UC Irvine Report Card by 001

UC-IRVINE REPORT CARD
This was an ugly win, but still a win. I personally thought we would win by 20+ points prior to the game. We just didn’t take care of the ball the way that we should. Too many errors, some unforced, cost us a bunch of points. Rhodes reverting to his old ways hurt. Although, he did have a double double, with the number of shots he took (14), he should have scored more. He kept trying to take it in being double teamed when he should have dished it back outside. I suppose we could have scored more, but with Gordon on the bench for the final 7:04 minutes, it just wasn’t meant to be.
OFFENSE C
Too much me and not enough we in the game today. We shot pretty well in the first half on 15 for 26 FG for 57.7%, 6 of 9 3 pointers for 66.7% and 5 of 7 FT for 71.4%. However, everything headed south in the second half with 9-29 FG for 31.0%, 1 of 9 from 3 point range for 11.1% and 8 of 13 FT for 61.5%. Turnovers played a large part of our not scoring like we should. We had 17 turnovers in this game. 8 of those were by Rhodes and Johnson. Stewart had a good game scoring 18 points, pulling down 6 rebounds, and 2 assists with just 1 turnover. Foul trouble kept Varnado on the bench almost all of the second half.
DEFENSE C
Statistically, defense wasn’t really as bad as it looked. UCI did get a number of fast break points and scored a ton of points in the paint, but we had 31 defensive rebounds as compared to their 9 offensive rebounds. Without naming names, some of players were really dogging it on defense. If defense doesn’t improve, after tomorrow, we play our last game in the loser’s bracket.
ASSIST TO TURNOVER RATIO D
Today, the bench players were better in this category than the starters. The bench went 4 assists to 3 turnovers. And all three turnovers were by Brian Johnson. The starters had 9 assists to 14 turnovers. Rhodes was the worst here with 1 assist and 5 turnovers. If the post men don’t start passing out of double teams and the guards taking better care of the ball, we are going to be in deep smelly stuff in the next game.
REBOUNDING B-
Again we won the rebounding margin 43 to 31. This still needs improvement, because UCI scored a number of points off fast breaks because of their big men slapping the ball out to the perimeter guys. 37 of the rebounds were by our starters, leaving just 6 for the bench players. The bench players, especially Johnson and Bailey need to step it up.
3 POINT SHOOT A-
This was the tale of two halves in 3 pointers. We shot 6 of 9 for 66.7% in the first half and then fell clean off the map in the second half going 1 for 9 for 11.1%. Stewart was the best on our team tonight going 4 for 7 for 57.1%. Rhodes was trying to show off and missed both of his attempts. For the life of me, I can’t understand why the big men don’t just improve their inside game and leave the long range stuff up to the perimeter players.
FREE THROW SHOOTING C
We only saw a slight improvement today as compared to our last game. We were 5 of 7 for 71.4% in the first half and 8 of 13 for 61.5% in the second half. This gives us 65.0% for the game. We need to improve in this area and get it closer to 75.0% for the game.
OFFICIATING B+
I thought the officials in this game called a pretty good game. Missed some calls, but they showed no bias in their calls. To me, that is all you can ask for.
OVERALL C+
The team didn’t play with the same energy and speed that they showed in the last game. They still are not taking care of the basketball. Still having too many turnovers and not enough assist. The chemistry I saw in our last game was not apparent today. There was no difference much in free throw shooting today when you compare the final results with UCI. I suppose we should be happy with a 15 point win……But we play the 18th rated team in the nation tomorrow. We have to improve overnight to win that one.
PREDICTION MSU OVER SO.ILL. by 3 in a close one.