Long Beach State Athletics!: Seeding doesn't matter

least of concerns.

yep, beat Hawaii & Davis and we'll be maybe 4th or 5th.

Hawaii obviously a big game to rebound, plus before Santa Barbara. fact is every game, including UCSB is winnable (and losable).

main thing to me is getting Tone as much playing time. I don't get 3 minutes for Rotegaard, he's been proving he can hit the 3 and make shots last 3 weeks, and he can board. Now he just doesn't shoot much. I get he's not as quick. to me we do have guys that can hit a 3 and would be good to see us getting more of those from inside out when they square up. our 3 pt shooting last five games has been 33% and up in 4 of those, at 35%, so it's not like the brickmason group from earlier in year

even if 7th seed, the tournament format is first game on Tuesday with a day off, so it's not the 4 games in 4 days. Granted getting 6th seed or higher is preferred, but not some death-march if the team has to play the North or UCSD first round

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#1) Riverside Head coach. We sure know he watches film.

they had some guys with long arms and they crashed the boards. a great reminder rebounding isn't just two guys - everybody has to block out. It was almost getting automatic to outboard everybody by 10 each game. well not so fast.
it worked for them.

they ramped up ball denial, and especially guarding in transition. it's clear after Bake did that starting 2nd half and last night, no more 'free path' for our guys or unguarded long passes down the court.

gonna have to adjust, and basically make stronger passes everywhere. the jig is up on the 'revamped' look of the team that won 6 straight

2) that's basically it. back to boards and passing, it's no secret we don't have a classic or experienced point guard, so pressure the heck on Long Beach

3) scary thought is...

we shot the 3 ok, and have been for last couple of weeks, ok it's not 40%, but it's not in the 20% eitehr. Jones is back on. just sucks AJ couldn't hit that open 3 to get within one. happens

we hit like 12 straight FTs

so we did the things we hand't done well and lost, versus didn't do the things we had done well. nothing is easy

4) it was a decent effort to get back to 4. just can't start a half with 12 TOs, and can't start a 2nd half leaving a sharp-shooter open to get 10 points in 60 seconds or so

5) the pick and roll defense. don't know the answer, can't always play zone. Teams are going to pull LT to the top of the key with pick n rolls to get him away from the bucket to a) get him out of rebounding position, and b) get around him for paths to the bucket

either LTs got to start hedging better or we have to trap aggressively which is tough. don't know the answer, but both Riverside and UCSB just killed us on that. and teams will target that. all the other guys can interchange defensively for most part. LT is the challenge for us, we don't want him out there at all. Nothing against LT, he's agile just can't guard those guys out there.