Typing as I listen…. Good to get win. As we break down, there will be things to clean up. Transition d and 3 point line defense was terrible. USF a Really good team w shooters. But we gotta guard better. They did a good job limiting rim twos in first half and we settled. At half we made it an emphasis to take ball to rim… make ‘em stop us or get to line. We played with poise and got downhill better. Walter and Will are studs, leaders and stepped up. Their leadership was huge. A mentally weaker team could’ve quit but they pulled us thru (when down). Martin is a tough kid, did a lot of good things… didn’t shoot well but a lot of winning plays. He has a lot of belief. Fights to get down hill. I feel good having those guys and Denzel on the perimeter.
59 points in the 2nd half is insane. We just need to do much better coming out of the gate. Against a decent team we scored 98 points while shooting only 20% from 3 (5 of 25). 74% (28 of 38) from 2 helps. Reminds me of a lot of our past seasons. We also won the rebounds, turnovers and fouls margins. Love to see that. Walter and Will really are studs. Great to see Condo with 5 offensive boards too.
Really excited for this season, but I will probably often pause and imagine what could have been if we had Handles in this rotation. I won't post this again... TFG!!!!
That first half was all about USF getting early offense off bad threes by us and not enough offensive boards. They took fewer threes in the second half (ironically hitting more), but those were much tougher, contested shots.
Loved how we picked up the defense in the 2nd half. What more players need to realize is the harder you work on defense the easier offense is, especially with an athletic team like ours that can get out in transition
