PurpleOut said:

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Plenty of reserved seats available for $15 that gets you into both games, for any Central Texas people interested: https://uiw.universitytickets.com/w/

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You can't like a staff post. Oh well, I'll quote you and like my own post.

Wife and I live in SA and usually make it to SFA games but can't this week. Hopefully other area alums and students will be there along with maybe out-of-towners. SA is a great place to visit (and live!) and catch SFA BB while you're at it.

Hey Aqua or anyone.....is SFA bench in front of sec B or Sec D?

Lucky uiw isn't making their free throws

More stupid travel calls tonight. This is getting ridiculous.

We have got to stop the travels and silly turnovers!

Horrible defensive game. No closeouts in the second half. Inexcusable.

They made the shots down the stretch and we didn't. Ball game.

The first 10 loss season in Dallas Cameron's college basketball career.

Still garbage on the road. Ugly loss...

I place that game at the feet of the coaching staff.

Kids played their asses of...but seemed to be constantly put in bad spots by our coaching.

Especially down the stretch.

That one is on Keller and staff.

We didn't play bad but uiw just had a great game. Us not making 3s and UIW making their 3s was the difference. It could have been worst if UIW made there free throws in the first. I think conference title might be out of reach but we can still get a decent seed , if win our home games and few road games.

I don't think Keller is an "X's andO's" at all. I don't think having good talent is going to get us all the way there. I'll be intrigued by how we do the next few games. Dissatisfied disappointed etc.

Didn't get to watch it live, and just blew through the replay. My quick takeaway was that this was the first game where we led (by 8 at one point) significant time and didn't win. This team has been pretty solid with a lead - not tonight.
That one kid with 5 threes in like 3 minutes. Come on. Final two buckets threes - we have to make them get more possessions. Shooting woes on the road. It wasn't the defense this time. Plenty of open looks and really lots of decent penetration. This was definitely one we should have had. Not a season killer or anything, just one that got away. Fouls, fouls, fouls.

The defense was poor. UIW was extremely predictable with their drives and movement. I can't believe we didn't draw like 10 charges against them. They didn't even run plays, just a pick and roll with the point. The guys looked gassed, so that might have been why the closeouts sucked. We over-extended the half court defense to our detriment, and left the wings open with 10 feet of space at times.

We also blew our chance to add points at the cherry stripe with Leon's fade, rather than going to the basket with immediate 2 shot free throws. This was a learning moment for the guys and staff.

Defense at the end of the game was poor. Very little effort. But for the most part they were just hitting their shots and in the second half were hitting their free throws and that helped them win. We did relatively well defensively for the most part, we just struggled offensively.
Leon reminded me a lot of Trey in that he would stand beyond the arc with no one around him and would not attempt a 3.
Now Trey wasn't good at shooting but was an amazing point guard so he gets a pass.
But our players need to be confident and actually attempt these easy shots. All season I've seen us be perfectly set up for easy wide open shots and instead we pass the ball 10 more times until we turn it over.
Last year we passed a lot but when a shot opened up, we took it.

I somewhat agree with 03's comments about Gilmore. They left him wide open at the top of the key multiple times, daring him to shoot, and he didn't. My questions is, why didn't he dribble in a couple of steps and get 8-10 footers? Or drive to the basket and draw fouls?

But overall, I think he was our best player tonight. Played tough and aggressively the whole game (as opposed to TJ, who seems to be playing on eggshells because of his tendency to foul). And he hit all of his free throws down the stretch. I can't hang this defeat on him.

Give UIW credit. They outscored us 30-6 on threes. Think about that... 30-6. By hitting their threes, that's many times down the court that they didn't have to work hard to score, like we did. Demonstrates just how important an outside game is.

We had a great thing the last two years with a long range shooter like Meech Floyd. UIW has a couple this year. We have one that could be (Canete) but he's inconsistent. When he starts cold he tends to stay cold or stop shooting them altogether. I'm hoping that Mack and Bogues can transform that part of our game next season. PLEASE transform that part of our game next season!

My core concern continues to be coaching the guys to make smart crisp passes. We don't have a true #2 canete is really a #3. I don't suspect much will change. As I suggested in earlier posts my guess is that we are a .500 team. Truly disappointed given the cache we've built over the past 6-7 years. If this was a one off season that would be acceptable.... my concern is that there doesn't seem to be a true philosophy.

I didn't mean to specifically call out Gilmore, because he is me our best weapons still. But tonight it was just glaring that he was not shooting.
If you notice every game we do this too. I said this against Kentucky, they left us open for easy shots all night and we would not shoot.
This may be a coaching problem too like you all are saying. The bottom line is what's made us so successful over the past 3 years is that we've always been the most aggressive team on the court. Not just defensively but we would attack the basket.
Now we're playing very conservatively and it's really hurting us.

Another thing ... I really don't see any "team" improvement. I see individual players developing but I don't feel like team communication and anticipation is improving at all.

I don't know, through the first ten games (or more), it felt like a loose group of individuals. Since the HBU game (maybe even Utah), I've felt an increasing unit play. Now individuals in that unit (especially TJ) have real hit or miss games. Like Kevon hasn't particularly had a great game since they've started playing team ball, but he's having steady performances. I think this style lends itself to steady performances, but they're growing into their roles. I believe Gilmore has done the best with what he has been given. I just can't get over Holyfield's issues (maybe they're mental).

Maybe random, but I cannot wait to have Nieminen back. I have some hope that he can stabilize the post play in a way TJ, Huntley, and Grujic can't. And in my unfounded optimism, it will make all of them play better. How's that for wishful thinking.

A loss to uno at home puts us very much in a hole.

Well I was there and it was a frustrating outcome. We had many chances to put distance on the scoreboard and let them get away. The amount of travel calls in the first half was obscene. Too many times we passed up shots to pass the ball again. Gilmore did pass up many 3 pt shots but his drives for layups accounted for a lot of our offense. Several ill advised passes to try and get the ball in low which resulted in several turnovers.
To me, TJ looked to be lacking in confidence, Kevon was called for 3-4 travels and seemed to sit a lot of 2nd half. Augustin entered the game once in first half, wasn't out there long and was pulled...then Keller was all over him for a couple of minutes followed by an Asst coach talking to him for another couple of minutes. He never got back in, obviously did something that staff didn't like.
The previous points about the UIW 3 pt shooters being wide open are very correct. It seemed to me the opposite for Canete and Traylor. When I specifically watched them on offense UIW seemed to keep someone on them around the arc.
Definitely let a win get away....hopefully 2 games at home will go as well as last 2 at home.

Just didn't bring our A game when it came to shooting and it happens. They'll learn and grow from it. This team has been through a lot in one season and hopefully it'll all pay off in Katy.

we need a consistent player who can avg 18 points or more a game. During the game, the commentary said that Sfa was the only team in southland to not have a single player in the top 25 scorers list. Canete was #26 in southland. That is crazy and really bad. We are not going to win conference like that.

In my mind that's just coaching.... period end of story. If you watched Brad's teams or Danny's team you NEVER saw that ever..... Just another example of good recruiting,,,,, average at best coaching.

The way I'd describe this is... we probably have the best facilities in the conference (Lamar close), devote the most resources to BBall, supposedly have the best recruits.... I expect a dropoff with a new coach and new system. I really do. What I didn't expect is for us to be downright mediocre. It wouldn't have been a surprise to anyone for us to go 13-5 in conference or maybe 12-6. Right now that looks out of reach. New Orleans is legit. Sammie is legit and Lamar will give us trouble.

Here's hoping for the best......

Don't be so quick to write off Kyle. Remember that this is a twice as hard season because not only does he have several players who've never played college basketball before, he's never been a head coach.
There's going to be a learning curve for our players and for our coach. Which is why this season we should just focus on trying to do our best and maybe squeak into march madness as a 16 seed, maybe a 15 seed.
Next season, the pressure will absolutely be on. Next season we should expect greatness. And I think we're heading in that direction.

Man!! Sam is going to pound this team into oblivion in Huntsville on the 2nd.

SFA88 said:

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Man!! Sam is going to pound this team into oblivion in Huntsville on the 2nd.

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Prison Tech will, and yet neither Kentucky nor Utah couldn't??

I'll give you the 8 point loss to Utah but are you saying a 23 point loss to Kentucky is NOT a pounding?

This team can't beat bad teams on the road. Sam is decent and so far, proving that they are one of the best teams in the conference. They are the rival and they are sick of SFA beating up on them. So yes, I'm saying Sam will relish laying the wood to SFA in Huntsville.

when it comes to Sam, basketball is all we have. We would never hear the end of it if we lost. I don't care if we go .500 in conference but we cant lose to sam at both football and basketball. Hopefully the team knows the important of that win. I defiantly wont pick them to beat us under any circumstances(whether we or bad or good).