
Right on cue, this team seemed to pick up from where they've left of the last few years and managed to start Big 12 play 0-2. This is not a very mentally tough team that simply doesn't know how to win, to exert its will on an opponent on a consistent basis. It seems right now we have two guys that are "all in" in Hoskins and Stewart. Stewart may make mistakes, but Huggins complimented him well on his desire to win as well as Hoskins in postgame. The rest of the guys, not so much.
Cartier looks like a whipped puppy out there and its becoming obvious he doesn't take this style of coaching well. Frankly he was given quite a bit of freedom by Wooly, probalby in part to keep him from leaving, and as Huggins and staff have tightened the reighns he has lost his confidence and isn't making the shots he has consistently made in his career here. Most all of last year if Cartier got an open look from 3 he was probably a 75% shooter and that has disappeared. I think in part last night he felt he had to step up with Bill out and took some ill advised shots and is unable to get into any rhythm offensively.
Lance is much the same. After buying in initially and succeeding, he is regressing from the Harris we saw his SO year to the Harris from last year. And this team can't afford to have 2 guys who have shown some ability in the past to be scorers, not be scorers.
Akeem balanced out his solid performance with probalby more of what we should expect. He again played well defensively and hit the boards, but his desicion making was bizarre at times, especially in transition.
This team just isn't going to win when it has that tough of time scoring the basketball and wastes as many possessions as they did last night. Outside Hoskins the team shot 23% and we won't win like that. We struggled some from the line as well, but at the end of the day we shot 69% which is about where we've shot all year, so we shouldn't be surprised, it was just that Tech shot 81% which puts even more pressure on your ball handling and rebounding.
Then we compounded all that b/c against a team like Tech you can't have the TOs we had and give them 2nd chances b/c they will kill you. Knight's teams don't beat themselves and we did last night.
If anyone can fix it its Huggins, but there is a long way to go. Without Walker this team is a lot easier to guard and when we can't get at least 2 of our scorers going we're going to be a 6 win team in this league. Huggs is going to need a big shovel.