ASU stats-not an accident!

[jct1941]

AZU's six games go like this. They have scored 94-90-97-99-92-102 for average of 96 points. I know my first thought after the game that they just had "the game of their life" until I looked at the above. It seems to me that they are "ligit" and are a scoring machine. The announcers stated they have two players (bigs) coming in Dec. With the PAC-12 somewhat down they just might the best team in their league. Just saying! Go Xavier!

[lionelchalmers0]

True, but a couple game plan changes could have made this an easy win.

1. Their only two good players are tiny. We should have bullied them down low early and often to rack up fouls on them since their bench was awful. And Tre had the white shooter on him. He should have been beating him to a pulp getting to the bucket.

2. all they did was take their little guards and slash/kick and slash/score. We clearly could not stay in front of them. We should have actually given them a step to keep them from driving and use our much better length to recover on the jump shot.

3. They did the token press thing all game which I think slowed our offense down. Our point guards never just ran by their guy or tried to draw a foul. Instead we'd just dance with him and get down and start our offense with the shot clock already down to 18-19. We should have pressed them back to some degree to make them uncomfortable and make them run considering they had 3 players with any talent on their team and zero depth.

This was a game where we faced a team with a couple of strengths and lots of huge holes and we decided to exploit zero of the holes and just kinda "do our thing."

[jct1941]

Lionel - I agree with most all of your statements but when XU backed off their guards they kept hitting threes. The game was called VERY close in that if your made any contact at all the refs caked a foul ( on both sides). I do agree with COACH in his post that we will struggle when Tre does not get his points. 86 points should win most games but not when a team averages 96 points. I'm probably wrong but I see ASU is going to be a tough out no matter who they play. Go Xavier!

[Anti-Homer]

True, but a couple game plan changes could have made this an easy win.

1. Their only two good players are tiny. We should have bullied them down low early and often to rack up fouls on them since their bench was awful. And Tre had the white shooter on him. He should have been beating him to a pulp getting to the bucket.

2. all they did was take their little guards and slash/kick and slash/score. We clearly could not stay in front of them. We should have actually given them a step to keep them from driving and use our much better length to recover on the jump shot.

3. They did the token press thing all game which I think slowed our offense down. Our point guards never just ran by their guy or tried to draw a foul. Instead we'd just dance with him and get down and start our offense with the shot clock already down to 18-19. We should have pressed them back to some degree to make them uncomfortable and make them run considering they had 3 players with any talent on their team and zero depth.

This was a game where we faced a team with a couple of strengths and lots of huge holes and we decided to exploit zero of the holes and just kinda "do our thing."

They did the token press thing all game which I think slowed our offense down.

What a concept!

[Lead Guitar]

We have a number of guys who can bring the ball up--at least two are on the floor at all times. Goodin does not need to bring it up ever time after a made basket. Nice strategy, though, to slow us down with that move. I think Mack will make an adjustment when it happens again and I expect it will. Although not ideal, Macura or Scruggs can star the offense.

[Alpalpa]

They're a good team. Give them time to learn from their losses and grow into the season. No team goes unbeaten at this level, and it's still a long time till March. They'll do fine.

[thecoach]

4 of their 5 wins going into last night's games are against teams with a combined 3 and 8 record. They haven't exactly played world beaters in that stretch. They were behind a good bit of the K state game.

[muskieman]

4 of their 5 wins going into last night's games are against teams with a combined 3 and 8 record. They haven't exactly played world beaters in that stretch. They were behind a good bit of the K state game.

if that is the mark of a bad team then explain Duke vs Texas OH and BTW they beat K St. You don't get extra points on your W/L total for being ahead the whole game just who is ahead when the clock read )) in the second period..

[X-lucidity]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zDAmPIq29ro

Look, ASU would seem to be more talented than just about anyone pre-season anticipated. Good for them. Let’s hope they can maintain at least some similar level of play to help bolster our RPI and make this less of an embarrassing loss come March. Early season matchups allow coaches to adapt & learn. I learned Friday that lightening quick guards could be our kryptonite. Especially when they can also shoot a decent % from deep. X did not get much from Tre and that will be something we need to improve upon so as not to become a 1-trick pony. Gates went cold 2nd half along with poor decision making when we did have a couple chances late to close the gap. Hey, face it, we got run… Going to happen now & then. Better in Nov than in Feb. Kanter continues to improve on the offensive end. Hoping our staff is working OT on improving his defensive awareness and footwork - So at least some silver linings. L-O-N-G season, not always a bad thing to be forced to look in the mirror early on..

[skyhops]

Looked like we underestimated them after we built a lead and allowed them to dictate the game. Our defense was terrible and Gates seemed to think he was a two guard again (2 boards). We haven’t really played much competition this year so hopefully we can learn from this.