I looked back at the season today as to our 1st half vs. 2nd half performance. Actually was interesting. I realize the sample size isn’t that large and anything can happen in one game but it bodes well if we get off to a good start tomorrow night.
One key takeaway, we have been tied or had the lead at halftime in 17 games this year and are 17 - 0 in those games. Haven’t given up one halftime lead all season. I give a lot of credit to that as we are generally good ball handlers late (w/ Mike often going to 3 guard line up) and the super FT shooting down the stretch.
That leaves 14 games in which we trailed. We were 6 - 8 in those. That’s actually not that bad of a record in games we trailed. But upon closer look, the games we came back typically had small deficits at the half. Those included Houston (1), Tenn (2), A&M (2), Texas (5). The largest halftime deficits we erased were @LSU (9) and UTA (11). I didn’t remember being down 11 at home to UTA at the half.
Of the 8 games we lost, we trailed at the half every single time. On average we were down 13 and lost by 14. KY was the only game that was real close at the half and got away from us. We trailed by 3 and lost by 26. Many of others we got down big early and it was over. MN (17), OSU (26), Vandy (19) Florida (13 on the road, 9 at home). We never challenged in any of those games.
So let’s hope we get off to a good start. Can’t take anything for granted in a tournament but we’ve proven the ability to hold a lead late.
I hope we don’t start in the man defense and stubbornly stay in it isn’t working. I am concerned that we can’t afford to get down double digits in the first 10 minutes before we switch to more Zone and a few spurts of man and press to catch them off guard.
Ha. We opened in man for UGA and dominated. We got out and lost our lead. We dominated in Man against UGA. I hope we don’t go to the zone because that’s what fans want and we lose a lead. I hope Mike does what he thinks is best regardless how fans think it affects the game. If we want to talk about zone lets talk about the man we played and dominated UGA. Lets talk about the zone we played and lost the lead. Lets see the big picture and not pick out the times you think Man cost a game. Let’s talk about the time Man won us the game. Let’s be fair.
Support our hogs period! What ever Coach does with our hogs we need to support. He knows this group of hogs better than any of us.
I’m hoping we come out knocking down shots, avoid fouling, solid defense and rebound well !
Hope for a win! We should and will.
The great thing I love about MA, especially this year is he’s figured out when something isn’t working to switch it up. I think Mike is old school, really set in his ways of doing things but he’s also learned from that as well. So I expect whatever we come out in tonight zone or man he will be ready to change things if its not working.
Man was the right thing to play against UGA. UGA doesnt’ have strong guard play behind Frazier, nor a lot of quickness. Ole Miss is a different team, they have a deeper pool of good guards, (Tyree, Burnett, Davis, Neal). I think Mike will want to push pace since OM only goes 8 deep, but he’ll need to be careful. I like to see a lot of Kingsley and Thompson together and let’s see if we can take Saiz out of the game.
I was thinking same thing. When they showed Tyree on the bench when he was holding his shoulder, there was another Ole Miss player next to him that was sucking pretty hard. May be able to run them out in the 2nd half.