Simply put, ball was not going in the basket the other night. That magnified all the other mistakes. That also allowed ULM to take the air out of the ball after they took the lead on Thursday night. We are OK at playing defense for 20 seconds but not 30. We frequently give up a basket in last 5 seconds of the clock when teams hold it. We still had way too many turnovers today but that was not highlighted due to the shots going in. Basketball today in both the pro and college game is all about which team shoots the three ball the best. That is the case almost regardless of record of the teams. ULM hit 11 threes the other night while we hit 14 today. This may have been the worst loss of the year for ULM and I am sure they will tell you it is because we were hot from outside. I am not sure the dominance of the three ball on outcome is a good thing for the game. In fact, I would argue it is a detriment to the game. Still if we want to be more successful going forward, we have to find better shooters or have the current guys shoot it like today more consistently. We also can't get more than a few points behind so teams don't hold it on us.
Holding the ball by the Warhawks came once they had the lead. You are correct in that the four 3 pointers in that stretch by the Warhawks caused the Cajuns to hang their heads some. Still, my main point remains. Team that shoots it best from three wins. Couple of those threes you mentioned by ULM were fairly well defended.
Although the following article is related to the NBA and not college, I think the premise holds. Basically it makes the point that the team that shoots the three well ball the best usually wins. Explains lots of upsets in the NBA this year. College game has lots of similarities. Personally, I think it is terrible for the game. Rules need to be changed to lessen the number of three pointers taken. College line should be moved to the NBA line and NBA line should go to 30 feet with short corner three being eliminated. One analyst suggested that after a certain no. of threes are attempted or made (say 40 in pros or 30 in college) every shot made from behind the arc count only as two points. That would be interesting would it not. Anyway the three game losing streak is explained by giving up 11 made threes in each one. We need to continue to work on insuring we lessen that number in remaining games.
https://www.theringer.com/nba/2021/2...point-shooting
That is what is so frustrating about Marlin and his defense. There is usually once or twice a game and the opponent will dribble the ball down and have an uncontested 3 pointer. Usually it is a good shooter. Against ulm it was a guy that had already just hit 1 or 2 in a row.
Yes it was frustrating to see the Warhawks have a few open looks from three after the game plan was to run them off the line. However several of their makes came when they were fairly well covered. Also some of those makes came from guys who were not considered good shooters coming in. Still once they catch the hot hand you have to adjust. Much better job overall yesterday. My main point remains. Hot shooting team from outside wins frequently these days regardless of other factors.
I posted this over on TOS. Marlin has not developed a floor leader since Jay Wright. We had Long and Gant, and neither were vocal leaders/motivators on the floor. '18 was tooling along fine until Jay started getting dinged. Have not developed one since.
All great analysis of the game from a basketball fan here. I don't really care for the game, at least not these days, so I'm one who is generally not concerned with the program.
Except for the fact that Bob Marlin seems to want to make excuse after excuse. That in itself was tiring enough to read, but then he says what he did in the comparison of Sunbelt basketball to Sunbelt football.
That sort of ill-minded arrogance comes off as someone grabbing for any argument to not lose his job. Luckily for him, he's AD Maggard's one screwup. Dr. Maggard has hit on everything else he's done, but Marlin's contract extension with the buyout has definitely hurt us.
Everyone misses, though. Look at Belicheck, an all-time great, thinking he'd be back in the playoffs with Cam Newton at QB. So that's going to happen.
I just hope Dr. Maggard called Bob into his office after that statement and chewed his entitled-minded ass out.
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