Emerald Classic Road Trip Notes from an Old Tiger

My wife and I drove in today and got to see the Tigers in action. We have seen every game in person so far, and here are my thoughts from tonight.

1. We will be in every game we play because of hustling defense, but if we don’t improve our shot selection on offense, our D will not be enough against really disciplined teams.
2. Penn St was not particularly quick or athletic, but for some reason we seemed to take hurried shots, particularly Darius, who was frustrated by some non calls when he was clearly hacked.
3. Gaines is fricking quick on D,
4. Even though no one’s outside shot was on, absolutely no one on Penn St. could stop Eason driving to the basket.
5. I have never seen so many shots go in and out in a ballgame.
6. Reid taking the charge in OT was huge.
7. If they do a remake of the original Rocky, the Penn St coach Is the front runner to play Adrian’s worthless brother Pauly. Remarkable resemblance.
8. Nice, comfortable faculty which qualifies as an away game (sort of). 70 percent of those in the stands are Tiger fans. Our young team will learn some valuable lessons from this game.
9. Instead of us wearing the other team out with our smothering D, Penn St was able to break the press and get the ball in the front court, and then had us running side to side to cover the three as the ball was crisply passed around the horn.I think it frustrated our guys that we didn’t get more turnovers, even though we caused a fair number.

A sloppy game but an encouraging one to have won when we didn’t have shots falling.

Geaux Tigers.