UMKC at ORU/ Game 2

[Eaglefan 21]

Well, we got manhandled in that one. Mckissic got whatever he wanted and we didn't do enough early in the game to stop him.They scored layup after layup. I'm guessing the rest of the league will follow the same model for playing us in the future. Trying to outscore everyone just isn't going to work. Unfortunately, we may end up playing this UMKC team in the 4 V 5 game in the tournament. On a positive note, Jones is great. Love his energy and defense. He needs more minutes

[Keenan Henderson]

When McKissic hit that half court shot at the buzzer in the first half, then I just knew the game was over.  Give KC credit, they figured out the zone and did a good job on K.O.  Allick outplayed him and KC was the better team tonight.  ORU has two weeks off to get a plan together or yes it will be a long second half of the conference season.

[theeagleman5]

Thats two inexcusable losses at home vs. UND and UMKC...can't happen if you want to finish in the Top 2 or 3 in the Summit.....at this point TheEagleman has accepted that This ORU team is mediocre at 9-7.....I wouldn't expect us to win more than one or two of the next six games and we could honestly lose all of them.....this loss will be tough to chew on for the next 10 days......

[ORUTerry]

They shot 65.9% from the field.   64.3% (9/14)  from the 3 point line and 66.7% (20/30) from 2-point. Those are crazy numbers. We out rebounded them by 1 (24-23) - partly because they didn’t miss many shots. We only had 8 turnovers - vs their 11. 

We shot well (52% FG and 47.4% 3-pt). Only 15/23 from the free throw line. 
 

Gotta play better (some?) defense. 

[theeagleman5]

No doubt that TheEagleman will be wagering on NDSU and the Over come the first weekend of February.....and probably on SDSU the following weekend......and 

[ORUJason]

I really enjoyed the 1st game vs UMKC on Saturday night.  ORU played fairly solid defense and worked to get the ball down low to Obanor.  UMKC played tough defense as well, and I felt that it was good for the ORU offense to have to work through finding different ways to score besides just jacking up 3 pointers against an opponent that played solid defense.  I felt that they overcame the challenges and pulled out a close victory.  I was encouraged that the defense looked improved and that the offense looked more balanced.

Then during the 2nd UMKC game on Sunday night, the defensive effort was not as strong.  Part of that may have been fatigue and part of it may have been adjustments that the UMKC coaching staff made, but ultimately we could not stop McKissic and their 3 point shooter got hot.  Toward the end of the game Obanor wasn't even in the game for awhile while Coach Mills was running basically a 5 guard lineup.  The quickness of that lineup did provide a couple turnovers that brought a 10 point lead down to a 5 point lead, but without a post player in the game, UMKC could score fairly easily when they needed to.  Ultimately we could not get the defensive stops on Sunday night that we were able to get on Saturday night.  

There were some bright spots such as the defense of D'Mauria Jones on McKissic when no one else could cover him at all.  On one crucial possession near the end of the game UMKC ran the clock down to about 4 seconds and then McKissic drove the basket and scored a layup with about 2 seconds on the shot clock.  For some reason Stevens was covering McKissic instead of Jones on that play even though Jones was in the game.  Then D'Mauria took a shot, was fouled, and D'Mauria missed both free throws.  Those 2 possessions really made the difference in the game as then we had to foul them and we ended up losing by 5.  

UMKC is a fairly solid team that has lost a lot of close games, and I think their record will improve over the next month, but the Dakota teams have some scorers and shooters that UMKC doesn't.  I would like to see a combination of any 2 of these 4 players in the game most of the time: Obanor, Weaver, Plet, and Clover (and add Lufile once he is available).  Most of the time it would be Obanor and Weaver.  UMKC does not have a tall post presence, but they have fairly strong and fairly tall guards.  I think we still should have tried to use our height advantage to score down low.

I was impressed to see that Glasper and Abmas both were effective at getting around their defenders and slashing to the basket for layups.  Lacis also had a block and held his own defensively.  I liked to see that we were at least at times driving to the basket because this team is shooting around 80% from the free throw line and we drew a lot of fouls with that approach.  I think if we hadn't gotten away from running the ball through Obanor, we could have probably won the Sunday night game.  Once McKissic got his fourth foul, we should have ran all our drives right at him to try to foul him out.

I still feel that this year's team has improved over last year, I just was hoping that maybe they had turned the corner Saturday night, but Sunday night's game seemed like a regression to me.  I am still optimistic about the potential of the players on this team and hope that they can continue to improve defensively and play balanced offensive basketball.  

[ORUTerry]

Make a few stops and make your free throws - and you win the game on Sunday. Which is incredible given that you let KC shoot 65%!!! from the field. What really hurt was how well they shot from the perimeter because they typically don’t make a high percentage of 3-pointers. 

[Keenan Henderson]

It seemed like in both games they came out really flat and had no edge/intensity.  Almost as if the Eagles thought they could just show up and beat KC.  Then in the last ten minutes of both games ORU woke up and played with an edge.  Of course in game 2 it was a little too late.  That is what is frustating about this team, every time it seems like they have turned the corner then the Eagles have an off night (much like the first game of UND) and lose to a team you think they should beat.