A win is a win, and I'll never complain about that. But this game should not have been as close as it was - we were up 11 with 5 minutes left and that lead was cut to 2 just 2 minutes later. Learning how to win and close teams out is something that will come with time and experience in those situations, and I think last night's game was a building block toward that.
Good
- I liked the offensive game plan by the staff to just pound the ball inside. Banks and Gueye had almost half of our FG attempts - shots weren't falling at the end of the first half, but started to find their way later in the game. I agree with Pea that I could deal with a few more kick outs/reposts, but overall was happy we were committed to getting the ball inside.
- Devoe was solid tonight. From what I've seen this year, he's a player that goes as his confidence goes. He's somewhat of a streaky shooter, so when he's feeling it like he was in the first half I'd like to see us run a set to get him another look. I'm really encouraged about where he could be as a player if he can play with more confidence consistently.
Bad
- I had an issue with Pastner sticking with the 1-3-1 as long as he did. It was effective early on, but Brey did a nice job of adjusting, and ND, specifically Laszewski, got a lot of clean looks from the corner later in the game. This make sense with Banks being the back piece because he's responsible for going sideline to sideline - he also played 38 minutes tonight. He was slow to close out, likely because he was exhausted, and even when he did get out to cover, the rest of the defense was slow to rotate, and several times, Mooney was open under the basket when he occupied the space that Banks vacated. It's concerning an adjustment wasn't made, and in my opinion staying in the zone almost cost us the game.
- Going hand in hand with defense, our defensive rebounding was poor tonight. This can also be attributed to the zone, especially the 1-3-1, because often times, one of your big men is left defending on the perimeter and isn't near the basket. 20 offensive boards is tough, and is the reason why they had 13 more shots than we did.