John Brown at ORU

[Keenan Henderson]

This team has high expectations and as Eagleman said they should blow John Brown out by 50.  JB did make some tough shots but they had way too many open looks and offensive rebounds.  It's an NAIA opponent so ORU overlooked them and thought they could just show up and win easily.  It was still a game with ten minutes left.  Not sure how the Eagles can improve on defense and rebounding but hoping Coach Mills figures it by conference time.

[Idig32]

I doubt ORU coaches spent much time in practices this week preparing for John Brown. Most likely it’s all geared toward playing Houston and Texas Southern. Getting up to play John Brown is difficult when Houston is looming.
 

Also, taking anything negative (or positive for that matter) from a 30 point victory over an outmatched team seems silly to me. Who got the most rebounds, points, whatever, doesn’t matter against a team like John Brown. I agree with GoldenEagleFan, the more relevant indicator of how good ORU is so far is how they competed against Saint Mary’s, who will likely be a very good team this year. 

[Old Titan]

[GoldenEagleFan]

11 hours ago, EagleManiac said:

 

I am discouraged. 

John Brown shot 33% overall, scored 62 pts on 81 possessions according to Kenpom and people are discouraged… What a world! 

[Cletus]

I watched the game on the ORU Sports Network app on my television in PA.

Nice to watch live basketball on tv with ORU!

[ORUJason]

Coach Mills really coaches the players to one main style of offensive play.  The 4 guard lineup (I consider Kareem Thompson and Carlos Juergens to be guards) can be beneficial offensively and not so helpful defensively.

So even though he could have changed the style of play against John Brown and shut them down more effectively, his goal is to help the players gain more experience in his style of play rather than to beat John Brown by 45 points instead of 30 points.

I am encouraged by how effectively Connor Vanover can block shots.  He has good timing with his blocks and he has fairly quick feet for being such a tall man.  I believe his strengths are a perfect fit for what we do offensively and defensively.

You would think with the 4-guard lineup that we could defend better from the perimeter but we still gave John Brown a lot of wide open 3-point shots.  I am not sure what the solution is for that but I would like to see Connor and DJ, Connor and Clover, or Connor and Sir Isaac (once he is healthy) on the floor at the same time because I believe that would strengthen our defense substantially.

There is such little interest by this team in rebounding offensively.  It is almost like once someone shoots, usually from 3 point range, everyone else turns and starts running to get back on defense before they see if the shot was even made or missed.  I would like to see a stronger emphasis on rebounding.

[TrueBlue82]

40 minutes ago, ORUJason said:

I am encouraged by how effectively Connor Vanover can block shots.  He has good timing with his blocks and he has fairly quick feet for being such a tall man.  I believe his strengths are a perfect fit for what we do offensively and defensively.

You would think with the 4-guard lineup that we could defend better from the perimeter but we still gave John Brown a lot of wide open 3-point shots.  I am not sure what the solution is for that but I would like to see Connor and DJ, Connor and Clover, or Connor and Sir Isaac (once he is healthy) on the floor at the same time because I believe that would strengthen our defense substantially.

There is such little interest by this team in rebounding offensively.  It is almost like once someone shoots, usually from 3 point range, everyone else turns and starts running to get back on defense before they see if the shot was even made or missed.  I would like to see a stronger emphasis on rebounding.

THIS^^^^

I have never been as frustrated with a 30 point win.  I planned to write a post that addressed our three-point defense (or lack thereof), our offensive rebounding effort on  three-point shots, and give some love to Connor for his interior defense.  ORUJason beat me to it!

[titansforever]

For me, last night was about getting to see Connor play (loved it!) and seeing "Jake from State Farm" (that's my nickname for Jake Shannon) hit that 3 at the end of the game and seeing how excited his teammates were when he made the shot. 

Someone said they thought Max might have twisted his ankle. Did anyone see that?

[Texasgrip]

6 hours ago, titansforever said:

Someone said they thought Max might have twisted his ankle. Did anyone see that?

It happened right in front of our seats (me and @OKC Eagle) during the first half. Looked like he was trying to "hide a limp" as a time out was called and he headed back to the bench. But he didn't seemed to be hindered after that.

[OKC Eagle]

I think that there was one reason John Brown hung around:  they completely out-hustled us in the first half.  We were phoning it in.  I thought we played much better in the second half, including much better defense--not nearly as many open 3s in the second half.  

Observation:  Conner is far more helpful for us standing under the basket than at the 3 point line.  We have plenty of guards who can jack up ill-advised 3s, but we only have one guy who can dunk flat footed on a pass from a driving guard.

[Texasgrip]

32 minutes ago, OKC Eagle said:

Observation:  Conner is far more helpful for us standing under the basket than at the 3 point line.  We have plenty of guards who can jack up ill-advised 3s, but we only have one guy who can dunk flat footed on a pass from a driving guard.

I agree. Except his ill-advised 3s are more advised (3/6) than say...Phipps 0/3)?

[titansforever]

I was very happy to see Connor shooting 3s. The other teams usually don't expect someone at his position to be doing that. I remember a game where Caleb shot a 3. It was a shock! I don't think we had ever seen that before.