Here's my (rather lengthy) take on the loss to Villanova from a student's perspective:
First off, Shizz should not have started that game. I completely understand Dunphy punishing Josh (for whatever the reason was), but Trey Lowe should've 100% started that game over Alston. Shizz looked intimidated, overwhelmed, and overmatched for those first 9 minutes before Brown checked in. If you're gonna sit Brown, Trey should have started.
Next, the crowd was electric pregame and for the first 4-5 minutes. It was awesome to see. But the crowd got taken out of the game pretty early and just never got back into it. Similarly, the team played along with that. They were into it for 5-10 minutes, but then fell behind and never were able to come back. Most of the first half, they played overmatched and like they didn't even want to be there. This has happened several times in the first half already this year, but it hasn't hurt us much yet because we've been able to come back in the second half (i.e. UConn). However, the difference was that Nova is too good of a team to mount a 10-15 point comeback in the second half. They are much better than UConn and would not let us come back the way we did against the Huskies.
Sidenote, Josh Brown should be passing the ball much more. He held the ball until 5 seconds on the shot clock several times and then just chucked up a prayer shot. Way too many poor shots from Josh (and others) throughout the whole game that resulted in wasted possessions. Against as good of a team as Nova, you can't waste any possessions. Josh needs to look around more and find the open player. Trey was jumping around trying to call for the ball multiple times because nobody was within 15 feet of him, but Josh didn't even give him a look. If Brown's going to run the offense, he needs to look around more and find the open player rather than holding onto the ball for 20-25 seconds and just throwing up a prayer.
Just my two cents and observations from a demoralizing loss in a game that would've been huge for our NCAA resume.
First off, Shizz should not have started that game. I completely understand Dunphy punishing Josh (for whatever the reason was), but Trey Lowe should've 100% started that game over Alston. Shizz looked intimidated, overwhelmed, and overmatched for those first 9 minutes before Brown checked in. If you're gonna sit Brown, Trey should have started.
Next, the crowd was electric pregame and for the first 4-5 minutes. It was awesome to see. But the crowd got taken out of the game pretty early and just never got back into it. Similarly, the team played along with that. They were into it for 5-10 minutes, but then fell behind and never were able to come back. Most of the first half, they played overmatched and like they didn't even want to be there. This has happened several times in the first half already this year, but it hasn't hurt us much yet because we've been able to come back in the second half (i.e. UConn). However, the difference was that Nova is too good of a team to mount a 10-15 point comeback in the second half. They are much better than UConn and would not let us come back the way we did against the Huskies.
Sidenote, Josh Brown should be passing the ball much more. He held the ball until 5 seconds on the shot clock several times and then just chucked up a prayer shot. Way too many poor shots from Josh (and others) throughout the whole game that resulted in wasted possessions. Against as good of a team as Nova, you can't waste any possessions. Josh needs to look around more and find the open player. Trey was jumping around trying to call for the ball multiple times because nobody was within 15 feet of him, but Josh didn't even give him a look. If Brown's going to run the offense, he needs to look around more and find the open player rather than holding onto the ball for 20-25 seconds and just throwing up a prayer.
Just my two cents and observations from a demoralizing loss in a game that would've been huge for our NCAA resume.
