Sean Miller’s post-game radio comments live-blog

I want to see what the mind-set of Coach and the team is right now.  Obviously, it will not be good and I don’t anticipate Sean sugar coating anything…

Sadly, it’s almost a moral victory that we lost by 18.  And it doesn’t matter that we outscored them in the second half.  Anyone who doesn’t think Duke let off the gas a little bit is insane.  Plus, I’m sure Coach laid down the gauntlet at half time.

Byron, (and I’m paraphrasing, actually just know that I’m paraphrasing everything from here on out…) “Can’t dwell on this too long.”

Coach is here…..

“Give Duke a lot of credit.  Scheyer and Henderson shot the ball incredibly well.  Lucky to only lost by 18.  By far the superior team and could have lost by 30.”

“Easy to say we weren’t ready.  Butler and Duke are the top two rated teams on our schedule right now.”

“Try to take it one 4 minute war at a time.  The first two segments we’re down by 20 minutes and its inescapable to not feel that way.  Able to get by us at every position from an on the ball standpoint.  Duke could easily be a final four team.”

Byron, “thought D Brown came out in second half.”

Coach, “Liked the way D Brown came out for second half.  Jason brought his lunch pail today.  Tutu needs to realize he can’t drive on anyone.  Lesson learned for everyone today.  Find out about everyone in this type of situation.  Taking lose against an opponent like this means we have a lot of lessons learned.”

Byron, “Did finals play a part in this?”

Coach, “Had all week to work, had  good practices this week, credit Duke, they are in a different category today than they have been all year.”

Byron felt Sean wasn’t too disappointed considering what happened.  Time to refocus, gotta travel and then practice come Monday.  Basically a 48 hour turnaround before Butler come Tuesday.

I’ll be in the beautiful Cintas Center Tuesday night.  It better be a packed house cuz the Muskies need us more than ever.  Like Byron said, right now Butler is the second best team on paper we will play this year.  So come on Muskie fans, let’s pack the Cintas Center and give the support our players need now more than ever!

Let’s go X!

Toledo @ Xavier Second Half

19:38: Nice to see a little more motion on offense, leading to a nice long 3Ball by BJ. 39-19 good guys.

17:50: Can tell Derrick is a step slow, he got stuffed on a dunk attempt causing a jump ball… I have a feeling at 100% that would have been on Sportscenter.

16:51: ONIONS. BJ is 3 of 3 behind the arc. Good to see after a dismal game against IPFPWPWFWWF. 42-24 X. The Muskies finally proving to be just too much for the Rockets. XU out-rebounding them 27-13. also good to see our FT% higher than our fg% I guess…

15:15: 3rd turnover of the half. Gotta clean it up. 14 total…

15:45: Good to see Kenny realizing a double team and finding the open CJ for the easy bucket.

15:122: The Browns just kicked a field goal. Woops, wrong game.

14:17: Kenny taking it strong, drawing a foul. Almost put it in this time… 1-3 at the line… Perhaps we will see some Hack-a-Frease this year…

13:42: I sure miss that one-man press-breaker in Drew Lavender.

12:20: This game is just kinda movin’ along… up 19 as Toledo’s Kent can’t bank in a 3…

11:55: WOOOO look at us up to 70.6% ft% as DBrown hits bofe of his. 51-32.

11:18: This Kent guy thinks he is awesome. He is not. But, he is taking approx. 134% of his teams shots.

10:24: 52-39…I almost thought “uh oh, this game isn’t over yet,” but I think we’ll be ok.

9:02: Coach is PISSED. We are giving up wayyy too many easy buckets. Switching from man to zone. If these Rocket guards are anything, they are quick.

8:18: Kent with an And1 on a 3, although I saw no foul… 60-47. They are shooting much better. Well, maybe Kent is…

7:50; Good to see we haven’t stopped hustling. Nice offensive board on the foul shot to the BJ Onion. I have got to stop saying that.

5:somethingorother: Getting alot of good looks on the pick ‘n rolls and give ‘n goes. Love getting a lot of time out there and hitting throws. 70-47.

4:45: Can we just dribble it out yet? I’m sure Kent’s still got like 15 shots in him.

3:21: Kent with 2 quick 3’s, one from NBA range. He’s got 29. Too bad I forgot to start him on my fantasy team…

2:45: Ok Kent with another looong 3… Good thing he wasn’t shooting like this in the first half…60-77

1:45: 35 for Kent. My God. 5 3’s, I’m pretty sure its 4 inarow without missing… he has five 3’s, and so does Toledo… He has single handedly kept them within the 20-point spread. 78-63

Well it’s a good thing I took note from that Steelers-Chargers game and didn’t bet on the spread… Something of a slopfest here… Another 20 turnovers and only 71% at the charity stripe, which seems high after Friday’s display. Some solid three point shooting and some dominating board-crashing (43-19) made this one an easier on the eyes. And oh boy, is Coach MAAAAD. ‘Specially at CJ Derrick for having 9 TO’s between ‘em. It’s good to see that he isn’t satisfied with a sloppy win over Toledo. I’d sure hate to be in the locker room right about now. Our offense just wasn’t really clicking, as our strong D gave us a lota points off turnovers. And how bout that Tyrone Kent guy? 37 pts with 5 three bombs… but to be fair, if Stanley was still on the team he’d only have had like 7 or 8. We obviously are a bit away from being as good as we were last year.

We have three days until Puerto Rico’s set of games, and it appears we got a long way to go if we wanna make some noise there. A lot of time needs to be spent on the free throw line figuring out just how to put the ball through it from that far back, and we need to HOLD ON TO THAT BALL. Mizzou on Thursday at 1:00. Looks like I won’t be getting a lot of work done after lunch…

Also, it’s Coach’s birthday! Happy Birthday Coach!

Toledo @ Xavier First Half

Since Golfitup is at the Cintas Center tonight, I decided to do this little post as I watch Fox Sports’s presentation of the game. Soooo here we go!

11:57 left in the first half: XU up 12-7. Big Kenny Frease is having trouble establishing himself down low. Took XU too long to work inside-out. Was nice to hit those two threes, but gotta get those bigs goin’. Sloppy play, turnovers and fouls. D Brown getting open looks, but we need to manufacture from the post with all our size and athleticism. We should be killing this team.

11:00: Toledo cannot shoot. Ulgy miss by some Rocket.

10:25: Dante with a carry. Please no more turnovers. Already have 8. Eesh.

9:45: These refs are calling a lot of fouls. 7 for Toledo, 4 for XU. Also, has anyone mentioned our poor free throw shooting? If Kenny is planning on missing throws like this, he better start finishing…

8:56: 10th turnover. Out of control and sloppy charge by CJ. Coach is going to be livid at half. 15-13 XU.

9:09: Turnover 12. My God…

7:45: Tied at 15, until McClean decided to let his athleticism show. Our D is keeping us in this thing.

7:00: Ref’s timeout after collision… XU’s offense is looking pretty sad right now… Our inexperience is showing. I would like to see Brad get some looks here, but the lack of inside presence isn’t letting that happen.

6:10: Redford way too long. That one was my fault. Walsh is on a very short leash.

4:06: Brown reminding us he can dunk with that bum ankle with a put-back slamma jamma. Would still like to see some set up offense.

3:18: Kenny took a sad looking flop. Ha. He will have to learn to make others fall when they come in contact with him.

2:45: Kenny appears to be looking for the bailout on his drop steps to the basket… would like to see him going up with all that manpower.

2:02: Mclean has got some hangtime, son. Also, another missed free throw. Piss.

1:30. Brad Redman (apparently) with some nice defense in the zone. Kenny with a nice finesse shot. BJ hustling, got 9 in the half so far.

:03: Can Brown hit some throws? YES. Brings us to 59% for for the day so far. Sheesh. Need to get Brad to the line…

Wow. Thank Gosh for that 21-4 run to finish that half off. BJ, Derrick, McClean, doing well. Kenny’s showing that he isn’t perfect, as he’s only got 2 pts. Can’t quite tell if he is being too aggressive or not aggressive enough. You can tell this team still has to get to know each other a lot more…Not seeing open shooters when getting double-teamed down low, forcing it up in traffic, etc. I fully expect Coach to fix these issues in the locker room. Nothing he can do about that gross free throw shooting though… Our Defense is definitely our strong point, again we are holding our opponent’s field goal % in the 20’s, but let’s not forget how bad the Rockets are… At least we haven’t had a turnover since somewhere around the 8 minute mark…