The force is powerful and mysterious

[learnin]

A question. Which player deserves the most credit for sparking the comeback, Barry or Mike?

I hesitate to answer this because I do not want to take away from Barry's magnificent play. But, I believe Mike McGuirl was the spark.
Mike delivered timely bomb after timely bomb. His tip in might have saved the momentum. ESPN write up stated that although Barry
was the top player, McGuirl provided the emotional spark.

[learnin]

On another note, did anyone see that a psychic has toured Arrowhead and the ghost of Hank Stram is finally willing to let the Chiefs win a playoff game?

There's a 50-50 chance that psychic will be right especially with Mahomes on the field.

[KsJoey]

The offense wasn't the reason the Cats started shooting lights out. The coaching wasn't the reason the Cats suddenly started making points(except for designed plays). The shooting just got contagious. We may never see another Kstate game where the players went from "can't make a bucket" to "can't miss a bucket", quite like that. I'm happy to get the win. I'm happy for the players and hopefully they can build off of it. But the run wasn't the result of Weber or this offense. I don't believe in a "Force" with sports, but I do believe in confidence, momentum and contagious shooting. The guys just hot super hot after being super cold.

Joey, finally we can agree on one thing. Good coaching had nothing to do with our miraculous second half shooting. If you admit that, however, you must admit that our poor shooting has nothing to do with bad coaching in the first half. We've been just as open, all year, as we were open in the second half. The only difference is we began to make shots. This is the whole point to be gained from last night's miraculous come back. Emotional, axe-grinding, fans cannot use reason, and common sense, to see that our coaching is solid. Our intangibles are shaky. Here, I'm talking about those things you cannot put a finger on. You deny the force because you can't see it, touch it or wrap your arms around it. Yet, you believe in momentum and contagious shooting, which is just as invisible as the force. All of these things are spiritual phenomena. You can't bottle it. You can't predict it, but you see it's power.

Yes, our intangibles are shaky. Injuries. That's another thing you can't put a finger on. One year a team goes by without injury to major players when one misstep is all it takes for a major injury to occur. It could happen on one step in a season that has half a million steps.

I belabor the point because last night, for instance, I get on Twitter and I see a string of people, in the first half of this game, tweeting that Weber should be fired on the spot for the pathetic offensive performance. After the second half, all were silent. There was no coaching change as you pointed out, yet these revenge seekers had to go away. What made them go away when Weber didn't pull any magic trick out of his coaching hat?
They went away because of a thing we call the force....momentum.....confidence......contagious shooting if you will.

When players are shooting red hot like they were late last night, the coaching and even offense doesn't matter much. All our guys needed was a little opening and the red hot shooting took care of the rest. If you want to see how the coaching and offense is, you have to look at a larger picture and I still feel Weber is trying to fit a square peg(team) into a predetermined round circle(offense). Largely because of that, I don't think our coaching is solid at all. Weber isn't employing what works best for the team of players he recruited(IMO). There's a chance the team starts shooting better, but probably even a better chance this team continues to shoot poorly, going forward.

[xtrawildcat]

Joey, finally we can agree on one thing. Good coaching had nothing to do with our miraculous second half shooting. If you admit that, however, you must admit that our poor shooting has nothing to do with bad coaching in the first half. We've been just as open, all year, as we were open in the second half. The only difference is we began to make shots. This is the whole point to be gained from last night's miraculous come back. Emotional, axe-grinding, fans cannot use reason, and common sense, to see that our coaching is solid. Our intangibles are shaky. Here, I'm talking about those things you cannot put a finger on. You deny the force because you can't see it, touch it or wrap your arms around it. Yet, you believe in momentum and contagious shooting, which is just as invisible as the force. All of these things are spiritual phenomena. You can't bottle it. You can't predict it, but you see it's power.

Yes, our intangibles are shaky. Injuries. That's another thing you can't put a finger on. One year a team goes by without injury to major players when one misstep is all it takes for a major injury to occur. It could happen on one step in a season that has half a million steps.

I belabor the point because last night, for instance, I get on Twitter and I see a string of people, in the first half of this game, tweeting that Weber should be fired on the spot for the pathetic offensive performance. After the second half, all were silent. There was no coaching change as you pointed out, yet these revenge seekers had to go away. What made them go away when Weber didn't pull any magic trick out of his coaching hat?
They went away because of a thing we call the force....momentum.....confidence......contagious shooting if you will.

When player
s are shooting red hot like they were late last night, the coaching and even offense doesn't matter much. All our guys needed was a little opening and the red hot shooting took care of the rest. If you want to see how the coaching and offense is, you have to look at a larger picture and I still feel Weber is trying to fit a square peg(team) into a predetermined round circle(offense). Largely because of that, I don't think our coaching is solid at all. Weber isn't employing what works best for the team of players he recruited(IMO). There's a chance the team starts shooting better, but probably even a better chance this team continues to shoot poorly, going forward.

This is just a friendly disagreement. In todays game you can not run good offense if you do not make a decent amount of open threes. We took six or seven open threes with Kams shot at the shot clock buzzer being the only one guarded. The drives to the rim by Barry were not there til some threes started going in and they had to stay on our shooters. We could go back to motion like Weber used before but that offense calls on guys to make jump shots.
Maybe you explain what offense you have in mind to give us better shots.

[Gorhoops]

All I've ever asked for from fans was to be fair and balanced. I have no problem with joey or any fan disliking the offense, but I do expect for fans to then also give credit where it is due in other aspects. If you are going to rip Weber for the offense, you do have to give him credit for this being a pretty good defensive team, and you have to give credit for the fact that in the last two games when the shooting was horrid, they did not quit, they fought and clawed and scratched and found a way to fight back. That is a huge part of coaching as well. The coach has a lot more control of the defense and the effort and attitude of his team than he does whether the ball goes in or not. Offenses are often personal preference. I'm not a fan of how our guys run motion either, but Weber is a motion guy, so he coaches it. But I do like hard-nosed defense and I do like teams that never quit, so for that I give Weber credit. Fans can absolutely be critical, but also need to be fair. If you rip the recruiting because the Bigs did nothing last night, you must credit the recruiting for finding Barry Brown and Mike McGuirl. To many times fans just rip and don't give credit where due.

[Puffdad]

@GorHoops.....you mean coaches can’t shoot it for them??

[Piedmontcat]

A question. Which player deserves the most credit for sparking the comeback, Barry or Mike?

I hesitate to answer this because I do not want to take away from Barry's magnificent play. But, I believe Mike McGuirl was the spark.
Mike delivered timely bomb after timely bomb. His tip in might have saved the momentum. ESPN write up stated that although Barry
was the top player, McGuirl provided the emotional spark.

This is why it’s a team game. Mike doesn’t get as good of looks if Barry isn’t a threat to drive. Barry doesn’t get room to drive if Mike isn’t a theat to shoot. Going back to last year, one of the key reasons our offense was better was because teams had to deal with both Dean and Barry being threats, which not only created space for both of them, it also got wide open shots for X & Cartier who made a pretty good % of them. This year, Dean was having trouble finding a lot of open looks because teams were throwing everything at him and our other guys weren’t making them pay for it. Barry has had to deal with similar problems, especially after Dean went down. Unless you are just a freaky scorer (like NBA high level shot creator/scorer) it’s tough to score when you are the focus of the opponent’s game plan. And if other guys don’t make them pay for it, then it’s really, really tough. Team success and individual success usually go together at this level.

[Puffdad]

Bingo ^^^^ !!

[JOKKO]

All I've ever asked for from fans was to be fair and balanced. I have no problem with joey or any fan disliking the offense, but I do expect for fans to then also give credit where it is due in other aspects. If you are going to rip Weber for the offense, you do have to give him credit for this being a pretty good defensive team, and you have to give credit for the fact that in the last two games when the shooting was horrid, they did not quit, they fought and clawed and scratched and found a way to fight back. That is a huge part of coaching as well. The coach has a lot more control of the defense and the effort and attitude of his team than he does whether the ball goes in or not. Offenses are often personal preference. I'm not a fan of how our guys run motion either, but Weber is a motion guy, so he coaches it. But I do like hard-nosed defense and I do like teams that never quit, so for that I give Weber credit. Fans can absolutely be critical, but also need to be fair. If you rip the recruiting because the Bigs did nothing last night, you must credit the recruiting for finding Barry Brown and Mike McGuirl. To many times fans just rip and don't give credit where due.

This is very fair. There are things that every coach in America does that will merit some criticism.

It doesn't matter how people really feel about Bruce, but I do think he is working his butt off trying to make the team better, and it is undeniable how hard the team plays for him.

I could see the frustration in the guy's eyes last night when the shots weren't falling, but they continued to work the whole game on the defensive end!

[KsJoey]

I completely agree that you should give credit where credit is due, just as criticism where criticism is due... and I feel like i've done that a lot over the years. Weber is a high-end defensive coach. For KSU to do what they do, especially like undersized at the 4 and having no rim protector is pretty crazy. My issue has always been on the offensive end and largely because of the motion that relies moreso on shots from mid-long range than many others. And even though we go through periods where we shoot well, overall, mid-long range shots are not a strength of this team. I envision an offense where Dean isn't out screening for guards so often, where we have more slashing to the basket, more set plays(like after T/O but during the game), overall, just more shooting in the paint. Overall, just less jumpshots. I don't know exactly what offense that is, but there are a few that I feel would give us better shooting %.