Based on what we know about the first five opponents the Mocs have played this year, Kansas is the best team. Louisiana Tech is the second best team.
Yet, despite the fact that the Bulldogs had beaten Troy by 24 on Sunday and the Mocs had lost to Troy by seven on Monday, there the Mocs were with just a few minutes left, tied at 58 with Louisiana Tech.
This was the game I had been waiting for. I had been waiting to see the Mocs play when they shot the ball well. Tonight, they did that. They had an eFG% up over 50%. They made threes. They made twos. Maybe most brilliantly, they did not shoot a lot of threes. As a team that has not been shooting well, they decided to back off the three point line. They made five of ten from three point range, which is a wonderful percentage, but not many shots from there.
Should they have shot more from three point range? This is an interesting question, and one that I may dive into at some point in the future. How many threes should the Mocs be shooting in a game? What percentage of their shots should be threes? Tonight, it was under 20% of their shots, which is their lowest this year, and I believe that it is significantly lower than any from last year too, which was the first year I was tracking it. I need to go back and check the stats on this. A later post will have some of this in it.
The Mocs played another fairly big team, and once again dominated the boards. They are really something else on the glass, considering that they have played four teams that were roughly the same size as them or bigger. Yes, I just counted Tennessee Temple in there, but that's because the Crusaders really are as big as many D1 teams. This is a team that night in and night out is going to bring the rebounding. That effort is huge.
The game was badly broken up by poor officiating in the first half. They went to the courtside video three times in the first half. They needed to stop having official reviews. Then, they decided to start calling every touch foul on both sides for a few minutes. The refs were the story in the first half. The Mocs were up, and then the flow started getting broken up. Then the Bulldogs jumped out on a run and went up eight at the half.
Casey Jones played very well. He scored eight points and had five rebounds. Gee McGhee also had a huge game. He scored 19 points on seven of ten shooting. McGhee and Jones each had excellent games. Rico White is coming into his own. He scored ten points. White is very good and seems to be developing into one of the stars of this team. Drazen Zlovaric just scored seven points, but collected nine rebounds. Z Mason scored four points and also had nine rebounds.
The Louisiana Tech pressure really bothered the Mocs in spots. They turned the ball over 24 times. That was one of the major differences in the game. Combine that with the Mocs 10 of 19 shooting from the free throw line and that sums up why the Mocs lost tonight.
There were mistakes made at the end of the game. For example, the Bulldogs missed a shot and Louisiana Tech got the offensive rebound. The Mocs got fouled, and Zlovaric missed the front end of the one and one. The Mocs came down, and White turned the ball over. These were mistakes, but they were relatively correctable.
One of my questions is why the Mocs don't use pressure more. When they use, it always seems to be very successful. They are good at pressuring the ball. They are using it more than they ever have in the past, but I think they should use it for 30-35 minutes a game. Pick up full court. Even pick up really hard halfcourt. That seems to ignite the team's energy. I like it.
The Mocs are not as far away from being a good team as the record appears. They are very close to being a decent team. They get another shot against Kennesaw State on Saturday.
I still really enjoy watching this team play basketball. I know they are close. I enjoy rooting for this team. The journey continues.
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