I would flush this game and no need to point out any players because no one played well tonight. Moreso our gameplan and lack of adjustments just sucked. No crime in losing to a good team on the road so won't overreact but hope we respond well against a bad Arkansas team on the road midweek. Lost opportunity to get on the 1 seed line which is disappointing, but I suppose that is meaningless at this point anyway.
I hate it when the ole "they wanted it more than us" is thrown out there but effort definitely mattered throughout this game and A&M just got it done. Effort often shows up on the boards and they owned us. Two games in a row where this weakness has been glaring. When Knecht leads us in rebounding and he spent more time than usual on the bench due to foul trouble, that is a problem.
Overall, Buzz just had his guys prepared on both ends and our gameplan wasn't effective nor did we adjust at all. We just tried to spread them out defensively and it didn't work the entire game and we never really even tried our motion sets. Weren't aggressive offensively and had very little emphasis to get ball into the paint either on the post or by driving and we lived and died by the perimeter shot. We made it easy on A&M's defense.
On the other end, while they shot lights out especially early, we couldn't stay in front of their guards the entire game and couldn't block out anyone. As bad as we were offensively, we were much worse defensively. A&M scored 12 pts over their average. We never tried to trap and double their guards and force them to give up the ball, we continued to switch on screens and A&M just ran the same play over and over and over again with favorable 1x1 matchups. Even our best 1x1 defenders, Mashack, Zeigler and Vescovi got abused. Barnes didn't have any other solution to defend them. That was disappointing. We face A&M again at home and hope we prep better for what they present.
Move on and beat the Hogs! Our last 5 games of the SEC schedule is brutal. If we get to the point where the odds of us winning the SEC is low, you wonder if the coaches start looking to prepare for March and give some guys more rest. We looked tired tonight.
I hate it when the ole "they wanted it more than us" is thrown out there but effort definitely mattered throughout this game and A&M just got it done. Effort often shows up on the boards and they owned us. Two games in a row where this weakness has been glaring. When Knecht leads us in rebounding and he spent more time than usual on the bench due to foul trouble, that is a problem.
Overall, Buzz just had his guys prepared on both ends and our gameplan wasn't effective nor did we adjust at all. We just tried to spread them out defensively and it didn't work the entire game and we never really even tried our motion sets. Weren't aggressive offensively and had very little emphasis to get ball into the paint either on the post or by driving and we lived and died by the perimeter shot. We made it easy on A&M's defense.
On the other end, while they shot lights out especially early, we couldn't stay in front of their guards the entire game and couldn't block out anyone. As bad as we were offensively, we were much worse defensively. A&M scored 12 pts over their average. We never tried to trap and double their guards and force them to give up the ball, we continued to switch on screens and A&M just ran the same play over and over and over again with favorable 1x1 matchups. Even our best 1x1 defenders, Mashack, Zeigler and Vescovi got abused. Barnes didn't have any other solution to defend them. That was disappointing. We face A&M again at home and hope we prep better for what they present.
Move on and beat the Hogs! Our last 5 games of the SEC schedule is brutal. If we get to the point where the odds of us winning the SEC is low, you wonder if the coaches start looking to prepare for March and give some guys more rest. We looked tired tonight.
