Random Thoughts on B4A

• I am very pleased with Missouri's 3rd place finish and while initially being disappointed by getting blown out by Louisville, I can see where a game like that will be a good learning experience.  Louisville gave full effort for all 40 minutes while Missouri seemed to give up in the latter stages and the final score clearly reflects that.
• It's great experience to have close games like the Stanford and VCU games.  Winning does not come naturally and some of these players frankly don't know the first thing about winning games at the college level.  While I would have rather have blown these teams out of the water, I think there are lots of positives that can come from pulling out close games like what we saw.
• When Pressey took that step-back three, I was thinking "What the...?"  When it splashed through the net, I yelled "What a great shot!"  While I did not care for the shot selection, I LOVE the level of confidence that he has in his own game.  The fact that he made that shot and the next one...there's a player who knows how to win at this level.
• Laurence Bowers is going to drive me crazy this year.  He has been the most inconsistent player on the team so far.  Against Louisville, he played scared and was a waste of space for most of the game.  Against VCU, he took over at times.  It's great that he has some range on his shot, but in my opinion, he needs to stay down low as much as possible.  So many times, Pressey would drive and Bowers would be perched behind the 3-point line instead of cutting to the basket where there was open space.  As a result, Pressey would either have to take a shot or pass outside where the shot was taken and Bowers was in no position to get an offensive rebound.
• Pressey has been creating opportunities for the other guys, but none of them seem to understand the importance of cutting to the basket.  Even on the brilliant behind-the-back pass in the Stanford game, Bowers almost wasn't there as he took his time cutting to the open space.  My hope is that this bunch learns to do this which will really help this offense take off.  Pressey is going to force players to collapse on him and he is great at getting the ball to the man cutting to the basket.
• 1-2-3...Keion Bell.  Bell was awful against Stanford, good against Louisville and great against VCU.  From the first game of the tournament to the third game, Bell improved drastically.  It looked to me like a light bulb went on and he learned from his previous mistakes.  He can be such an incredible weapon with his leaping ability and free-throw shooting.  Not only that, he's one of the few players on the team that actually looks okay playing defense.
• Haith's use of Rosburg and Jankovic has me completely befuddled.  Some people believe that those small doses of playing time actually help in their development.  However, I felt like whatever small benefits were accrued by their time on the court were more than offset by their ineffectiveness while in the games.  Both of these guys are the worst defenders on the team...for a team that plays poor defense, that is quite an indictment.
• Defense.  I learned two things about Missouri's defense in this tournament.  One, they don't have a clue on how to play zone.  Two, Ross, Pressey and Bowers are very weak defenders.  Ross and Pressey are constantly out-of-position which leads to open looks from behind the arc while Bowers is very slow guarding his man and is frequently caught flat-footed which leads to lots of easy buckets inside.  My hope is that this team can learn to play team defense.  I actually think that Oriakhi, Bell and NWC have fairly good instincts when playing defense (though they have all been guilty at times as well).  I am so tired of seeing guys leaping out to defend a three-point shot after the shot has already been released.  It's almost pathetic how often that happens with this team.
• Again, very happy to get two wins in this tournament.  I hope the guys had fun as the resort looked pretty nice (from the hundreds of commercials that I saw over the last three days).