University of California San Diego Tritons

[LIONS90045]

This was a nice come back by the Lions in the first half and may confirm Dunlap's system as working.
It is the veterans plus Humphries who are leading the Lions tonight.
With Payne, we probably would be far ahead, but that's speculation.
Lets get our first win under our belt tonight and move on from here.
I haven't heard about Hayes status.
New recruits, excepting Humphries, are getting their feet wet tonite to DI (or DII?) ball.
Tritons did shoot well at the start of the game but the Lions seemed to get them under control in the later parts of the first half.
Go Lions!

[jackdaniels73]

picked up the game 5 mins, and obviously the def needs to be a lot better. There was a little improvement at times in the 2nd part of the first half. UCSD had 28 points with 10 mins to go in the half, and they ended up only scoring a handful of points the last 8 - 9 mins, but some of a good portion of that was due to UCSDs shooting cooling down and missing open looks.

One thing that i did like, or seemed to me (by no means am i an expert on x's and o's) but there seemed to be more movement on offense and passing that seemed to free up guys on the defense rotation to find some good open looks and easy layups/dunks. But as mentioned above would like to see a little more recognition at finding the miss matches, and also like to see improved shooting from the outside.

Seemed like previous years the passing was more perimeter passing behind the 3 and to find an open outside shot, and if that did not work, give AI the ball to see if he could penetrate or shot a 3.

LMU needs to come out strong in the second half and pull away from UCSD and take control of this game.

[LIONS90045]

Game highlights shown at break revealed some very nice touch passes resulting in easy buckets.
Keep up the good work Lions!

[uncurselmu]

Definitely nice to see more off the ball movement and screens, although there was another trip down the floor where we couldn't get the entry pass into siame, really seems like a half assed effort to do so. Unless he's got complete butter fingers and his teammates don't trust his hands I don't know why we wouldn't want to get patson's confidence going against a very undersized frontcourt. either way siame's rim protection is nice.

Edit: Siame has at least three blocks so far with 11 minutes to go.

[LIONS90045]

I think Siame is for real - he just needs some seasoning on the court to build his confidence as you noted.

[LIONS90045]

Like I said - this was no cakewalk but a nice win - lots of youth on the floor tonite

[uncurselmu]

Terrible finish to that game. Gave up some looks and then in the last minute I believe Humphries dribbled into three players at the sideline and fell. SD got the ball and their man stepped in from the 3pt line and flint just stood under the basket as he gathered himself for a wide open J. Our last possession was gawd awful (reminded me of the good ol max run out 35 seconds and then turn the ball over play). Thankfully ayodeji's hail mary was recovered by mornar.

I only saw about 2/3rds of the game, but her'es a few notes.

Humphries was definitely feeling it and was very aggressive.

Ayodeji-He's making good entry passes and actually cutting after doing so. He looks like he should have a great year.

Godwin- Wow. He's had a lot of time off to work on his game and he's looking like the player we hoped he would turn into when we signed him out of findley prep. He did have a slight size advantage but he wasn't reliant on his size to be effective. Godwin had a beautiful no look to a cutting flint and was really just impressive passing out of the post. He had at least 5 assists. He seems very comfortable taking midrange shots. As much as he's physically developed and really improved his Freethrows/midrange/post game I think Godwin's grown most in his basketball IQ. Time injured on the sideline gives you time to think and analyze the game. Just watching him you can tell the game has slowed down for him and he's not panicking.

Herman-He's very nimble and savvy for a bigman. Herman is able to face up and put the ball on the floor and really make things tough on his man.

[husky]

Pretty rough start overall I was hoping to see some more depth but obviously we couldn't get far enough in front to trust the new players. Of course it was great to see the vets back; except for Humphries they carried the load. The bench couldn't have scored more than a handful of points.

If Evan had played, I am sure the spread would have been much wider. Good to see him all friendly and supportive near the coaches on the bench. Humphries reminded me of another hard-nosed Aussie: Damian Martin, only David can shoot; he should come in especially handy in WCC play. Still lots of work to do. Hope for a decent crowd next week for Boise St. and SE Mizzu St... Go Lions!!

[aussielion]

They missed Evan who will be there next game and they missed Matt hes got a groin injury Humphries gave us a clue of how hes going to play looking forward to the next game, watched the game in Australia why do they put the scoring logo at the bottom right it cuts a lot of the game out

[longtimelionfan]

I hope Josh Spiers is okay and available too. He is supposed to be a shooter and we could use that. Much better ball movement.

I don't think Dunlap showed much. None of his famous zone nor any real zone presses. I suspect saving for next week.

[guarddad]

Hi
Matt Hayes has a slight groin pull nothing serious, just resting it for next week. Could have played if really needed. Not for an exhibition.  Evan Payne (Whew!) From my understanding (don't quote me) is suspended for 2 games. I don't know if that means last night and SE Missouri games or the SE Missouri and Boise State game. I guess we'll see. I think Dunlap is holding a lot back, but next week he has to show all his cards. A win is a good start, no it wasn't pretty, but a good start.

GO LIONS!!

[aussielion]

im pretty sure Evan was suspended for two days and Josh has a concussion

[ALioninWinter]

I think I was at a different game than most of you. I realize this was only an exhibition but I thought it was a poor showing with a lot more disappointing aspects than pleasant surprises.

On the plus side -
1. Humphries played a really good game. He hustled a lot, shot fairly well and seemed to have a knack for knowing where to be and when to assert himself. He reminded me of a number of Santa Clara Broncos that have played over the years -- he's really nothing special to look at and doesn't have any game aspect where you want to say, "Wow. He's really good.". But he consistently does good things and at the end of the game he's a major stat contributor. I'm looking forward to seeing him in a Lion's uniform for the next two years.
2. Deji played well. He easily overpowered UCSD's guards. That won't happen too often in DIvision I play, but he deserves credit for taking advantage of the situation.
3. Godwin had some good plays. A definite improvement over past play, but he did still have several unfortunate throwback moments.
4. The Lions had a lot of assists. Passing was good most of the game. There were some really good interior passes that led to dunks by Money, Godwin and Hermann. Not many turnovers for a team that did a lot of passing ... And for guys who haven't played together much.

... But .........
1. The team is very slow. I know Evan and Matt are probably our fastest guys and they were both on the bench, but the rest of the team was incapable of pressing on defense or fast breaks on offense. No wonder Evan gets in trouble in practice. There's no one keeping up with him. I don't know if that's the problem but it wouldn't surprise me if he's getting frustrated.
2. Siame certainly looks good in his uniform but he was flat out bad against severely under-sized competition. He finally asserted himself late in the and picked up couple of good blocks but most of game time was nothing approaching what I was expecting. The guy has tremendous size and strength but failed against guys were much smaller. How do we expect him to be better against tougher competition?
3. Hermann is another guy who looked good in his uniform but didn't show much in the game. He actually seems to have some movement ability to go with his size but he struggled with a lack of aggressiveness. I hope the coaches can get him to amp up his game because we are going to need him. He's also very slow, not just his foot speed but also his reaction times. He got beaten to a number of rebounds by much smaller guys.
4. Simon strikes me as another Chase. Both seem to be serviceable to be okay backup point guards but they aren't good enough to lead the team. I know he is a freshman but I don't see a lot of unrefined potential there.
5. No one other than Humphries showed any inclination to shoot the long ball. Is he our only outside threat?
6. My biggest alarm bell isn't for individual player performances. The really distressing thing for me was I didn't see much of the disciplined Dunlap approach to the game. Half of UCSD's points came on wide open 3s. Not contested 3s but wide open ones. How many times does a team have to be burned before they learn you can't leave the weak side arc unguarded when you're playing a 3-point shooting team? I'm all for aggressive defense, but you have to maintain defensive spacing. The press defense was very unorganized and ineffective. Other than original positioning the guys didn't seem to know how to react to "what happens next". The offensive side was better but the defense was terrible

Back on the bright side, I was impressed with Evans behavior before the game talking to the refs and encouraging the players. After the game he was first in line after Dunlap shaking hands with the other team. I sure hope his leadership and scoring ability combined with Matt's point guard play can make a significant difference. We're going to need them.

3 .

[LIONS90045]

That's a fair analysis Winter.
We did get a win with a nice comeback effort and it was our first game together with lots of new talent.
However, it was against a DII team with a mediocre record and we barely eked out the win.
We should improve with Matt and Evan back on the court. While they handle the ball well from point, neither Simon nor Chase offer much scoring from the guard spot from what we've seen so far.
I sincerely hope Dunlap's relationship with Evan improves - we need that young fellow in a Lion's uniform this season and beyond.

[longtimelionfan]

I was not at last night's game; the best place to observe play. I saw the game on the website streaming feed. So, the following comments are based upon a very limited and less than optimal foundation. That said, from what I saw I generally share Winter's concerns, particularly about team speed and defense.

But, from the glass half full view, I wonder if some of the slowness is attributable to playing hesitantly because the players are not yet comfortable with what they are supposed to do and where they are supposed to be. I say this because I know from prior live observation that Deji and Godwin are both faster than they appeared last night. And, I too saw Herman and Siame being slow to the boards but that too is consistent with thinking before acting. If this is true then speed and quickness should not only improve with the addition of Payne and Hayes but also with more time and familiarity within the system and with the schemes. And, it should be remembered that practicing against each other is never the same as the game and hostile reactions and response. While UCSD is a Division 2 team, the team I saw last night is much better and more accomplished than many past exhibition opponents.

Apart from sluggishness, on defense we saw none of what I expect will be our main defense, Dunlap's preferred zone schemes. Similarly, I don't think the Lions really applied any press. It looked token to me. I'm confident that Dunlap didn't want to show any of his preferred defenses or press schemes last night. Otherwise, we'd have seen at least some of both.

And, I expect significantly more offensive fire power next week. From what I've observed from last year and what I've heard, Payne and Hayes (and Spiers if he makes the rotation) are shooters. When you add them to what we saw last night from Humphries that should add significantly more fire power. And, with the greatly improved passing and offensive movement I saw last night there should be many more open knock down looks for the shooters outside and behind the three point arc as well as many more easy inside baskets that what we were able to generate last year.

I do know this. We'll know a lot more about where this team presently stands after next week's games. SE Missouri State (18-14) and Boise State (21-13) were good teams last year and both are seen as contenders in their conferences this year. And, we'll get to gauge LMU's play against them and against conference foe USD via comparative score and eyeball. Thus, by next Saturday night we'll have a real time idea of where LMU stacks up against three veteran Division 1 teams projected to do well this year. That should be fun and more enlightening.