ORU at South Dakota State

[TrueBlue82]

Throughout the non-conference season, our opponents’ TV guys kept gushing about how our front line would be an overwhelming force in the Summit.  A part of this was a compliment and a part was ignorance of how good the Summit is. But tonight, David Wilson single-handedly SCHOOLED both EMan and KO.   The Jacks, known as a perimeter three-point shooting team (which they also confirmed), scored SIXTY points in the paint.   We will need a full 40 minute effort from this team every night to stay competitive in the Summit.  Didn’t happen tonight. 

[Old Titan]

Paul Mills answers only two questions in the postgame radio “show” that lasted a grand total of 43 seconds. 

I don’t know if Coach Mills insists on keeping the postgame “interview” short - particularly after losses - or if Adam Hildebrand is simply too intimidated to ask more questions, but either way, it’s an absolute joke for anyone who bothers to tune in, or for the sponsor, Don Thornton Cadillac, who actually pays for that time slot. 

I can remember as recently as five years ago that the Tulsa World beat writer would be sure to tune into all the postgame shows to get quotes from the ORU head coach for the next morning’s story.

Why would they even bother these days?  So bush-league...

[ORU82]

It is disturbing to think that SDSU did what Okie State, Iowa, Wichita State, Creighton and BYU could not do, score 60 points in the paint.  Absolutely dumb-founded.  Put another way, I did not see this train coming down the track.

[ORUIllini]

Why is Lufile only playing 12 minutes????

[Old Titan]

7 minutes ago, ORUIllini said:

Why is Lufile only playing 12 minutes????

And why is Lazenby playing almost twice as many?

It’s a rhetorical question; there’s no logical response. 

[TrueBlue82]

Power of the message board - the first time Lazenby touched the ball, he completed a nice entry pass into EMan.  He should have earned an assist, but EMan missed the shot.  Of course, that was his final entry pass of the evening. 

[Keenan Henderson]

May have go back to zone defense the rest of the season to stop the lay up drill that SDSU ran tonight. ORU has had some poor defenses in the past 4-5 years but that one tonight took the . At this point all they can do is improve.

[ORUalum]

Perhaps Mills can borrow some of this....

Quote

POSTGAME QUOTES
Cal State Fullerton 77, UCLA 74
December 28, 2019

Mick Cronin, The Michael Price Family UCLA Men’s Head Basketball Coach
opening statement
“Congratulations to Dedrique (Taylor). Great guy. His team played excellent today. I apologize to our fans for our defensive effort, once again. We’re coming into the game, one of you guys had asked me in the press conference about our defense and I told you this, our metrics are horrible. You can’t defend, you can’t win. We give up 51 percent from the field, 58 from the 3-point line. You give them credit, they had a lot of guys make shots today that hadn’t made shots. They took care of the ball, they passed the ball, they found the open man. If you hold the ball long enough, we’ll break down. We’re not good enough to win with offense. We’ve got to win with defense and it’s a new thing for these guys. We don’t have hardened defenders and I’ve got to figure it out. Like I said, I apologize to people who took their time out of their Saturday over the holidays and paid to come and watch this, our defensive efforts. It’s beyond sickening. It’s beyond sickening. Sickening at the highest level. I don’t know how else to describe it to you.”

on effort in practice leading up to today
“Effort’s overrated. Everybody puts out effort. You’ve got to get the job done. We don’t get the job done. Everybody puts out effort. Effort’s way overrated. You’ve got to execute the defensive game plan. You’ve got to know who can shoot, who’s going to drive, all the way down to the last player. No. 10’s (Austen Awosika) going to drive and take a floater, Coach (Michael) Lewis showed them for three days.”

on message to team after game
“The message is really irrelevant. I’ve given them the same—I didn’t change. I didn’t change when I got here as a coach. It’s not like I forgot how to coach defense. At some point, you’ve got to keep five guys out there. Problem is, you’re playing guys who play. You’ve got try to find five guys that can get a stop. My message to them was it’s the same that it’s been: I knew this was coming. People just think, well, you’re on the road, or it’s your opponent. Our execution—here’s our problem in a nutshell: until we realize that the only reason teams do things like defend, really execute their plays, is because they have humility. You have humility. I’ve talked about it before and I talked about it over the holiday break. We need to get some humility, is my opinion. Some of its youth, but some of it is arrogance for no reason. Or ego for no reason. I told them our fate isn’t going to change until we get some humility. Cool does not win. You’ve got to be willing to do the uncomfortable things that go into winning and if all you’re worried about is getting 12 points regardless of the outcome for our team, it’s going to continue. My message to them in the locker room is at what point are they going to challenge each other. You can only do so much. I’m going to call Chip Kelly and see if he’ll loan me a couple guys, because our post defense, he’d just get wiped out, turn and lay it in. Stuff I’ve never seen happen before. We grabbed the rim on a guy who got fouled on a layup, we grabbed the rim and gave them two points on a goaltend. I’ve got a lot of work to do. It’s a shame that it’s at this point. You can only build a culture with guys that are going to be about what you’re asking them to be about.”

 

[Old Titan]

I’m still trying to figure out how a team can give up so many point-blank shots in the paint AND so many open threes. 

Apparently, ORU is running some new variation of the Pack Line Defense:  The Pack Free-Throw-Line Defense. 

[theeagleman5]

TheEagleman never imagined us giving up 96 vs. SDSU....I felt the game would be in the 70s and close.....we were in the 70s....didn't think the Jacks would put up almost 100.....62% shooting...I didn't see the game but the D must  have been god awful.....well, let's just hope it's a blip and we clean it up tomorrow in Omaha....I always felt that a split for these first two games would be the goal.....so all is well if ORU can get back on track vs. the Mavs.....

[Keenan Henderson]

9 hours ago, ORUalum said:

Perhaps Mills can borrow some of this....

 

It worked for UCLA! They won their next game on the road against a good Washington team 66-64. The ORU team that played last night is not the team we saw for the first 13 games and is not the team we will see for the next 15 games!

[oruvoice]

I'm not sure why there are so many surprised people by this outcome? ORU is 7-7 and almost all of those wins are against NAIA or D-2 teams, with a fluke win over a below average Missouri State. 

This is year 3 of a coach that struggles to make eye contact when in conversation, has openly blown off former players, doesn't/rarely gives a post game radio show, and generally has an attitude that he's too good to be here. This is what happens when a school president who knows nothing about athletics, hires your coach. 

I would say that it's time to cut your losses, but the same guy will hire the next coach and it'll just be more of the same, barring sheer luck. 

[Old Titan]

23 minutes ago, oruvoice said:

I'm not sure why there are so many surprised people by this outcome? ORU is 7-7 and almost all of those wins are against NAIA or D-2 teams, with a fluke win over a below average Missouri State. 

This is year 3 of a coach that struggles to make eye contact when in conversation, has openly blown off former players, doesn't/rarely gives a post game radio show, and generally has an attitude that he's too good to be here. This is what happens when a school president who knows nothing about athletics, hires your coach. 

I would say that it's time to cut your losses, but the same guy will hire the next coach and it'll just be more of the same, barring sheer luck. 

All I know is that South Dakota State's first-time head coach, who's only been at the helm for nine months, just ran circles around ORU's "game plan" with basically six freshmen and sophomores.

And then received a no-eye-contact "fly-by" in the handshake line for his troubles (1:49:23 on the ESPN+ playback, if you care to see it).

How much trusting the process is necessary before it's obvious "that" (i.e. any) dog won't hunt? 

Three years?

Four?

Five?

[EagleFan21]

51 minutes ago, Old Titan said:

All I know is that South Dakota State's first-time head coach, who's only been at the helm for nine months, just ran circles around ORU's "game plan" with basically six freshmen and sophomores.

And then received a no-eye-contact "fly-by" in the handshake line for his troubles (1:49:23 on the ESPN+ playback, if you care to see it).

How much trusting the process is necessary before it's obvious "that" (i.e. any) dog won't hunt? 

Three years?

Four?

Five?

I did not know the SDSU coach had only been on the job nine mos.  Wow.  This says quite a bit about Mills being in year THREE!  It would be more encouraging if we'd made it a game and lost in the final minutes, but we were not competitive.  SDSU scored more points last night than they had all year!   Since I didn't get to watch the game, how did we give up so many points?!

Let's hope our boys can surprise us in Omaha and pull out the W.

 

[Old Titan]

38 minutes ago, EagleFan21 said:

SDSU scored more points last night than they had all year!   Since I didn't get to watch the game, how did we give up so many points?!

It was a point-blank-at-the-rim festival, interspersed with great 3-point shooting.

From their opening possession, SDSU was completely prepared for ORU's double-team in the post, time and time again flashing their other big man or opposing wing to the opposite block for dump-down passes and lay-ups. 

Then, when ORU abandoned the double-teams and tried to go straight up man-to-man in the post, the Jackrabbit big men put on a literal clinic of backing down the ORU defenders with classic 2-dribble-and-a-fake post moves.

Finally, each time everyone in navy blue sagged into the paint to help, they would kick it out for wide-open threes (which, to their credit, they hit with more accuracy than in any other game this year).

It would have been a thing of beauty to behold, if only it wasn't happening to your own team...

[Dr. Cornelius]

3 hours ago, oruvoice said:

This is year 3 of a coach that struggles to make eye contact when in conversation, has openly blown off former players

What former players has Mills blown off? It seems like more players were through the Athletic Dept. this summer than any time in the past decade.

[theeagleman5]

Coach Mills always answers my e-mails and offered TheEagleman tickets when ORU travelled to Penn State....he seems like a good guy...maybe hes just not comfortable in public...

[ORU82]

While we are discussing Coach Mills and poor performance of his team in year 3 of his tenure, perhaps it is a good time to talk about the entire athletic department at ORU.  Blame President Wilson all you want, but Mike Carter apparently turns a blind eye to every other athletic program we have.  The GBB, Volleyball and Baseball coaches were all hired well before President Wilson came to ORU, and both GBB and Volleyball are pathetic at best.  I watched the OSU game GBB played a couple of weeks ago and quite frankly it was an embarrassment.  Not only did we lose, but most NAIA programs would have given Okie State more competition.  Going further, does anyone want to talk about how the GBB team performed in Brookings last night?  It was worse than MBB.  Coach Cussen has had a team that has failed miserably for years and I do not see that changing anytime in the future.  As for the Volleyball team. they fare even worse.  Then there is Coach Folmer's Baseball team which is slowly fading into the tank, year by year.  Unless things change this year he and his staff should be fired.  Baseball competes in one of the weakest leagues in all of D-I baseball and we could not even win the conference despite the fact that we spend way more on baseball then any other team in the Summit and also have some of the best facilities in the League.  Can someone tell me when was the last time we competed for the overall best athletic program in the Summit?  Our athletic programs by and large have been a joke for years even before Dr. Wilson showed up.  What then is the one common factor in all of that?  Mike Carter.  He allowed the Suttons to tank MBB when the plug should have been pulled on that regime years before it actually was pulled.  Be honest with yourselves, is ORU athletics overall really that good?  Athletic spending and donations to the program have increased.  About five or so years ago there were 270 Golden Eagle Club members.  This past year that number was very near 1,200.  If Coach Mills needs to be fired this year, and I am not taking a position either way at this time about that, then every other program needs a house cleaning as well because most of the other programs are in far worse condition with seemingly no accountability or expectations regarding the respective staffs of those programs, vis-à-vis wins and losses.  If we are gong to have this discussion then lets start by addressing the real elephant in our living room, that being the entire athletic department at ORU.