I dont know how the practices go for Richard Pitino, but I know that I would probably not spend almost any amount of time talking about last night's game... Even Dupree, who basically was our only offense in the first half, did not score in the second half.. Assists were few, rebounding was not good, defense was lousy... Nothing to build off of for the next game.
Penn State is an interesting team, shooting the ball... They are in the bottom half in shooting % teams in the nation from both the 2's and the 3's but a top 25 team in the nation in FT shooting %. Penn State has had the week off from games going into this game and head coach Pat Chambers gave those guys a couple days off this week from practice after beating Michigan State at the Palestra.
Honestly, I think the biggest thing we can do is match their energy early.. Dont let their crowd get into the game as it is a weekend game with probable good attendance by their fans. Richard P has to keep the confidence of our guys high and make them realize what got us to this good record.. Primarily good passing and eliminate the one-on-one basketball as that is NOT our game. Rebounding and defense have to be 'front and center'. This is a team we can beat but I would love to be a 'fly on the wall' to see practice... His style maybe totally different but my opinion is to focus attention to the MENTAL side of what it takes to get back on track... Get leaders of the team to help the rest of the guys to really push for a high energy start at Penn State...
The shame of this year's team is lack of guard depth... If you have that depth, you can gather energy early in the game by pressing.. It is much harder for us to do that with our backcourt not having that depth. One thing to watch is Nate and Dupree are logging a lot of minutes. Those things are a necessity for us but surely not ideal. It definitely affects strategy of the team.
This is not preconference so a loss is followed by another Big Ten opponent in a few days that is capable of doing the same thing to you.. My guess is that 'cleaning up' things in the next few days will be as much MENTAL as physical before our guys get a week's break between games.
Penn State is an interesting team, shooting the ball... They are in the bottom half in shooting % teams in the nation from both the 2's and the 3's but a top 25 team in the nation in FT shooting %. Penn State has had the week off from games going into this game and head coach Pat Chambers gave those guys a couple days off this week from practice after beating Michigan State at the Palestra.
Honestly, I think the biggest thing we can do is match their energy early.. Dont let their crowd get into the game as it is a weekend game with probable good attendance by their fans. Richard P has to keep the confidence of our guys high and make them realize what got us to this good record.. Primarily good passing and eliminate the one-on-one basketball as that is NOT our game. Rebounding and defense have to be 'front and center'. This is a team we can beat but I would love to be a 'fly on the wall' to see practice... His style maybe totally different but my opinion is to focus attention to the MENTAL side of what it takes to get back on track... Get leaders of the team to help the rest of the guys to really push for a high energy start at Penn State...
The shame of this year's team is lack of guard depth... If you have that depth, you can gather energy early in the game by pressing.. It is much harder for us to do that with our backcourt not having that depth. One thing to watch is Nate and Dupree are logging a lot of minutes. Those things are a necessity for us but surely not ideal. It definitely affects strategy of the team.
This is not preconference so a loss is followed by another Big Ten opponent in a few days that is capable of doing the same thing to you.. My guess is that 'cleaning up' things in the next few days will be as much MENTAL as physical before our guys get a week's break between games.
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