bierce

Aggie guards totally stunk up the join, but final was 63-62 Agroids. Phelps and Taylor were a combined 8/31 fg, 0/11 from 3. Mississippi was up 8 with 2:20 and the ball.

Georgia dribbled out the clock Jordan Pope style and shot an airball. Game has completely turned around in just 90 seconds.

Arky has closed to 7 thanks to two offensive fouls and a silly turnover on an inbounds play. Newell on the bench during the bad stretch. Back on the floor while Arky shooting ft to try to close it to 5.

SEC announcers totally sucking up to Arky this game. Georgia backup center makes spin move and creates space, so Arky defender walks into him while he's shooting. "That's not a foul on Thiero!" Yeah, it most obviously was. 52-41 Georgia, Arky ball with 11:52 left.

Arky hit a three in its final possession of the half. By 7'2" Zvonimir Ivisic. 38-26. Arky would be down 20 if he wasn't making things hard for Georgia guards to finish inside.

ESPN2. 33-26 Rebels at the half. They were up 11 at several points. Georgia up 37-23 with ball with 1:21 left in the half. Newell doesn't look like a freshman getting position down low, and he's nailing all his ft. Oops. Jinxed it. 38-23 after Newell miss from the line. Arky 0/8 bta.

Wagner was doing a good job of getting into the paint while I was watching, but Arky is down 20-12.

A&M guards got tunnel vision or careless on three straight possessions. Mississippi hit a pair of threes to go up 15-7.

I misread the schedule. Arky is playing Georgia in Fayetteville. 7-4 Dawgs at the TV timeout. 5-3 Mississippi at the TV timeout there. Teams are a combined 3/12 from the floor, so the pace is fairly fast, even if they aren't scoring much early. Lots of stuff going uncalled.

There was one thing about the Florida-SC game that really pissed me off. It didn't run past 8:00, and it happened on a night we weren't scheduled for the next game. Bastards.

Florida made the ft. SC took a dumb three but got the offensive rebound, ran clock, and hit a cutter with 17 some odd seconds to go. Fouled. Made one of two. Florida bringing it up with a chance to win. Doeesn't call timeout. gets a drive to the lane. Layup high off glass. SC runs down and misses desperation 3. Another tough loss for SC, but UF earned that down the stretch with some brilliant plays.

Inbound pass was tapped from behind to the guy covering the man inbounding the ball. brilliant d. Florida at the line to tie it.

Florida answers with a three and calls timeout. 68-66 with 1:04 left. Florida likely to play d and not foul this possession. Plenty of bodies have hit the floor in the last 3 minutes of this game.

Florida working hard to come back late, closed to within two, played good d while SC was fiddling around with its possession with 1:30 to go. Then SC player hit a three. He didn't call glass on it. You could tell. 68-63 with 1:14 to go. Florida has committed only 4 fouls this half, so fouling to force fts will take a while.

South Carolina up 36-29 at the half. Martin and Clayton scored 41 on us with 5/10 bta and 15/29 overall shooting. So far tonight the have 10 points on 0/4 and 5/13.

I think you are right about the team and ball movement generally being better when he's on the floor. For one thing, he moves a lot without the ball. With the ball on the perimeter, he moves it along quickly, but when he drives, he is usually in full flight to the rim. Not a lot of get inside and dish action going on there, but a lot of finishing and contact. Pity his ft shooting went south this year.

Ugh. Can't edit again. Of course I meant 50-32 with A&M beating Mississippi in the first round of the conference tournament.

I get the value of having a big man help by screening, our guys moving the ball, and gap exploitation. I was a huge fan of Christian Bishop for doing so much to help our offensive players get openings. But Shedrick has never been good at receiving a pass while moving, and Onyema . . . well, he gets a little too enthusiastic when setting screens, like he did last night in putting whoever that was to the floor. I'm not saying you're wrong about whether they are being used right, just that they may not be the guys we would ideally want in the roles you envision. It's like, my gosh, we could have used a guy like . . . oh, never mind.

It's happening, Reg! Something's actually happening, Reg!

Missed you, Jeff. Missed you badly. I just couldn't stand how toxic the atmosphere got over there late last spring.

Florida goes to South Carolina tonight. South Carolina is currently the only SEC team that doesn't present a q1 game for a visiting team, but it could get there. It lost one possession games to Auburn and @ Vandy, so it isn't that far off from being able to win a game and move up. This might not be that game, though. About the only thing USCe does well on offense is get to the line, and the only thing it does well on defense is get the rebound. Maybe Pringle can get UF big men in foul trouble and live at the line, but I'm not seeing an upset here with USCe being down 2 starters (PG Thomas and SF Stute). The biggest game of the night will be A&M at Mississippi. Mississippi and A&M had a reverse split last year with Mississippi winning by 3 in College Station and A&M ending Mississippi's season with a 26 point mashing in which A&M outrebounded Mississippi 50-21 in one of the most impressive incidents of board dominance ever. A week later, it was 50-32 when Mississippi beat A&M in the first round of the conference tournament. Mississippi tends to win the turnover battle bigly, forcing 6.8 more turnovers than it makes. Beard's teams have always forced a lot of turnovers in half-court defense, but this year Mississippi hasn't making any on offense. A&M was good at forcing turnovers but kind of so-so about avoiding them in non-conference play, but it is actually leading the conference in to% on both offense and defense in conference play. A&M is leading the country in offensive rebounding % for the second straight year, and it was 5th in 2022-23. Beard's teams generally have never been great at rebounding. Should be a really good game, but you better like a slow paced game with a lot of tough defense being played. Neither of these coaches profile as great offensive wizards, and neither tends to have teams that play fast and light up the scoreboard.

I'm guessing we win at least one game that you didn't count as winnable, but I'm also guessing we lose at least one of the winnable ones. Pomeroy projects us to win or lose a one possession game in 9 of our remaining 12 games, and the Alabama game in Austin has a 4 point spread. Arky might go totally in the tank now with Fland out for the year, and we go there 2/26. Still a lot of size and athleticism on that team, but the misfit parts just got even more misfit. Right now, the win over Missouri is a q1 win by more than just a fingernail, but it might not stay that way. We have as many as 10 more chances for q1 wins before the conference tournament, but it will probably more like 8.

Biggest news is Boogie Fland being out for the season, so the Calipari era in Fayetteville maybe just got that much darker. There are already articles out there about other SEC coaches criticizing his coaching style. https://www.si.com/college-basketball/sec-coach-devastating-one-word-description-john-calipari-arkansas-winless-conference-play Arky is 0-5 going into a road game against tournament hopeful Georgia. What's a dribble drive offense proponent going to do when he loses his best dribble driver? I guess Wagner moves to the point and Arky will depend on everyone creating their own shots and controlling the middle, but eesh. Looking like a disaster of a season building there. Georgia already beat Kentucky in Athens this year and lost to Auburn by two when it shot off the front of the rim on a inbounds play with 0.3 seconds. I always liked Mike White, and I thought he got the shaft by Florida. Wasn't surprised to see Georgia snap him up quickly. Freshman Asa Newell (the guy I wished we could have landed more than Toppin because of likely remaining length of college career) leads in points and rebounds. He takes a few too many threes, but what can you do with 6'11" kids these days? Georgia offense has become spotty since 3pt shooting went into the tank at the start of conference play, and turnovers have been a problem for White's teams for several years now, but the defense has been locked in. In yesterday's games, Alabama beat Vandy in Tuscaloosa by 16. Game was closer than that after Grant Nelson whacked a Commodore in the chops with a forearm and was called for a flagrant one. Oats bitterly complained that it wasn't like he took a gun to a former player to kill someone, so it should have been let go. Refs gave Bama the benefit of the calls the rest of the way. Tennessee bounced back from the close loss on the road to Vandy by beating Mississippi State by 12, holding MSU to 34% shooting. Back after lunch to describe the rest of today's games.

Works for me. I used to try to do a lot of that, but elder care eats up a lot of my time these days. Besides, I'm mostly just a stathead who watches a lot of basketball and chimes in with my opinionated a**holery.

We should hope for the day HoopsCoach migrates here.