated and make dumb mistakes. His defense and rebounding were pretty solid. Did he air ball a free throw? Yes, he did - on national television.
Second, the bad - John Calipari (Grade: C-). Are you kidding me? Can a major college coaching staff not come up with something to open up a few shots for CDR in a gimmick-Dale Brown-defense like the Triangle and Two? Jeez, all you had to do was listen to Jay Bilas at half time. Set a baseline screen, please.
CDR. (Grade: C-) Chris, I know you were really frustrated in the game (as was anyone watching it), but when the opportunity is there to be a hero, don't miss a free throw and then commit a reach in foul with 5.8 seconds to go in the game.
Antonio Anderson. (Grade: C+) Please DO NOT SHOOT THE BALL OUTSIDE OF THREE FEET!!!! Hey, apparently Andre Allen (Grade: C+) has gotten the message. He only took one outside shot and he really didn't have a lot of choice considering no one was within ten feet of him and the shot clock was under 10 seconds.
Ok, I'll give Mr. Glue a Bad Plus. He played excellent man-to-man defense and he did a lot of little things to help the Tigers stay in the game. Also, the lay up at the end of overtime was very timely.
Derrick Rose. (Grade: D) Rose looked out of control and clearly had no command over the team in the first half. The half court pass that he threw in the direction of CDR that went out of bounds with about 90 seconds to go in the first half is a perfect example. It wasn't all his fault as CDR should be aware of what is going on, but Derrick doesn't know which buttons to push on this team. Yes, I know, he is a freshman. Well, if you take away the pure talent he has, he looks like a freshman point guard playing in his seventh game - not very good. Remember, Andre Turnover? O.J. Mayo clearly looked like the better freshman tonight in the that game. He showed very good poise and pretty sound judgment - give or take a few ill advised shots.
Doneal Mack (Grade: D) Attention Doneal - Please do not skip Defense 101 class anymore - you are a liability on the floor. Sometimes you make up for it on the offensive side, tonight you didn't.
The Ugly. Gosh where to start...........
Free Throws, UGLY!
Positioning for Rebounding, UGLY! (Ok, Taggart and Dorsey were ok)
Offense, UGLY! (Was there an offense? Thank God, Robert Dozier and Willie Kemp were playing. It seemed like Kemp hit a key three pointer every time Memphis had to have a basket to stay in the game).
Turnovers, UGLY! Man, every single time the Tigers had an opportunity to put together a mini-offensive run, they turned the ball over. I almost kicked the T.V. a few times.
Ok, I've recovered now............
2 comments:
i only got to watch the first half, and was amazed at how many times each of the tigers made a poor decision. and yet the game remained close.
i thought cal could have called a timeout and put jeff robinson and andre allen into the game.
you know, take out CDR and Rose. give them a talking to.
alter the flow of the game.
i mean, what would Tim Floyd have done.
how can you keep the triangle and two going against allen and robinson.
and still the tigers won the game. after all, that is the mark of a successful team.
Memphis was pretty lucky to survive, but it was the defense that kept them in the game.
As I said last night in the blog and Cal said this morning in the newspaper - Tim Floyd outcoached him last night.
That game exposes Cal's coaching weakness - making adjustments in a game.
I hope the Tigers will learn that the USC film will be everyone's future game plan. For USC it worked great because they have athletes that can match the Tigers toe to toe.
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