Washington scored 20 so I guess we kinda shut him down LOL

Aggie84025 wrote: ↑

December 21st, 2020, 11:04 pm

Loved the game tonight. This team plays really hard. They are playing really good defense. I know SJSU is not good, but that Washington player was averaging 26 points/game entering tonight and we shut him down. Bean played really good tonight. Nice to see Miller shoot the ball better. Good to see the younger players get some playing time. Nice to see Max and the Russian make some shots.

Vedischev the Russian can shoot it. Both a nice shot and he likes to shoot it every time he touches it. I thought smiths comments about him were funny post game. Something along the lines of “as you can see Zahar likes to shoot it”.

I think max is going to be a nice player. Remember he made over 50% of three point attempts before he came here.

Both players have some work to do to being used a lot though. Good potential.

usu99 wrote: ↑

December 22nd, 2020, 8:10 am

Washington scored 20 so I guess we kinda shut him down LOL

Most of his points was against our freshmen Max Shula in the 2nd half. The bigger question was why San Jose State left in their starters and key back-ups for most of the game.
Their starters
Knight 32 minutes
Washington 28 minutes
Moore 22 minutes
Clarkin 18 minutes
Courtney 10 minutes
Agee 20 minutes
Smith 20 minutes
Mendoza 19 minutes
Clarkin and Courtney got benched because of their play.

SLB wrote:

usu99 wrote: ↑

December 22nd, 2020, 8:10 am

Washington scored 20 so I guess we kinda shut him down LOL

Most of his points was against our freshmen Max Shula in the 2nd half. The bigger question was why San Jose State left in their starters and key back-ups for most of the game.
Their starters
Knight 32 minutes
Washington 28 minutes
Moore 22 minutes
Clarkin 18 minutes
Courtney 10 minutes
Agee 20 minutes
Smith 20 minutes
Mendoza 19 minutes
Clarkin and Courtney got benched because of their play.

SJSU had only played 3 games total before last night so I think their coach was trying to get his starters and key rotation guys some time to gel and develop some chemistry.

AGGIEinIOWA wrote: ↑

December 22nd, 2020, 9:06 am

SLB wrote:

usu99 wrote: ↑

December 22nd, 2020, 8:10 am

Washington scored 20 so I guess we kinda shut him down LOL

Most of his points was against our freshmen Max Shula in the 2nd half. The bigger question was why San Jose State left in their starters and key back-ups for most of the game.
Their starters
Knight 32 minutes
Washington 28 minutes
Moore 22 minutes
Clarkin 18 minutes
Courtney 10 minutes
Agee 20 minutes
Smith 20 minutes
Mendoza 19 minutes
Clarkin and Courtney got benched because of their play.

SJSU had only played 3 games total before last night so I think their coach was trying to get his starters and key rotation guys some time to gel and develop some chemistry.

Guess so, but we play them tomorrow.

SLB wrote:

AGGIEinIOWA wrote: ↑

December 22nd, 2020, 9:06 am

SLB wrote:

usu99 wrote: ↑

December 22nd, 2020, 8:10 am

Washington scored 20 so I guess we kinda shut him down LOL

Most of his points was against our freshmen Max Shula in the 2nd half. The bigger question was why San Jose State left in their starters and key back-ups for most of the game.
Their starters
Knight 32 minutes
Washington 28 minutes
Moore 22 minutes
Clarkin 18 minutes
Courtney 10 minutes
Agee 20 minutes
Smith 20 minutes
Mendoza 19 minutes
Clarkin and Courtney got benched because of their play.

SJSU had only played 3 games total before last night so I think their coach was trying to get his starters and key rotation guys some time to gel and develop some chemistry.

Guess so, but we play them tomorrow.

Good point. Maybe they were afraid of losing by 70 had they played their bench.

The defensive performance by SJS is the worst I've seen from a (supposed) D1 team in a long, long, time. The way they defended our guys going to the hoop made me think they should change their nickname to The Matadors.

usu99 wrote: ↑

December 22nd, 2020, 8:10 am

Washington scored 20 so I guess we kinda shut him down LOL

That reminds me of watching Paul Millsap in the Spectrum. I remember thinking how well we shut him down and then later checked the box score and he had like 20 & 10.

Aggie84025 wrote: ↑

December 22nd, 2020, 11:47 am

usu99 wrote: ↑

December 22nd, 2020, 8:10 am

Washington scored 20 so I guess we kinda shut him down LOL

A majority of those were in the 2nd half when we were up by 30. The first hald he had like 6-7 points. The defense was on point.

Washington had 7 points in the 1st half, and 13 in the 2nd half where our starters played for the first few minutes of the 2nd half.
Washington did not score a single in the 2nd half up to the point when Shulga started playing in the 2nd half.

some thoughts:

1 - Defense. Defense was great in this game. The three big wings for SJSU were held in check, for the most part. Washington got 20, but Knight and Moore were held to 10 points combined. SJSU was held to 33% shooting from the field and 23% from three. We defended the free throw shot well, too - Spartans were 47.6% from the line. Aggies with 7 blocked shots. All-in-all, a good defensive game

2 - Miller. I have been very critical of Miller and his limited game and shooting woes the last two years. I must say, I am pleasantly surprised by his play so far this season. He is shooting with confidence. He is shooting within the offense. He is balanced and ready to shoot when he shoots. He even hit a nice floater/runner off the dribble last night. Props to him for stepping up into a bigger role this year. It will be needed going forward.

3 - Centers. The centers played huge last night. Granted - they weren't challenged much by a smaller Spartan lineup, but they were dominating. Dorius is developing into a dependable player. He had one funny looking shot-put type attempt that was very awkward and didn't hit anything, but when he is around the basket, he is strong and looks to score. This is something that I think Queta should be doing more. Zapala had an aggressive move and dunk in traffic. All three of those guys contributed a lot. The big thing - they were able to play aggressively on both ends of the court while staying out of foul trouble.
They were in control. Practicing against each other has got to only help them develop their individual games. It is not often that you have 4 guys of that size to work on drills and practice against each other.

4 - Bench. We had some good bench play and contribution last night. Ashworth shot well and is a very confident player. Anderson finally looked aggressive and interested in playing last night. Bairstow handled the ball well and saw some shots go in. 51 points off the bench is acceptable. Scotty G made a very astute comment in the game last light concerning the bench players. He said that these guys that are deep on the bench see the starters and key reserves build a huge lead and think that they are just going to come in and run around and shoot the ball. They don't realize how hard the starters worked on defense to build that lead. When Vedishcev and Shulga came in, Washington started driving around them and getting points. The other SJSU players also got some easy baskets. That was a very good point made and very true. These guys are going to have to learn to work on "D" to get the easy buckets on "O".

5 - Ball movement. The ball was moving around the perimeter and into the heart of the zone defense well last night. This has been a problem in the other games this year. We had 27 assists for 43 made baskets - still not up to last years numbers, but much better than what we have been seeing this year. Hopefully this trend keeps ticking up. Guys starting shooting freely at the end of the game without a lot of passing, but that is understandable - a guy that doesn't get a lot of playing time wants to shoot in a game.

6 - Bean. Bean played a great game to get us going offensively last night. He started out shooting 6-6 from the field. These were primarily mid-range jumpers or layups where he blew past his defender. Bean can be an offensive weapon when he plays to his strengths like this. He is not a three-point shooter. 16 points, 11 rebounds, 4 assists - that will get you All-League honors. Gotta love the Bean.

7 - Dunks. We were aggressive attacking the basket and got a lot of dunks last night. The most I can remember in a game in a long time. We haven't had a guard for a long time that can take an interior pass in traffic and jump up and dunk from a stand-still position like Anthony did last night. The last one that I remember seeing do something like that in a game was Kevin Rice. Missing in the dunk parade last night; Justin Bean. Did he dunk at all?

usu99 wrote: ↑

December 22nd, 2020, 8:10 am

Washington scored 20 so I guess we kinda shut him down LOL

Most of which came in garbage time against our 3rd string dudes.