December 30, 3 PM at Wintrust

Important game for the Cougars to get some additional good PR as well as some extra bragging rights.

DePaul is 2-9, 284 in the NET. Chicago is 7-11 and 296.

I don’t know much about DePaul at all. They beat South Dakota by 12 and Louisville by 7. They have played a fair amount of other games close, but lost them all. Basically, the only reason they are ahead of anyone in the NET is their losses are to higher rated teams, because their wins don’t really add up to much on their own. Just the way the NET works.

This gives an edge to the Cougars who have lost some close ones, but also pulled out quit a few wins in close games. That steadiness and experience could come into play. DePaul has already played 8 of their 11 games at home. I don’t think playing another road game will affect the Cougars all that much.

Hopefully Noble Crawford will be back in the lineup because he is needed. His absence was definitely felt versus CBU. He’s come into his own a lot this season.

Not a great half of play by Chicago State. Long periods of stale offense and too much Cardet going one on one. That wasn’t working against their zone very well. There were plenty of opportunities to kick it back outside, but Cardet didn’t see them or take them. He was nice enough to kick it to an open guy with one second on the shot clock though.

We will see what the second half brings. If not for DePauls 9 points from a bench guy hitting 3 straight 3’s, they would be in trouble already.

Brent Davis is a fine 3 point shooter if they could get him the ball more.

I don’t think DePaul will keep hitting 3’s in the second half, so if Chicago State can just hit some, they can pull away.

1 out of 11 from the arc - someone is just jacking up shots.

Cardet is starting to heat up at the right time.

That was worse than the loss to Delaware State. DePaul is terrible, but today, the Cougars were more terrible.

If Chicago State can’t get a better offense going for themselves, their wins are going to be limited.

https://dxbhsrqyrr690.cloudfront.net/sid...340179.pdf

Here is the box score. Very poor shooting as usual. And as usual, any offense not geared around a Wesley Cardet drive into the lane is non existent. I might actually be ok with that kind of slop play if it worked a little better, but you simply aren’t open if you are missing 10-15 shots a game at the rim. And when he isn’t driving the lane, he’s launching 3 pointers when he isn’t open at all. And that’s fine too, I guess, sometimes, but there are good players on this squad who can hit shots at well. In fact, Cardet is probably only about the 3rd or 4th best 3 point shooter, but he consistently takes the most. Recipe for losing. And the 11% 3 point shooting in this game was the same as about 10 turnovers in my book.

And Jahsean Corbet is a fair shooter, but not great. His shot selection could use some work as well as he was only 4/14.

It feels like several players feel like they have to shoot just because they have the ball. There is hardly ever any ball movement, players stand around for most of every possession instead of working to get open, and they don’t get the ball if they are open because the guy with the ball is working at finding his own shot at any cost.

Some problems only the coach can fix, and sometimes the only way he can fix them is with the bench. "You play my way, or you don't play."