It was an interesting game. We never were able to put them away. We struggled a bit in the first 3 games….but always had a good margin.
Tonight, we were up by 10 or so about 5 minutes into the 2nd half and we barely pulled it off. That final 3 looked awful good. Listening to the post game coaches comments…..
I would say that the SF coach (he and assistants are NO slouches….Cal trained them) was fairly upbeat. Gott was disgusted. It was like the losing coach was more upbeat than the winning coach.
In the last 3 minutes or so, I had horrible flashbacks to Central….
When all cylinders are NOT clicking (as in Turner pulls a “Scott” and goes cold) and Cat really TRIES too hard, we have issues.
The “friendly competition” between Cat and Tyler was MORE obvious. When Lacy got a really big “edge”, Cat looked like his old out of control and desperate self tonight. NOW, he had made GREAT strides, but he got out played (and out faked) at the end and turned over the ball.
Anya was a surprise start. And he did well….but he still does not have the stamina to run up and down the court….for 35 minutes.
Caleb Martin was a blessing. Des Lee has been in the dog house….or maybe he just got “outplayed”. I do not think that he played in the last game. He came in tonight and energized the defense. He missed a critical 3, but Gott game him one of the warmest “Atta Boys” that I have seen Gott give anyone when he shut down SF’s offense at the end. His 5 or so minutes were the difference.
My opinion…..it is OVER. We dodged a bullet….we need to improve….we got another opportunity to play against a zone….something that we will get almost every game….
Free throws…..Shmeee throws….I think that everyone is stressing way too much over it. It is now our own personal “albatross”. Gott has commented that if he keeps beating it….it will become a huge negative. We need a shrink to fix it. From what the announcers and the coaches and the players say, we can shoot them WELL in practice and Gott has “penalties” for missing such as running laps. We just need to get our head on straight. If we had put SF away, ala ORW and Mikey, then there would be NO mental pressure on making critical FT’s…
