Freemantle

[bleedXblue]

Yeah if the first half with Tandy, Wicher, Odom, Johnson and Free on the floor that group stretched the lead from 8 to 14. Should have gone to that lineup again in the 2nd half for a bit. The run in 2nd half happened because of bad shots and a few guys got tired. Steele did not manage a large part of the 2nd half very well, but thankfully the last three or four minutes the team got back on track a bit.

Butler started taking the ball to the basket and inside the paint on about 10 straight possessions to get back into the game and scored on about 80% of them. Made a lot of sense b/c they don't have many good shooters. What didn't make sense was not making a defensive adjustment whatsoever. We went zone for one possession and stopped them. Thankfully we shot the ball well and answered their run when we had to.

[xavierj]

Butler started taking the ball to the basket and inside the paint on about 10 straight possessions to get back into the game and scored on about 80% of them. Made a lot of sense b/c they don't have many good shooters. What didn't make sense was not making a defensive adjustment whatsoever. We went zone for one possession and stopped them. Thankfully we shot the ball well and answered their run when we had to.

I get all that but the bigger problem was Xavier not scoring. They let up a 13-0 run. Odom missed three good looks driving to the basket and Free took two dumb threes. I mean you make the run 13-6, instead of 13-0 and the lead never gets below 13 and you cruise. That sequence was not handled well. Yes they should have changed the defense, but also run some good sets to get the right guys taking shots. Butler was daring Odom to shoot and wanted Free taking threes. Hopefully the coaches learned something during that sequence.