Cal Poly @ Sac State

[SJHornet]

Cal Poly is not a great basketball program, but this is still going to be a tough contest for the Hornets. After that poor performance against UCFE, the Hornets look vulnerable. Cal Poly has struggled against two division 2 programs already, losing to Cal State Monterey Bay and beating Cal State East Bay at home by 7 points. They were routed by our conference foe Montana State but beat Seattle and LMU. Poly are considered a middle of the pack team in the Big West this season, and on average it looks like we have the height advantage. I haven't seen this team play so I can't judge how they will defend or go on the offensive. I hope we can pull off a big W, but I wouldn't be surprised if we drop another one at home.

Wish I could be at the nest tonight to see it in person, but I guess I'll just have to be there in spirit watching via Big Sky TV.

 

[SDHornet]

I’ll miss this game but CP has not looked good this season either. However I was surprised to see that they knocked of LMU. LMU must have stumbled out of the blocks this season as they returned quite a bit from last seasons squad.

 

[SactoHornetAlum]

Hornets pull out a gutty 71-67 win. Poly drained 8 three's in the first, but only managed one in the 2nd half while the Hornets sank 8 three's after halftime. Back and forth game. STB had a great game 16 points and several clutch shots beyond the arc. Great win for the program at a time when they needed it!!

 

[SDHornet]

Huge win. Hopefully the Hornets can build off of their recent success and get on a roll. The Hornets will be on the road for their next 3 games and their next game is at Washington State on 11/30.

TB was the leading scorer last night with 16 but Duro, Dickson, and Carbajal each had 13 points. Carbajal was a perfect 5/5 from the FT line and TB was a deadly 5/7 from 3 point land. Jackson led the team with 6 rebounds and Duro had 4. TB also had 8 assists and Proctor had 4. Everyone played at least 5 minutes so Katz is continuing to use the entire bench.

http://rivals.yahoo.com/ncaa/basketball/boxscore?gid=201011270494

 

[williestarbuck]

I'm sure Carbajal missed the front end of 2 in the remaining 20 secs. STB missed one too do did Duro. I was thinking here we go again. But I give them credit cause I've dinged them for their performance so I want to give them credit for a good win at home. Katz had them come out and play better perimeter defense and that cooled them off from beyond the arch and the interior defense was already pretty good i thought. Good coaching cause the way the 3's were falling Poly could have easily gotten into one of those runs that seems to have defined serveral loses.

I'd like to see the freshman point guard get minutes though. Good win. Go Hornets!

 

[SJHornet]

Glad to see a win, but was not a great game by any stretch of the imagination. I think we won because Poly’s dependence on the 3 was their undoing. I have a major complaint about this team though: complacency.

My impression of the Hornets this season:

-Hey, were up! Lets take it a little easy now.
-Wait, they just scored 10 points on us, we’re down now!
-Hustle, hustle, hustle, hustle…
-Whew! We just caught up, lets take it down a notch…
-Shit, they just scored another 15 unanswered points on us!
-Hustle, hustle, hustle, hustle…
-Whew, that was exhausting, lets take it easy for a while…
-Oh, Crap…

Repeat for 40 minutes

This team needs to keep the hustle up for all 40 mins. I’m tired of playing the catch-up game. Whenever we get a lead its impossible to get excited as we’ll be down very soon afterwards. Most times when we get the lead we begin to take risky shots or drive to the basket with 4 defenders in front. We got lucky last night that Poly was so dependent on the 3. If they had had any presence in the paint we would have been down too far to catch up.

To add, I think Proctor is an extremely talented kid and brings a lot of flair to the game, but can Katz sit him down and teach that boy some fundamentals? Every chance he gets he tries to take on the opposition by himself and takes ridiculously impossible shots. And how many times can one player be called for traveling? He’s playing playground ball, they are going to call him every time.

Also, props to the KRJY announcer last night. I think he was bloody hilarious at times. Probably trying to keep himself entertained. Love how he was stressing at the end of the game last night. Visions of Bakersfield

Whew… that’s enough from me for now.

 

[SDHornet]

Katz just doesn’t know how to coach with a lead. We saw this last year when he would shut down the offense and run a time consuming dribble it around the backcourt style of play whenever a lead was taken. It’s on the coaches to keep these athletes running on all cylinders for all 40 minutes. Katz does a solid job of keeping the players playing hard when they are in a hole, but he is clueless when the team overcomes the deficit and needs to finish strong. I was hoping this would improve this season, but it sounds like it is just more of the same.

 

[SactoHornetAlum]

Hey, we WON the game last night, not lost it. Cut them some slack. Only 3 guys returned from last year who played. Its still early to start bagging on Katz and staff. They have lost all 3 games by 6 or less points, not great, but not terrible. Would you all prefer those losses by 30 right now? Jeez...

 

[The Green Hornet]

We had to play most of the game without N'Diaye and that hurt us. With him in there, I think we may have been able to keep that five point lead or extend it, and then keep it instead of always giving it up.

But, this team hasn't been playing together long enough to totally control a game at the flip of the coach's switch. Besides, no team is going to give in and let us dictate what we want to do; they're trying to beat us, ya know!

I'm sure Katz doesn't know exactly what he's got yet and the players aren't sure either. We've been in all three of the D-1 games we've played so far and that's not bad. We should find out a lot more about the team on Tues at Wash St., but I'm not expecting any miracles this season. If we can just stay competitive no matter who we are playing, especially this early in the season, I'l take that. The coach only has so much he can do for the team; it's the players that have to execute.

 

[SactoHornetAlum]

I'm sure Carbajal missed the front end of 2 in the remaining 20 secs. STB missed one too do did Duro. I was thinking here we go again. But I give them credit cause I've dinged them for their performance so I want to give them credit for a good win at home. Katz had them come out and play better perimeter defense and that cooled them off from beyond the arch and the interior defense was already pretty good i thought. Good coaching cause the way the 3's were falling Poly could have easily gotten into one of those runs that seems to have defined serveral loses.

I'd like to see the freshman point guard get minutes though. Good win. Go Hornets!

Carbajal made all 4 of his FT's in the final minute. It was Duro that missed the front end of the 1 and 1. STB missed his FT with 13 seconds left before hitting the second one.

 

[SDHornet]

Hey, we WON the game last night, not lost it. Cut them some slack. Only 3 guys returned from last year who played. Its still early to start bagging on Katz and staff. They have lost all 3 games by 6 or less points, not great, but not terrible. Would you all prefer those losses by 30 right now? Jeez...

Fair enough. I will just add that the 3 losses are to teams who I view as on an equal playing level as the Hornets currently are. If the fundamentals were executed properly, the Hornets are easily sitting at 5-0 right now. I’m just hoping to see improvement as the year progresses, and to be honest there wasn’t any improvement until the CP game (which I missed :x ). Hopefully improvement continues.

 

[Green Cookie Monster]

Hey, we WON the game last night, not lost it. Cut them some slack. Only 3 guys returned from last year who played. Its still early to start bagging on Katz and staff. They have lost all 3 games by 6 or less points, not great, but not terrible. Would you all prefer those losses by 30 right now? Jeez...

Fair enough. I will just add that the 3 losses are to teams who I view as on an equal playing level as the Hornets currently are. If the fundamentals were executed properly, the Hornets are easily sitting at 5-0 right now. I’m just hoping to see improvement as the year progresses, and to be honest there wasn’t any improvement until the CP game (which I missed :x ). Hopefully improvement continues.

Hummm, strikingly similar to football.