Less than 6 minutes into the game and they are in the bonus

[muskieman]

I thought Moore and Q were lockdown defender but Childress ate them up. Love Scruggs but that was a terrible last possession. Once again we have one player have a great game and the rest below average. Bad loss

Childress ate everyone up. If he did make the basket he drew the foul. Raise you hand if you think this team can win if the bigs don't bring their O game? How ofter does Jones go 2-10 and Freemantle 0-2? Still, if X bigs make 4-12 X has a win. FT again sub-par but Wake makes 3 more FTs . Brown averages 11 points a game and had 14 or 15 in the first half. Marshall got to the line in the second half but between him and Jones with jones the only one that made 2 in a row and only did it one time. KyKy went 0-4 but I give him a pass but I hope he starts to show us his O skills soon. Well, it was an "if and but" game so I hope the coaches use it to chew on them and they learn from this game.

[Xavier2005]

They may have scheduled a weak non conference schedule to build up wins, but. They will not win games against quality foes. Not really a top 25. Going to be near the Bubble in March.

[Biggernlife]

Very very simple. you can’t give up 80 points per game with a weak “O” and expect to win. Why Tyrique doesn’t dunk every shot inside is another mystery along with the fact that when Freemantle is in he gets few post feeds to him in leiu of Long range outside low % shots..... Biggernlife

[Michigan Musketeer]

Disappointing loss to a 500 team who was without one of their best players. No help from the bench. Tandy 0-4 today and not showing much so far. Jones playing less than 3 minutes in the 1st half and going 2 for 10 for the game (no dunks). First road game and hopefully not a indication of not being able to compete in road games. They do deserve some credit for making a run when it looked like it might be a blowout. A lot of tough conference road games coming (no easy ones this year) Obviously a lot to work on before conference season begins. Better shooting would sure help. Butler, DePaul and Georgetown look better than last year. Seton Hall struggling now with key injuries to deal with. Teams 9-2 record mostly a result of a soft Pre - Season Schedule. Must see a lot of improvement before conference begins or it could be another rough season. (NIT)

[X-lucidity]

Well, I do feel a bit better now. Could be because several hours have elapsed since the end of that Wake Forrest turd fest. Or maybe, just maybe, because I watched the final 12.5 seconds of this evening's UC game 547 times........

[Anti-Homer]

AH had to go to yet another holiday party, which makes it difficult because a lot of the same people go, and I don’t want to be seen in the same dress…..I mean smoking jacket. However, I watched a lot of the game, and listened to B & J the other times. That, the stats, and glance at the play by play log gave a good picture as to what happened. As stated many times before, X has been living on borrowed time. Their schedule to date has been putrid, looking like a typical mid-seed NIT team’s. The BE is a decent league, but is nowhere near the caliber of the other power conferences, so there is no excuse for the latter (see schedules of Nova, Butler, DePaul, SH, Marquette, and others) . The BE is littered with teams destined to flame out in the first round. The one tourney team X played was FLA, who led the game pretty much from tip to buzzer. They also pulled victory from the jaws of defeat 3 other times from NIT teams. Even the win against NIT bound (currently) UC, X had to have a super human performance from someone who reverted back to the mean last night. The glaring issues of poor shot selection and no real consistent offense (8 assists TOTAL!), both of which led to a number of Wake run outs, continues.

Let’s face it. The wide-eyed comments from Steele that X could be an elite team defensively was built on the their performance against teams whose average Sag ratings hovers around the 200 mark. They are good defensively, but definitely not elite. Wake's aspiration is aCBI high seed. They have a 6-5 record, but is prognosticated accurately to finish in the bottom 3 of the brutal ACC, which means a loss total in the 16-18 range. They are not a good team. They were even missing their very talented 7 foot post player, who averages 14 a points and 10 boards a game, and X still settled for 22 treys (Goodin and Marshall were 2/8 – yawn), instead of pounding it inside.

Jones’ foul trouble obviously hindered this assumed plan a little, but they still had Freemantle, and even Carter. Also, holding Jones out for the final 17 minutes of the 1st showed a high school coach’s mentality. Even though he missed a lot of shots in the 2nd, he still ended up with double digit point and board total in 20 minutes, and missed 6-8 four foot shots. If he passed more out of the double and triple teams Wake employed, he would have doubled the team’s assist total, assuming X had cutters going to the hole, which wasn’t evident.

It’s one thing if X had the lead or showed the ability to stop Wake on offense, but they showed neither. I watched Oregon play Michigan yesterday. Oregon’s very good pg. picked up his 2nd foul in the 1st half with about 11-12 min to go, and Oregon had a 10 point lead. He was pulled from the game. The lead grew to 16-18. With 6 minutes or so to go, Oregon still had a 15 point lead, but definitely didn’t have the same flow on offense, so their coach brought him back in. They won in the overtime, and Pritchard scored 8 - 10 points in the last few minutes, including on four or five of their last possessions. Proactive and situational coaching is a good thing. Altman didn’t waste one of his best players, because he coached to win, as opposed to “not to lose.”

Bottom line is three guards from Wake scored over 75% of their points (61 of 80). Though cumulatively they are 36% three point shooters, they only took 10, hitting four (Marshall and Q, take notice). They did their most damage driving to the hole, drawing fouls, and hitting 19 of 22. Pretty simple. X struggled all night with switches on high ball screens, but Steele went to a match up zone – sagged pack line on 2 or 3 possessions. You would have though Wake had 3 Bluiett’s on their team based on X’s defensive scheme. They didn’t go a 3-2 or other zone because, as Steele said on his Coach’s Show, they don’t have one. No need to call your doctor, you should be shivering uncontrollably if you’re an X fan now. THEY DO NOT NOR PRACTICE A ZONE DEFENSE.

To Steele's credit, he implemented pressure when down by double digits with 6 or 7 minutes to go, and it worked very well, as it generally has all year. Why Steele didn’t try anything different much earlier when it was evident X couldn’t guard them off the dribble is mind boggling. Coach Steele is a nice guy. He even bough drinks for student’s after beating UC. I have hopes for him. However, many offensive/defensive coordinators in many sports have struggled in the big chair. I don’t think that will happen to Steele. He will succeed. I implored CM for years to put a vet coach on the bench, and he finally listened after 9 years of coaching, bringing in Coach Gaudio. Coach Steele follows a lot of CM’s playbook like leaving timeouts in his pocket. Hopefully, the former is another move he mimics.

Seacrest out.

[xavier71]

Wouldn't it be great if everyone would wait until the next day before posting about the game, thereby eliminating all emotion. Following the game, I read things like maybe exam week played a part in the poor play, or, thanking the freshman for their lack of contribution or saying J Cater should have stayed at OU. Not trying to offend anyone, but all schools have exams. Maybe TS had to tweak the practice schedule but I'd venture to say they missed little or no practice time and even if they did, they've been practicing since July. As for the freshman, how are they going to improve sitting on the bench? Tandy played 6 minutes and Freemantle spent his 15 minutes with his man sealed on his hip and never getting the ball. Carter's line 3/6, 2/3, 4 rebounds, 2 blocks and NO turnovers. Not that bad, but again hard to score when you don't touch the ball.

Still too much one on one. Offense does not run inside then out. Ball movement is almost non existent. When you only commit 8 turnovers you should hardly ever lose, unless you only have 8 assists. I do agree that if this team is going to be good the freshman will have to make a contribution. After all, our 4 core players were not very good last year until Hankins was inserted into the starting line up.

[olsingledigit]

I thought Moore and Q were lockdown defender but Childress ate them up. Love Scruggs but that was a terrible last possession. Once again we have one player have a great game and the rest below average. Bad loss

Childress ate everyone up. If he did make the basket he drew the foul. Raise you hand if you think this team can win if the bigs don't bring their O game? How ofter does Jones go 2-10 and Freemantle 0-2? Still, if X bigs make 4-12 X has a win. FT again sub-par but Wake makes 3 more FTs . Brown averages 11 points a game and had 14 or 15 in the first half. Marshall got to the line in the second half but between him and Jones with jones the only one that made 2 in a row and only did it one time. KyKy went 0-4 but I give him a pass but I hope he starts to show us his O skills soon. Well, it was an "if and but" game so I hope the coaches use it to chew on them and they learn from this game.

Well said, MM. Simply one of those games and X teams of all generations seem to have some of those after finals and/or the UC game. Look what happened to UC in their first game after the CTS also.

[muskieman]

I thought Moore and Q were lockdown defender but Childress ate them up. Love Scruggs but that was a terrible last possession. Once again we have one player have a great game and the rest below average. Bad loss

Childress ate everyone up. If he did make the basket he drew the foul. Raise you hand if you think this team can win if the bigs don't bring their O game? How ofter does Jones go 2-10 and Freemantle 0-2? Still, if X bigs make 4-12 X has a win. FT again sub-par but Wake makes 3 more FTs . Brown averages 11 points a game and had 14 or 15 in the first half. Marshall got to the line in the second half but between him and Jones with jones the only one that made 2 in a row and only did it one time. KyKy went 0-4 but I give him a pass but I hope he starts to show us his O skills soon. Well, it was an "if and but" game so I hope the coaches use it to chew on them and they learn from this game.

Well said, MM. Simply one of those games and X teams of all generations seem to have some of those after finals and/or the UC game. Look what happened to UC in their first game after the CTS also.

OSD I watch that UC game and that was just a brain fart at the end by their go-to guy, Cumberland and a foul then by his brother.

[longliveskip]

Trying to stay positive but we’ve seen this act too often the last two years. This performance is at best lackluster. Defense is supposed to travel but it sure didn’t today. People aren’t going to like this but it falls on Steele, he is the head man and the buck stops with him. Way too many embarrassments under him, a disturbing trend. Carter should have stayed at Ohio. The core four should be better, that’s on the coaching staff. Bad loss to a bad team, we seem to write that too often. Yeah, I’m pissed I expected more out this group I guess I’m the fool.

i wonder if we went to the Duke and UK message boards after HOME losses to SFA and Evansville, I'm betting we'd see a bunch of the same stuff.

it's unreal how quickly people "fall off the wagon". or is it "on the wagon"? i can't remember.

either way, RE-lax. it's one game. plenty of basketball left.