Jays vs Bulldogs (Jan 1)

[cu8493]

IMO, if Korver, Maniget and Josh Jones start shooting the ball with any kind of consistency, this team will be very difficult to defend. Korver is playing outstanding defense and passes the ball better than anyone on the team. He is going to be in the game 30 minutes whether he scores 3 pts or 15 pts. Maniget and Jones bring a lot of energy on both ends of the court. They hustle every minute they are in the game. Jones in particular is having a tough time finding his shot, but their hustle and energy gets them on the court and we need to socre points while they are in there. If those three can start being a consistent threat, it will put a tremendous amount of pressure on defenses trying to double down in the post. That said, Korver hasn't shot consistently since his freshman year and Jones has never shot well. Just not sure either is going to get it going well enough this year to put CU over the top.

[Realhoops]

call me bias, but we look good.

You're biased for sure...Tuesday may be a bit of a wake up call. Lots of missed open jumpers by the Drake...not sure MSU will miss like Drake. I don't have as good of a feeling going into Tuesday as most CU fans that's for sure. One things for sure, CU will need to repeat their rebounding performance of yesterday...that was the most impressive thing about yesterday. They didn't give up too many offensive boards...

I'm nervous about Tuesday, but expect a good game. I don't expect a blowout either way.

I'll disagree with you a bit on your assessment of the Jays' defense though. While it's true that the Drake had some open shots and just missed them, almost every one of those open shots was by a guy that was not the one Drake really wanted to be taking the outside shot. The Jays really did a nice job of shutting down Drake's main outside threats and not giving any open looks all night long.

To me one of the most impressive things about the Jays under McDermott so far has been the scouting and gameplanning. In most games it is very clear that the Jays have specifically targeted the players that they don't want to let go off, and then they've succeeded in taking those players out of the game for the most part. Even Fredette from BYU was largely a non-factor. The way McDermott coaches defense, teams are going to get some open looks. But the Jays are forcing a very low shooting percentage inside the arc, taking away specific players from outside the arc, and rolling the dice with third or fourth options outside the arc for opposing teams. So, yes, teams (like Drake) are missing some open shots -- but part of that is because of who is getting the look and what's going on everywhere else.

At least that's how I see it.

Hopefully there is a better officiating crew on Tuesday night -- those guys last night were dreadful with a number of the worst calls I've seen in a long time (horrible calls going *both* ways, frankly).

[cu8493]

I agree, but I think it goes even a step beyond the defensive game planning, its getting the players to execute the game plan. Time after time in the past couple of years players would say after a game(paraphrasing) "The coaches gave us the game plan, we knew what we were supposed to do, they did what the coaches told us they would do. We just didn't carry out the game plan. Don't know why."

I know part of it is that the selfish play of the last couple of years has gone away with a couple of the players departing. But, I think a lot of credit goes to the coaches for reaching the veteran players. Korver was a great example. His defense the first three years has been very average. This year, he has been assigned to shut down certain scorers, and he has been pretty good at it. His task Saturday was to keep Wedel in check. Wedel didn't score until a meaningless three with 1:17 left in the game. Wedel got off 8 shots, but very few if any were wide open looks.