This had a "that kind of game" feel to it as soon as Marquise picked up his second foul only 2.5 minutes in.
I recorded it and rewatched it and didn't really see much to be concerned about. We got murdered when either Marquise or Jalen were on the bench. We should get used to that in A-10 play because we're offensively inept without Marquise on the floor and there's a tremendous drop-off defensively from Jalen to Temara/Relvao.
- St Louis went on a 10-1 run when Marquise went to the bench in the first half (4-4 when he exited, 14-5 when he came back over six minutes later). So we scored one point over six minutes of game time when Marquise was on the bench. He's that valuable to us.
- Then they went on a 9-2 run when Jalen checked out with about six minutes left in the first half (19-12 to 28-14).
- We went on an 11-3 run to start the second half before Jalen picked up his third foul at 15 minutes and had to go to the bench again.
Jalen came back in with just under ten minutes left and a tie game, so this game was clearly there for the taking, but we got absolutely slaughtered on those two first half runs when they went to the bench. The freshmen aren't reliable scorers or defenders at this point. We got six points from our usual bench - Boyd, Newman, Relvao, and Temara - with Grayer getting 36 minutes despite not getting the start (no idea why that happened). We're not good enough to survive an off night from Otis, a quiet night from Marquise and Jalen, and a total lack of bench production against any A-10 team. This could have been a lot worse.
I wrote a big gigantic breakdown for By George that highlights some of this stuff, and has a lot of screenshots that illustrate some missed rotations. It also has a lot from the St. Joe's game, which you'll probably find less depressing. Check it out, or don't, I don't really care, had a lot of fun writing it:
http://giantkiller.co/ByGeorge/2017/01/16/peteys-bucket-of-knowledge-the-weekly-breakdown-volume-1/
Bill Bride@Bill_DC
