Great year, 25 wins, played in conf. title game, made post season play. That's a great Furman BB year. Period.
If we want to advance further, two things strike me about the last two games, and they are directly related.
We were out physicaled in both games, and NTU was just more athletic. We really got physically pushed around in both games.
With respect to physicality, that is just something you see more of the deeper you get in post season play. Refs swallow whistles for the most part and it benefits the team who is doing more pushing off, hard screening and bodying shots.
Athletically, I think that NTU's defensive intensity is unusual - they manned us up for 40 min with no fall off and PJay only got 8 shots from behind the arc. But the story was they got many, many more easy shots on offense because they were able to get the ball inside, drive and shoot, and drew more fouls. They shot 20-34 inside 3 and 11-13 from the line. We shot 16-24 and 2-4. They got a lot more easy shots than we did and made them. We need to work on our inside presence, and it would be great to have a swing or a post type player who could get his own shot. We became a catch and shoot team there at the end and when we either weren't hitting them or had someone athletic and physical enough to push through our screens and really deny and defend our 3 balls, we did not have much of a second act. We had two bigs who both played over 25 min in the game and took 4 shots all night. When Nick/PJay/House shoot 7-24 from 3, the points have to come from somewhere else.
Where was Johnston the 2nd half?
I was really impressed with Bronson. Led us in scoring and gave us the athleticism and penetration we need. His development is critical to next season.
Bronson and House give us a nice nucleus. Molnar has the build to be a banger. Really need Bowser to continue to develop his offensive game and gain some weight, same for Johnston. Need a SG and an athletic big who can get his own shot in the portal and we will be very, very good again.