On a neutral court, who wins Game 3? UTEP has talent, but OSU has heart, discipline
by Jake Bertalotto on Apr 2, 2009 7:15 AM PDT
in Oregon State Men's Basketball
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PrintThrough the first two games of the College Basketball Invitational, it seems that the best predictor of the game's winner has been the game's location. Gill Coliseum gave Oregon State the extra boost the Beavers needed to withstand a late UTEP run, and the Haskins Center was fully behind UTEP's explosive second half that propelled the Miners to a seven point lead.
Game 3 of the series will be played at the Haskins Center in El Paso, Texas. But if we took away the home court advantage and let these two squads play in an empty gym, who wins?
After seeing the Beavers and Miners play in two games in the past three nights, I still don't know the answer to that question, which leaves me drooling in anticpation of Friday's winner-take-all CBI finale.
You see, I think UTEP has more talent than the Beavers, but Oregon State makes up for it with heart and discipline.
The UTEP squad is more talented. They have players who can take the ball and drive to the basket, make a reverse layup and draw the foul. They have guys who can shoot, rebound, and play at a faster tempo.
What Oregon State has going for them is their heart, and especially their discipline on offense. They don't have the athletes and the talent that UTEP does, but they make up for it by executing their sets with greater precision, accuracy, and attention to detail. They take their time, and get open shots.
If both teams come out and play perfectly, or at an equal percentage, I think UTEP wins Game 3. But that's now how it works, as other factors like home court, fatigue, and officiating play a role.
UTEP has the momentum now, but both teams know they can win Game 3.
Who comes out and does it?
I'm interested to see what you guys think about this... leave your thoughts in the comment thread.
--Jake (jake.buildingthedam@gmail.com)
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Things that really stuck out to me as REALLY killing our chances of winning…
-Turnovers: We only lose by seven after turning the ball over what, like 15 times? Jeez… take away the a few of those and they don’t have all 24 of their points off of TO’s. You make it VERY hard to win when you turn the ball over like that.
-Foul shots: I hate to complain about officiating and I can’t credit them COMPLETELY with blowing this game but yikes. Have you LOOKED at the box score? Did you WATCH the game? Ridiculous.
-3-point %: Sometimes, when something isn’t working you just go on to the next thing and call it good. The Beavers routinely bailed out on the offensive rotation/sets to toss up three balls that just were not falling. I’m going to throw up in my mouth a little as I write this but we shot 7-for-26 from long range… that’s bad. Wallace, who has been hot in the CBI, was—I’m just going to throw up on my keyboard now—3-for-11. That’s gross.
In game three the Beavers need to come out and (brace yourself for a cliche and a half here) play two halves of basketball. The first half wasn’t bad. It wasn’t perfect but the team played their game, didn’t rush and rolled with UTEP’s punches. The second half was another story, like a bunch of kids playing in front of a packed gym for the first time ever.
Let’s get Schaftenaar some ear plugs, play our game, get this win and get outta UTEP with a nice CBI championship as a graduation gift for Claitt. I have a good feeling. Can’t explain it, I just do.
GO BEAVERS.
Agreed
If we had done just a few little things better, we would have won. How many times did we miss shots from point-blank? How many offensive put-backs did we let UTEP get? How about that one trip down the floor where they got about 10 shots in a row? UG-LY.
I’m never one to blame the refs for losing a game, but you have to admit that some of the calls (or non-calls) were pretty bad. We’d get mugged by UTEP at our end, and no call. We touch a finger to the ball handler at their end, and we’ve got guys fouling out of the game. Did you see the play when Ricky Claitt brings the ball across half-court, gets thrown to the floor by the defender, and the ref calls TRAVELLING?!?!!
offensive put-backs for UTEP
Were huge I think and we also let them drive in uncontested a bit too much also. And those are both pretty funny (not good funny, bad funny) when you think about it because both of those problems usually indicate tentative play on the defensive side of things (flat-footed rebounding and not aggressive defense), BUT at the same time UTEP got a zillion FT attempts. So we really seemed to have the worse of both worlds going on there last night.
But on the bright side with all of that we still were in the game, should have won the game, and if we play (IMO) even slightly better we should most likely win Friday.
Oh, and I totally agree with ArbyOSU and threes are fine to take and all, but yes it was totally clear they weren’t going in so back off and get back into the normal game. I think if we had a stat like 4 for 12 from 3 point land it would have been a good sign, sure that means 3 less threes all together but also would have meant they were shooting closer in and higher % shots.
-RVM
Maybe we should give all the guys a VISA card
So they can take a charge! (Sorry, bad joke.) :)
I did make the comment to my wife that if UTEP was going to be driving so aggressively to the hoop all the time, that we ought to try getting a few charge calls. UTEP was flopping all over the place when we actually made a move to the hoop.
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