Toughness and Heart

[hawgfan4life]

Our biggest weakness.  Our press rarely gets steals.  Teams float pass to player and we never flash for steal.  Portis is 6'10" and an NBA prospect and he plays defense like it is an all-star showcase game.  Can't count how many shots are made over him when he is in decent position when opponent catches the ball.  Madden thinks he is supposed to dribble 100 times before making a pass whenever it is crunch situation.

We are a decent team when not playing well and a good to great team when playing well but we are rarely an intense team looking to destroy the other team.  We need some mean players.

[hawgfan4life]

Meant lack of heart and toughnes is biggest weakness.

[ballz2thewall]

Our biggest weakness.  Our press rarely gets steals.  Teams float pass to player and we never flash for steal.  Portis is 6'10" and an NBA prospect and he plays defense like it is an all-star showcase game.  Can't count how many shots are made over him when he is in decent position when opponent catches the ball.  Madden thinks he is supposed to dribble 100 times before making a pass whenever it is crunch situation.

We are a decent team when not playing well and a good to great team when playing well but we are rarely an intense team looking to destroy the other team.  We need some mean players.

against iowa state bobby gave up at least three jump hoops when he had position, and was beaten soundly.

and frankly i've had enough of catching the ball at 7 feet and backing out to 10 to shoot.  particularly when unchallenged.

[ICEman]

Portis is prone to foul trouble.

[ra2ford]

The coaching staff doesn't exhibit toughness and heart.

Mikes comments about giving Clemson credit made we want to puke.

[chiefhawg]

The coaching staff doesn't exhibit toughness and heart.

Mikes comments about giving Clemson credit made we want to puke.

They are tough and have heart. This team does not have basketball smarts or maturity.

Anderson's post game comments are coach speak. Just like coaches always say what a great team we are. If you listen closely you will hear what they are really saying. Such as about Madden following the ISU game. "Madden was like a rag doll falling on the floor while the other team was at the other in shooting layups".

Yesterday, this is not verbatim, "getting trapped and throwing the ball away when you have timeouts. The options were call a timeout, a tie up with our possession or they foul us."  One would think that a Jr,#5, with 3 years experience would know those things. Better yet, they should have been reminded of them by the bench.

But then I think about Chris Webber in a National Championship game calling a timeout when they did not have one available.  Or the young man from Syracuse while playing us in an Elite 8 game in 94 or 95 can't remember exactly called a timeout that they did not have. Stuff happens.

I am feeling better with every post.

Now what is the coach going to do about it?

[Athog]

Our biggest weakness.  Our press rarely gets steals.  Teams float pass to player and we never flash for steal.  Portis is 6'10" and an NBA prospect and he plays defense like it is an all-star showcase game.  Can't count how many shots are made over him when he is in decent position when opponent catches the ball.  Madden thinks he is supposed to dribble 100 times before making a pass whenever it is crunch situation.

We are a decent team when not playing well and a good to great team when playing well but we are rarely an intense team looking to destroy the other team.  We need some mean players.

We need x & o's at this time not jimmy and joes! Players later... Coaching now!!

[OLDHOG]

We don't play smart basketball, haven't for years. How long is it going to take before we learn? I'm just asking.

[Kevin]

i think the problem with the basketball program is the same as it was during heath & pel.

selfishness, lack of discipline (on the court)

the best part that ma has done is clean up the academics & off court issues

we needed a coach to come in, and change the culture of the program. I don't see that on the court. just like yesterday, harris fouls late in the game, anderson looks disgusted. and this happened after they had been huddled up for a couple of minutes.

it also seems like, just when portis is about to get on a roll, other players quit throwing the him the ball, and start doing their own thing.

i wish he would clean those things up

[hawgfan4life]

We are leading the nation in assists or were before the game.  Can't say selfishness is the problem.  Winning solves a lot of problems but even in our victories, I saw a soft team.  I almost posted it after watching the Iona and the previous game but decided maybe I was just not judging fairly.  Now, I know i judged it spot on.  We have all kinds of issues just like most teams outside the top two or three programs have for their team.  However, problems can be compensated for with other strengths sometimes.  It is hard to compensate for anything unless you have the heart and will to grind out a victory out of the grip of defeat unless you shoot lights out.  When we are at home shooting lights out, we can beat anybody.  When we are playing anybody anywhere and aren't shooting well, we can loose to anybody because we won't work and fight for the win.  We have all the talent we need but we don't have the intangibles.  I love a lot of what Madden brings to the court.  I think he is a tremendous competitor.  However, I can't remember one game he carried the team to victory with a big play at the end.  I remember several all the way back to losing in the regional final in high school where he couldn't make the play.  He is a big time baller but not a crunch time play maker.  He needs to give the ball to somebody who is or run an  offensive play for a bucket.  I love Portis but he evidently could care less about blocking a shot because he keeps getting shot over when he is right there in every game.  The critiques go on.  Overall, they could overcome a lot of the critiques with a lot more will-to-win which is heart and toughness.  Nolan Richardson forced players to have it or they didn't play.  That does not seem to be Mike Anderson's style.  Hope I am proved wrong.  Either way, they are still better than last year and should make the tournament easy.

[arkansasstory]

You cannot lose to a horrible, horrible Clemson team and guarantee we are going to the tournament. I want to believe that we are better...but we cannot lose to Clemson.

[hawgfan4life]

Clemson isn't a great team but they beat LSU and that isn't a lousy program.  We didn't set the world on fire by no means but it wasn't like we sleptwalked through the entire game.  Clemson played well enough and made enough plays to pull off a miracle at the end because of stupidity that I would believe we won't repeat too many times.  We win a few, build some momentum, and fix our effort issues, and we are easily a top 15 caliber team.  Don't do those things, and we are still a tough team better than last year.

[Kevin]

We are leading the nation in assists or were before the game.  Can't say selfishness is the problem.  Winning solves a lot of problems but even in our victories, I saw a soft team.  I almost posted it after watching the Iona and the previous game but decided maybe I was just not judging fairly.  Now, I know i judged it spot on.  We have all kinds of issues just like most teams outside the top two or three programs have for their team.  However, problems can be compensated for with other strengths sometimes.  It is hard to compensate for anything unless you have the heart and will to grind out a victory out of the grip of defeat unless you shoot lights out.  When we are at home shooting lights out, we can beat anybody.  When we are playing anybody anywhere and aren't shooting well, we can loose to anybody because we won't work and fight for the win.  We have all the talent we need but we don't have the intangibles.  I love a lot of what Madden brings to the court.  I think he is a tremendous competitor.  However, I can't remember one game he carried the team to victory with a big play at the end.  I remember several all the way back to losing in the regional final in high school where he couldn't make the play.  He is a big time baller but not a crunch time play maker.  He needs to give the ball to somebody who is or run an  offensive play for a bucket.  I love Portis but he evidently could care less about blocking a shot because he keeps getting shot over when he is right there in every game.  The critiques go on.  Overall, they could overcome a lot of the critiques with a lot more will-to-win which is heart and toughness.  Nolan Richardson forced players to have it or they didn't play.  That does not seem to be Mike Anderson's style.  Hope I am proved wrong.  Either way, they are still better than last year and should make the tournament easy.

Easy to be unselfish when whipping lower level teams. I saw plenty of selfishness yesterday

[Kevin]

Clemson isn't a great team but they beat LSU and that isn't a lousy program.  We didn't set the world on fire by no means but it wasn't like we sleptwalked through the entire game.  Clemson played well enough and made enough plays to pull off a miracle at the end because of stupidity that I would believe we won't repeat too many times.  We win a few, build some momentum, and fix our effort issues, and we are easily a top 15 caliber team.  Don't do those things, and we are still a tough team better than last year.

Clemson is awful. No, justification for the game being close yesterday