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I’ve been wondering why it seems many bigs on other PAC-12 teams have had huge nights against USC. Obviously the Trojans have the best center in the conference, so why do other opposing power forwards or centers often seem to score a lot of points? Tubelis of AZ had a monster game, Dishon Jackson just scored 18 when his average is like 6, and even Mac Etienne had a decent showing in his first ever college game. Is this just selective memory, or is there some other explanation for this?
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Mostly selective memory, although bigs are better at the rim against Evan than guards are. Guards can’t overwhelm him with strength so they have no chance.
We did a good job on Da Silva and Battey didn’t go off on us. Neither did the bigs from ASU, Utah or Oregon State, and Matt Haarms had no impact. Our losses were all shooting failures.
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I think there's a small sample size here first of all.
Second of all, I think scouting reports and defensive scheme are huge in determining how well an opponent plays against us.
I don't know if we expected much from Tubelis when we played AZ, or if we focused more on shutting down the guard, but I doubt he will be as stellar this week against us.
We run a great deal of man on defense, particularly because Evan is quick enough to guard opponents guards, but this can also lead to mismatches where other team's bigs are against our smaller guys.
As the comment above me mentioned, we shut down Da Silva, and battey wasn't anything special when we played the buffs, so I don't think there's anything worth digging at here.
It's a team sport and we focus on shutting the other team down as opposed to any particular player. And we have done just that.Comment
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IIRC, a lot of their points were not in the paint. Hot jump shooting nights for them and some fast breaks.Comment
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I think that Evan is physically being pushed around by some of these players and just needs to get stronger (in the NBA). He doesn't want to push back too strongly for fear of getting foul calls from our Pac12 refs, and we know how poor their officiating can be. It is remarkable to me that Evan can still dominate the paint and cause many opponents to avoid even trying to go the the rim because of his presence, and does this without getting into foul trouble, that is a great skill. When he adds weight and strength to go with his skillset, he will be even more of a monster and a big problem for NBA opponents.Comment
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Good points.
Yup - Evan does get pushed around by bigs with strong lower bodies. We've seen it time and time again. Even much lesser bigs who weigh more sometimes just move him out of the way for layups. Evan is much better blocking shots from guards and wings attacking the basket than he is defending other bigs in the low post. He'll get stronger. -
the banger is more common nowadays than the true big man.
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One of my big concerns about SC and quite frankly any west coast school in the NCAA tournament is the physicality of the Big Ten, the Southern and Eastern schools. They do play and are allowed to play a more physical style of basketball than the Pac-12. For some reason, the Pac-12 officiating in both football and basketball is less tolerable to contact than other conferences. This is an adjustment the team needs to make outside of Pac-12 play. I am anxious to see how Evan holds up against Colorado and Evan Battey next week. Battey plays well against SC and is a physical basketball player. Our big men over the past couple of years have been more athletic than physical. With Larry Scott gone, I do hope they address officiating. In any event, Evan M and SC need to be more aggressive down low.Comment
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I’ve noticed this as well & have for quite sometime. I was gathering some stats from the first game vs Cal Baptist all the way up to our last game vs Wazzu and how their guards performed vs our defense. I should have that up by tonight but I think it’s preference as long as we aren’t allowing made shots from the perimeter at a good/high pct with the exception of the Cal Baptist game where it just seemed like they couldn’t miss!Comment
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Looking forward to seeing those for sure! Obviously it's not a huge problem but it just seemed a little strange some of these random bigs having career nights. I think part of it might be Evan looking to avoid foul trouble; he's really great at blocking guards' shots without fouling, but he seems to back off bigs a bit sometimes. He and Isaiah are great at trapping bigs underneath though.
Neutralizing da Silva was huge, and Abogidi was pretty quiet last game too.Comment
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Years ago when we still played preseason "exhibition" games at the Lyons Center I had a chance to talk to Booker Turner who was head of officiating in the Pac 10 at the time. I knew him since he used to referee in our Japanese basketball leagues as did other college refs. I asked if he thought the way that they officiated Pac 10 games was a detriment when our teams played in March Madness. He looked at me like I was crazy and said there was no difference...Comment
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