FanPost

Freshman Wall


I mentioned this in game thread but will put this here since no post game thread and want to hear other opinions.

This may be unpopular statement. I think Loyer & Smith have hit a bit of the freshman wall. In fact, I think they hit that wall a couple weeks ago. If you go back 5 games over the last 2 weeks, Smith is 9-31 from the field (29%) and 1-11 from 3 (9%). Loyer is 20-57 from the field (35%) and 5-21 from 3 (24%). Those are some pretty crappy numbers. I didn't notice at 1st because we kept winning (Edey + our bench play has carried us). It's not as if they have been horrible. Smith had the 9 Assist/ 0 turnover day on Wednesday. They also both have had an 8-8 FT game that helped us win. But their efficiency has not been good on pretty high volume (especially Loyer).

Today, they were mostly bad and played like freshman. Smith should have been credited with 2 TO tonight (not 1). Somehow he didn't get a TO on that pass to Edey in the post that was just not there. Lot of players had TO, and as Edey said, everyone could have made plays the whole game. But those 2 TO were backbreaking and really put the game out of reach for us. That last one was a high-school type of play that we just can't have anymore. Loyer didn't shoot the ball well (1-4 from 3 and 3-9 overall today), but that doesn't reflect the intangible stuff. He had a horrific defensive play in the 1st that led to wide open dunk. On offense, at least 2x I told my wife "don't like that shot" as he forced up a contested 3 off the dribble with plenty of time on shot-clock. He's not in high school either; there are other players on this team that score if you run offense. I know the atmosphere was crazy today and that factors in, but the truth is they both played perhaps the worst game they have all season after several games of not playing particularly well ( scoring the ball at least).

Hopefully they'll come out of it and finish the season stronger. All freshman hit the wall. To be expected. But this may be a dose of reality for us. Trying to go deep in March with freshman guards is not historically a high chance of success. They are going to have to be better if we are going to have a deep NCAA run.

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