WSU VS. SACRAMENTO STATE RECAP: Total Domination
by Craig Powers on Nov 30, 2010 9:04 PM PST
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PrintWhen you are getting 15 points from walk-ons, you know things went well. The universe hasn't seen this sort of domination since the Cylons launched their attack on the 12 Colonies of Kobol.
Ben Loewen chipped in eight points and Will Dilorio added seven. Both played in the first half as the Cougs built a 27-0 lead, pitching a shutout ten minutes into the game. Eleven different players scored for Wazzu.
The final score ended up at 84-36. It's nice to see the team blow someone out like they should.
With the blowout, one would expect to see some of the team's starters get extended time on the bench. However, Klay Thompson was still in the game around the five minutes mark and Marcus Capers finally came off with 3:01 to go. With all the minutes these guys have been logging early, I was hoping they would have been sitting more.
The defense shut down Sac State, holding them to an offensive efficiency of 53.3 and forcing them to a 32.5 turnover rate. On offense, they passed the ball really well, posting a 60.6 assist rate to a microscopic 11.6 turnover rate. Abe Lodwick seemed to be very active, and had five assists himself (All these stats come from SCACCHoops gametracker).
This was WSU's last tuneup for what may be the toughest game of the season against Kansas State. Reggie Moore and DeAngelo Casto both sat out, but neither were wearing any sort of protective brace or cast. Let's hope they come back. They are two very physical players and WSU will need them against a bruising Wildcat squad.
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Wow. Just wow.
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by Craig Powers on Nov 30, 2010 9:28 PM PST up reply actions
they are wins but......
our strength of schedule atrocious
It's going to get a lot less atrocious on Friday.
But what else can you do? Can’t really expect the team to beat up anyone any worse than they did tonight.
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by Craig Powers on Nov 30, 2010 9:27 PM PST up reply actions
Outside of Portland
I don’t see what pounding sub 500 teams does for us against highly ranked teams. I would have like a least one more tougher game in there.(500 or greater)
We're five games in.
They’re coming. In the form of Gonzaga, Kansas State and the Diamond Head tournament. Let’s go ahead and not judge a bunch of things, including SOS, after just five games.
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I respectively counter with saying, that comment had nothing to do with strength of schedule. I was merely questioning what beating the caliber of teams we have beat thus far have done in getting us ready for the upcoming ranked opponents.
So we should schedule ranked opponents to prepare for ranked opponents?
There’s nothing wrong with the schedule.
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by Brian Floyd on Nov 30, 2010 10:04 PM PST up reply actions
Gotta warm up
It’s fair to question whether moderately tougher opponents leading up to really tough opponents might be preferable — if I had my druthers, I would have liked to have seen the Cougs play a quality opponent not quite in K State’s echelon before having to go to war against them — but there’s not much that could have been done to lay it out like that (even if it is, in fact, preferable).
Don't forget
This is prime opportunity to try out rotations, see who works well together, what our best defensive lineup is, things like that. In a true blowout like this one it might be hard to learn much, but I bet Coach Bone appreciates the chance to see his scrubs playing in game action – you never know who might end up being a contributor later down the road.
"I mean I was like, okay, there you go, you wanna hit me? There you go, one pitch for you. You don't get it? You have no chance." ~ Felix Hernandez
I definitely see where you're coming from
But I agree with Fractal and footballin on this one. While I think it is beneficial to get a strong start and see the players on the court I can’t help but ask what this actually does for us in the long run? I mean, last year shows this perfectly. We started of 6-0 with some blowout wins and huge performances fro Klay and company, but then lost to both Gonzanga and K State. Obviously those 6 wins against lesser opponents didn’t do a ton to prepare us for the real deal.
That being said, I don’t think we should stack the schedule so that we’re fighting for our lives every game, and I think overall our schedule is pretty good. But I do think a steady build up in talent would be nice and probably beneficial to the team.
Sure, that would be ideal
But unfortunately ideal preparation is not the only factor. For example, some of those mid-range teams don’t want to do home-and-home games. Those that do may not have time on their schedule early in the non-con part of the season. Many teams get a sort of “warm up” in a tournament, and unfortunately the one we’re in happens to fall after our two toughest scheduled non-con games. There’s only so much the athletic department can do, and while it’s not ideal this year I think it’s better than the tournaments we’ve gone to in the past.
"I mean I was like, okay, there you go, you wanna hit me? There you go, one pitch for you. You don't get it? You have no chance." ~ Felix Hernandez
Oh, also
I forgot to add that schedules are often set far enough ahead that you don’t really know if a team will be that good. Gonzaga is usually around the top 25, but it’s possible when the K-State game was set up our AD thought that THAT would be a good warm-up for Gonzaga.
"I mean I was like, okay, there you go, you wanna hit me? There you go, one pitch for you. You don't get it? You have no chance." ~ Felix Hernandez
by johnnycougar on Dec 1, 2010 9:35 AM PST up reply actions 1 recs
This is exactly correct
First off, Fresno State and Portland were thought to be moderately tough opponents when scheduled. Both have turned out to be a bit less good than anticipated.
The other thing is that it’s exceptionally hard to get “decent” opponents — and I think what you mean by that is middling BCS conference teams — to schedule us, unless you want to just go on the road with no return trip.
Lastly, I’d like to point out that last season’s losses to KSU and Gonzaga had ZERO to do with preparation and EVERYTHING to do with those two teams being significantly better than us. Correlation does not equal causation.
i think that's a lot of second guessing.
I don’t think that scheduling a better team first would’ve made us play KSU any tougher last year, nor this year. They are just a very bad matchup for us. We had our tournament before we played KSU and Gonzaga last year, so we didn’t have a lot of say over the quality of opponents we played in November, other than trying to get invited to a tougher tournament. Would you have rather that our team full of freshmen and sophomores last season try and take on an all-comers schedule in NOVEMBER?
at this time last year, we were around 100th in kenpom’s system. Idaho was much tougher last year and was ranked right around where we were. They were a very good test for us before we played the meat of our schedule. There just wasn’t room to play them before KSU and Gonzaga.
This year we’re ranked in the 40s. We’ve played a solid team (Portland) and a few really bad ones, albeit I don’t know if you can say we knew Fresno was going to be THIS bad when they were scheduled.
We could’ve played another solid team like a Boise or a Long Beach before KSU, but that’s actually looking like a blessing, as a loss to either of those teams without Reggie and D would’ve hurt us much more than scheduling a Sac St.
I think this is making a big deal out of nothing.
Yep!
"I mean I was like, okay, there you go, you wanna hit me? There you go, one pitch for you. You don't get it? You have no chance." ~ Felix Hernandez
It is bigger than warming up
Big schools choose there tournament. Thanksgiving or Christmas. If you choose Thanksgiving then you play gimmes in December. If you play Christmas than your gimmes lie in November.
Our schedule lies right in line with the other schools. I think there is too much being read into it. It is all about when the marquee tournament is held.
Play of the game?
Clearly Will DiIorio’s baseline jam for what I believe were his first Cougar points.
Freaky like my lady pyramid!
Yes!a
Grady will have to include that in the awards.
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by Craig Powers on Nov 30, 2010 9:40 PM PST via mobile up reply actions
He wanted the ball so bad on that play.
I think he traversed the baseline waving his hands asking for the ball 2 times before someone decided to give him the rock. Good thing they did. His forehead might have been rim level on that one.
by newportcoug on Nov 30, 2010 10:35 PM PST up reply actions
The crowd was also chearing for McNamara to get his first points
But he didn’t attempt a shot.
He had a small chance to do so and the crowd really wanted him to take a shot when he was standing alone directly under the basket (like seriously, nobody was within 5 feet of him) but he received the ball rather awkwardly off of a turnover of some sort (not a pass) and was leaning out of bounds as he collected the ball. So he wisely dished it out to Lodwick and received what was probably his first career assist instead.
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