Saturday, December 20, 2008

Couple More Quick Stanford Thoughts

Luka Mirkovic played his best game of the year with 7 points and 6 rebounds. However, I'm sure he'll kick himself about that missed free throw and trouble boxing out late.

Kyle Rowley seemed to score on a couple nice moves, but for a 7-foot guy it seems he doesn't get that many rebounds. Only 2 tonight in 16 minutes. I mean he was by far the biggest guy on the court, yet it didn't sound like he played like it.

Kevin Coble stepped up again to make some big shots late, but his 52% free throw shooting is a serious problem. That's got to be mental because the guy is an 80% free throw shooter for his career.

Craig Moore had another off day. He's a seriously streaky player and I'd pay close attention to his first couple shots vs SMU.

Juice had 6 turnovers along with 6 assists. This might have been the worst game of his career.

Ivan Peljusic only played 4 minutes all in the first half. I really believe he is NU's second best rebounder after Shurna and so I'm pretty upset he wasn't on the court at the end. It seems to me Ivan is given the shortest leash of anybody by Coach Carmody. Considering all the great things Ivan does on the court I don't like that fact all. In fact, this is an issue on which I'll write more at a later date.

3 comments:

macarthur31 said...

It sounded like we were settling for fadeaways and challenged 3s in the first half. We needed to slash to the basket and draw fouls, at least to keep Stanford honest -- its not like they had a deep bench anyway (all their starters went 30+).

Mirkovic might've been the better option out there, as while Ivan's got a little more experience -- perhaps Mirkovic is quicker out there. No doubt that Ivan has produced in limited minutes, but it's hard for me to rail on Carmody on that.

Look like Carmody spread the minutes out -- probably more out of necessity because of Shurna's foul troubles since Coble logged 38 and Moore was 32+. Between the unforced errors that led to transition buckts, and our missed layups -- that's a 10 point spread right there.

Reading in the Trib-lead up that Craig Moore said that "this might be the most important game of my career..." Well, our seniors needed to do a better job of settling this team down in that first half.

Ryan said...

Good points. Honestly, based purely on physical skills Mirkovic should probably start at center. If he gets more comfortable out on the court I think eventually he will. Perhaps tonight was a first step in that direction. Overall, I think you’re right this was a game where unforced errors hurt and our seniors didn’t step up in the way we might have hoped. I’m sure Coach Carmody will have the team ready for SMU and hopefully, although it’s another road game, going to PSU won’t be as much of a problem since the place will be more or less empty.

John said...

I've just taken my first glance at the box score. It appears to me that the offense was the problem in this game. I didn't expect to sustain the great production we'd been getting early in the season, but falling off 25% on a per possession basis while on the road is awful.

Comparatively, the drop in offense was twice as bad as the drop in defense. Just shows you what happens when Moore and Thompson pick the same night to have a rough game.

I didn't listen to the game, but is it possible that Moore's struggles were partially a result of Thompson's? Moore is at his best as a spot shooter and he needs someone like Thompson to create room. I wonder if Thompson's rough night really was the larger problem.