Game Thread: OU vs. Michigan

[Dan Fenner]

Game story from today: oaklandpostonline.com/2010/12/18/sports/ou-vs-michigan/


That was a very disappointing showing. The highlight of the press conference was Kampe realizing in mid-sentence that Reggie Hamilton had ALL of Oakland's 3-pointers and the rest of the team went 0-for-17. He couldn't believe it.

I have to think Kampe will use the Rochester College game to get Maynard, Bass, and Ilija more playing time before conference season resumes again.

[Deleted]

Does anyone know if/when they'll post vid of the postgame conference?

[rimwrecker]

Without pointing fingers at individual posts, most of you are not putting your fingers on the problem. Guard play lost us the game. Basketball is an inside out game. Benson only got to touch the ball 8 times. I suggest you get the stat sheet and count how many shots were taken and missed by guards before you post your analysis. Hamilton scored 23 points but look at how many possessions he took shots and missed. Count those up. He missed 24 points in 3s and one 2 plus 3 free throws. So, he made 23 and missed 29. Go down the line and you get the picture. The guards were not working the ball inside, they were driving wildly to the basket trying to score against 5 defenders. Were you at the game?

(Forgive the duplicate post. Corrected a couple of errors)

[blackandgold]

I've had enough time to forget about what happened in Ann Arbor today to not be terribly upset about it. What was most disheartening to me though was that the Michigan crowd was never really into the game. The students were solid (by the way I hope people saw that one random Oakland student in their student section wearing his black and gold t-shirt) but it wasn't until the last four minutes of the game that the crowd got on its feet...and unfortunately Oakland couldn't capitalize on playing without such a hostile crowd and even having 100 or so supporters. Oh well...I know arenas don't win games but thought that was worth noting.

I also think there were several good points made about the game above, particularly about Benson. I find it really hard to compare his production from game to game because of how different teams approach him. But you have to give Morgan and Horford credit as well as the other random dudes who came in and guarded him. That said, as rimwrecker points out, Benson only had 8 field goal attempts - clearly the guards could have done a better job getting him the ball. The four guard line-up with Benson in the middle actually worked pretty great for a while and it seemed like Benson was getting a lot more looks during that run.

However, Benson had way more than 8 touches. Just using an estimation from the box score, we can see he had 8 field goal attempts, four free throws, and four turnovers. So he had a total of at least 14 worthwhile possessions. He should have had more, no doubt, and you'd like him to have been in position to get to the line a lot more than he did, but I'm not faulting him for anything related to that cause of the double and triple teams he faced (and his supporting cast could not hit shots) but I can see where some folks at least have an argument when mentioning a letdown performance. You can't directly quantify effort level (and it is no doubt a very touchy subject to bring up), but at least in my mind a lot of effort is driven in rebounding numbers. Benson had 0 offensive boards (and the team was missing A LOT of shots so the opportunities were there) and his most direct opponents, Jordan and Horford, had 7 offensive boards. To me that says a least a litle bit about a bit of a letdown. Is it fair? Probably not. He can't be Superman every game and it's one of those "well what more do you want situations" since 99 times out of 100 he's going to give you that top-level production.

Now on the other hand, could the guards have crashed the boards better: yes. I remember several plays where a guard would take a quick shot and it would be four yellow shirts and just Benson waiting for the rebound...even a future NBA guy would have trouble fighting for the board in that predicament without fouling.

Overall, guys just didn't hit shots which did nothing to open up the paint for Kito a bit more on the offensive end. The team's MO came up short, and we learned that when that happens, we don't have many back up options. But as Coach Kampe said in his post-game, he can use this tape to figure out how to alleviate that problem when a Summit League team tries to do this to us in late January. Disappointed in the loss, but probably more by the margin. Michigan is a smart team and their effort should be praised. They are looking like a pretty good team (even on a night where they too struggled from deep).

On to the next one. Looking forward to Ryan Bass getting some time against RoCo. He gave the team some really great minutes during OU's attempt at a comeback (when they were pressing full-court).

[Germane]

With all due respect, rimwrecker, yes I was at the game and I disagree with you at least in part. The guards shot horribly, no doubt. Eackles was 0-6, Bader was 1-5, and worst of all Wright was 1-9. Terrible. And even Hamilton, who was the only guard who could find any semblance of his shot, was way off on several attempts. And it seemed like we could never comfortably get into our offensive sets, for which Michigan's defense should get a lot of credit.

But if you saw the same game I did, you didn't see Benson fighting for position like an NBA prospect today. They denied too many entry passes that Benson absolutely has to fight to get, and he seemed to lack energy compared to Morgan and Horford. It looked to me like Benson was either under the weather or unfocused, or both. I realize others may have seen things differently.

In the end this was a team loss, and it surely wasn't Benson's fault alone. Just a massive disappointment all the way around.

I'm ready to move on.

[Germane]

Well, it's the day after and I guess the loss doesn't hurt quite as bad now.

We're still in good shape. Benson will still be an unstoppable force in most games. Our shooters will recover. No new injuries.

Can't wait to see the team back at the O'Rena this week.

[rimwrecker]

When you call Benson unfocused, you forgot to mention that he was being swarmed by 5 people guarding him. They put the whole team on him and dared the rest of his team to beat them and they didn't. If the newspapers reported that, then at least the Grizz fans should see it -- this is a little annoying to me.

Also, if you look at the types of shots the guards were missing, they didn't lend themselves for rebounds. His rebound production was low because of the types of shots the guards were taking. Basketball, I repeat, is an inside out game. It is not a 3 point shooting game. Oakland has got to teach their guards to get the ball inside to the big man. You live and die by the 3 point shot. When you get too much 3 point shooting, the rebounds go wide and it is difficult for the big man under the basket to rebound. The best 3 point shooters might prevail in the Summit League. But, if you want to play with the big boys, you have to feed the big man. This is not rocket science. This is the principal of good basketball.

Incidentally, Oakland did a good job of limiting 3 point shooting on the part of Michigan. They got fewer 3 point shots collectively than Hamilton. They killed us with lay-ups and jump shots.

[Germane]

No doubt it has to be frustrating for Benson to fight for position and have the guards fail to deliver the ball in the paint. He obviously can't get the ball to himself. But my criticism was that from where I sat, it didn't look like Benson was fighting hard enough for position on the block for long stretches. It looked like Morgan and Horford played with more consistent intensity, and that was disappointing in a game like this. I haven't had time to watch the game again on ESPN3, and my gametime impressions could certainly have been off. Wouldn't be the first time that happened.

Ultimately, though, this is a college basketball fan forum, and sometimes criticism (including what may turn out to be unfair criticism) is part of the deal. This forum is pretty civil compared to most.

And as far as Benson goes, most of us here would probably give up a kidney to see him lead this team to the Sweet 16 and then go as a lottery pick in June.

[Grizzfan1]

Dec 19, 2010 17:18:15 GMT -5 Germane said:

No doubt it has to be frustrating for Benson to fight for position and have the guards fail to deliver the ball in the paint. He obviously can't get the ball to himself. But my criticism was that from where I sat, it didn't look like Benson was fighting hard enough for position on the block for long stretches. It looked like Morgan and Horford played with more consistent intensity, and that was disappointing in a game like this. I haven't had time to watch the game again on ESPN3, and my gametime impressions could certainly have been off. Wouldn't be the first time that happened.

Ultimately, though, this is a college basketball fan forum, and sometimes criticism (including what may turn out to be unfair criticism) is part of the deal. This forum is pretty civil compared to most.

And as far as Benson goes, most of us here would probably give up a kidney to see him lead this team to the Sweet 16 and then go as a lottery pick in June.

+ 1

[blackandgold]

Just got done doing the weekly recap post for the Gameplan blog. I took a look at each one of Oakland's 3-point attempts against Michigan to try to classify each one and how they came about in order to get a distribution of the attempts for the whole game, and from there doing a little analysis of what happened at least from my point of view. Also some stuff in there about the Tennessee game.

grizzliesgameplan.blogspot.com/2010/12/gameplans-weekly-recap_19.html