That’s a bad loss, for a number of reasons. In a conference that appears to be loaded with eight quality teams, you can’t lose a home game to a team you are fighting for a first round bye in the Big 12 tourney and more importantly an NCAA bid. Just a killer. From tied for second, to fifth just like that. Spots 2-8 are going to change over the next four weeks, but to lose a home game really hurts considering you still have home games with KU and TX left, and have to go on the road to KSU and BU. Plus you have to think we are going to drop one in Ames, Boulder or Lincoln. So now we are looking straight down the gun barrel of 9-7 or 8-8 and that my friends is bubble city.

You know somewhere a crappy team in another conference (MAC, MVC, etc) is going to win a tournament title and will start stealing bids from other schools. This loss is going to loom very large come tournament time unless the boys can figure out a way to win a big one on the road or upset the top two at home.

Good:

Bowers: Going to earn a permanent spot here. 11 points and 10 Reb in 22 minutes. He needs to start and needs to play a lot. He should lead this team in minutes.

Bad:

Mike Anderson. Memo to Coach: Sometimes your system does not work, and you actually have to make an in game adjustment. One of his worst coaching jobs since he started. Your team can’t hit the ocean, they are taking shots that they shouldn’t be, and you don’t call a timeout to fix it? Really? That was freaking pathetic. Get some different guys in there. Run a set play. Do something. Don’t make we write another blog post about your system.

One of better offensive players in English is sitting on the bench during a good portion of that stretch. I know he is not a very good defensive player but you needed points at that time. I will give you the benefit of the doubt that Tiller was not the first option on the last play. That loss is squarely on you.

Defense: Texas A&M shot 52% from the field, 60% from three. The only reason they didn’t blow us out is they missed 17 FTs. , which goes to my next point

FTs: They shot 36 and we shot 21. They attacked the press and we settled for jump shots.

Shooting: 42% from the field and 32% from three. 28 Threes attempted. We made them against OSU and not against aTm. We live and die by the outside shot right now. That needs to be fixed because we need to make shots to set up the press. We are dead last in shooting percentage in conference games.

Ugly:

Ten Minutes without a FG? Seriously? It wasn’t just the misses but the shots we were taking and when we were taking them. It is beginning to become a pattern in games where we go in stretches like that for long periods of time. If we are not getting points off TOs, the half court offense reared its ugly head. This happened against ORU, TTU, and OSU.

Rebounding: 44-26 in their favor. This is getting ridiculous. They had 16 ORB and we had 9ORB. We average -7 in conference games which is 11th. Safford and Ramsey combined for two. The starting five had 13 and Bowers had 10.

Ramsey: 24 minutes, 0-1 FG. 1 REB. Time for Bowers to start.

The Buffs in Boulder are up next, and they almost beat KU last night. If we lose on Staurday, then its time to really start worrying