The takeaway

[boiler-deuce]

Welp. That stunk. But. The world isn't coming to an end.
On the down side:
What I saw was a team out played and out hustled. Some lazy passing and/or turnovers at critical times. Some piss-poor blocking out and not hustling for rebounds. I saw a much more polished Butler team than our Boilers. Their points appeared to come easier than ours. The flow was more smooth. I also, saw basically the same team play bad for much of the first half...go into the lockerroom...and make no value-added changes. Not much was done for an adjustment to out coach the opponent. Painter didn't get it done tonight.

On the up side:
The way they battled back and actually made a game in the end is a good sign. Biggie, outside some turnovers, had a stellar game. It's a loss, yeah, so what. Not the end of the world. Nobody is going undefeated. It's early. This game needs to be a learning moment. A game that teaches them that if you don't bring your "A" game and effort, you'll be beaten. No game is taken for granted.

If they figure out these things, everything is going to be fine as I think this is a very talented and dangerous team. But, no team is going to sleepwalk to the Final4 or a title. This game is so far from deciding the season. Let's move on and improve. Boiler UP!!

 

[TopSecretBoiler]

AJH needs to play until he vomits or fouls out. period. end of story. if you strictly wont play the guy with 2 fouls you have essentially limited your depth.

 

[CRBoiler]

A much as it sucks to lose, I have to think this will be a helpful event for a team that had won every previous game by double digits. Butler was better prepared, they fought harder (though I would not say our guys laid down), they protected the rock better, and their secondary scorers (with primary scorers on both teams somewhat disrupted) just did better than ours on this night. If we had to lose one game this season, this is not a terrible one, though it is frustrating.

I would not want to be Vandy. I think some of the frustration will be aimed at them.

 

[BoilerStutz]

The fellows need to grow up and develop some mental toughness. They have switched from being the hunters to the hunted, and they did not handle the spotlight well.

 

[SIBoiler2]

I saw some things down the stretch that told me a lot about the potential of the team. Biggie may be a one and done but he definitely has some quiet leadership ability and anybody that doubted his work ethic before certainly wasn't watching yesterday. BTW, Duke lost 4 games last year and still are remembered only as the NCAA champions.

 

[uelnesm]

Welp. That stunk. But. The world isn't coming to an end.
On the down side:
What I saw was a team out played and out hustled. Some lazy passing and/or turnovers at critical times. Some piss-poor blocking out and not hustling for rebounds. I saw a much more polished Butler team than our Boilers. Their points appeared to come easier than ours. The flow was more smooth. I also, saw basically the same team play bad for much of the first half...go into the lockerroom...and make no value-added changes. Not much was done for an adjustment to out coach the opponent. Painter didn't get it done tonight.

On the up side:
The way they battled back and actually made a game in the end is a good sign. Biggie, outside some turnovers, had a stellar game. It's a loss, yeah, so what. Not the end of the world. Nobody is going undefeated. It's early. This game needs to be a learning moment. A game that teaches them that if you don't bring your "A" game and effort, you'll be beaten. No game is taken for granted.

If they figure out these things, everything is going to be fine as I think this is a very talented and dangerous team. But, no team is going to sleepwalk to the Final4 or a title. This game is so far from deciding the season. Let's move on and improve. Boiler UP!!

I'm thinking we aren't as good as we collectively think we are. I listened to a portion on radio and then watched some.

We had about a 15-20 minute (game time) deep funk where we barely scored. I have observed this in some of our other games against lesser opponents.

Butler got back on defense. We were happy to play half court game, but I didn't see us pound the ball inside like I would expect if we are "so strong".

I didn't think we were playing at full speed. Seemed like on some transitions back to defense we were much slower than Butler.

I expect we will win some more against weaker opponents and struggle against top 25 (we will see this week).

Hopefully Painter can fix some of these (in my opinion) fundamental flaws (long scoring gaps, not strong in paint, pace of play) - but we will see

I would expect to make tournament, probably a 5-7 seed (before I get flamed - that's assuming we are ranked about 20 and the committee has been much more realistic on seeding recently). In a seeding like that we will be lucky to make sweet 16.

 

[BBG]

I'm thinking we aren't as good as we collectively think we are. I listened to a portion on radio and then watched some.

We had about a 15-20 minute (game time) deep funk where we barely scored. I have observed this in some of our other games against lesser opponents.

Butler got back on defense. We were happy to play half court game, but I didn't see us pound the ball inside like I would expect if we are "so strong".

I didn't think we were playing at full speed. Seemed like on some transitions back to defense we were much slower than Butler.

I expect we will win some more against weaker opponents and struggle against top 25 (we will see this week).

Hopefully Painter can fix some of these (in my opinion) fundamental flaws (long scoring gaps, not strong in paint, pace of play) - but we will see

I would expect to make tournament, probably a 5-7 seed (before I get flamed - that's assuming we are ranked about 20 and the committee has been much more realistic on seeding recently). In a seeding like that we will be lucky to make sweet 16.

Your post is pretty well thought out however, I think we are still as good as advertised and this was just a speedbump. We will see when we play Vandy as they are a tough team.

Nice post again though, it wasn't some agenda filled rant using anecdotal "evidence". Your type of posts are always welcome as they make it easy to discuss differing opinions as opposed to people going off the deep end when you don't agree with their opinion.