What do you guys make of the Tigers? Definitely better than expected with Porter gone. Snapped a four year losing streak against ranked teams last night against Tennessee.

Cuonzo Martin is one of those guys that I can't decide how good of a coach I think he is.

Probably a tournament team? But I could see them getting ground down by the conference schedule a little bit and falling off toward the end of the year.

If you like uptempo exciting basketball, Saturday's game will not be for you. Mizzou is one of the slowest teams in America, both teams turn the ball over. Will be interesting to see how we guard them since they score from the outside the arc basically as much as they score from inside it. Washington State is the only major conference team that scores a smaller percentage of its points inside the arc than Missouri.

This is going to be a tough one, not that we have any games on the schedule at this point that don't look tough.

Their defense looked pretty good last night. They play hard.

I expect them to roll out a zone and shut down our offense. Hopefully we can match their intensity when we're on defense and win a rock fight. I expect it to look like the Tennessee game though.

Going to have to agree with DTJ here, I am worried about their ability to pack it in and our inability to hit shots. We haven't shot many teams out of a zone in recent weeks, but we might need to this weekend. Luckily we are at home, and I haven't looked it up, but I feel like we shoot a much higher percentage in our own gym.

Regarding Cuonzo Martin, I think he takes a lot of heat from media and basketball people as not being a very good coach, but his teams always seem to be decent to pretty good. I'm not sure what to make of him either.

I think this is certainly a game we have the ability to win and I'd say we are more talented than them, but with the way things have gone recently I'm just not sure we will. It is hard to go on the road and win, so that should be working in our favor. I see this one shaking out similar to Tuesday where things go down to the wire.

They are basically 2 baskets away from being undefeated in conference play. I'm actually surprised by their play up to this point.

Mikesyracuse1

mikesyracuse1 said:

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I'm actually surprised by their play up to this point.

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Anyone who isn't is lying.

I've never been a big believer in Cuonzo, but he's done a great job this year. Maybe even SEC COY worthy if they continue this pace.

bobinator said:

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This is going to be a tough one, not that we have any games on the schedule at this point that don't look tough.

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Last week you said losing to Mizzou at home would be just about be the signal to "burn it all down"

Still feel the same way?

If I said Missouri I meant Ole Miss, but now that we've beaten Ole Miss, yeah.

They're going to play tough, but we can't lose to Mizzou at home at full strength. There's no semi-reasonable way back to a good regular season from that.

bobinator said:

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If I said Missouri I meant Ole Miss, but now that we've beaten Ole Miss, yeah.

They're going to play tough, but we can't lose to Mizzou at home at full strength. There's no semi-reasonable way back to a good regular season from that.

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There aren't many games in the next 2.5 weeks that I wouldn't call a must win besides going on the road to KU. You simply can't lose to UM, Ark, or SC at home and still feel like we're okay.

Yeah, we almost need an oppo 2015-16 where we lost five straight SEC games but actually beat Iowa State in the middle. We can lose to Kansas, but that's really it.

I agree
At the start of the year you'd like to win those but understand that sometimes you lose on the road. That's no longer the case after our start

Missouri brings some interesting challenges to the table for A&M to guard against. With Missouri's bigs (especially Porter), you have to worry about them stepping away from the hoop and shooting the 3...which puts Davis and Williams in a position to guard on the perimeter. If A&M goes zone, you're going to have to see them rebounding long shots and putting Missouri's guards in a position to beat you from the outside. Length is obviously a huge positive for A&M, so they have to use that length to push Missouri's offense away from scoring areas.

Every team Coach Martin has had, and this is a staple of the Purdue program he was a part of for some many years, is physical and defends. It's that passion and energy that they are going to bring to the table and test A&M with. The Tennessee game shouldn't have been a shock to anyone, especially because in the SEC, now more than ever, it is extremely important to win all of your home games and then, hopefully, split your road games to come out with a favorite in conference record.

I wouldn't be surprised to see a little bit more of DJ Hogg at the 4, as a lot of his early season success came when he was drawing bigs away from the basket with his perimeter skill set. TTM hasn't been great as of late and although he is a senior who has done some great things for the team, isn't playing with the reckless abandon the Aggies need him to. Missouri will most likely bring some pressure on post touches, specifically when Tyler Davis touches it. A&M's guards are going to have to make plays vs high level on-ball defenders, something I think both Duane Wilson and Caldwell are more than capable of doing. Gilder got some great looks vs Ole Miss on corner catch and shoot opportunities that didn't go in...he knocks those down vs Missouri I think its an Aggie win.

-John Pugliese
@johnpugliese

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I wouldn't be surprised to see a little bit more of DJ Hogg at the 4, as a lot of his early season success came when he was drawing bigs away from the basket with his perimeter skill set. TTM hasn't been great as of late and although he is a senior who has done some great things for the team, isn't playing with the reckless abandon the Aggies need him to.

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The only problem I see with putting Hogg at the 4 is that a 4th backcourt guy has not stepped up to fill in as the 3 alongside Wilson & Gilder. Flagg was a star in the first 2 games that Hogg missed during his latest suspension, but he's fallen off as SEC play started.

Good post. I wonder, given how important it is to limit threes, if we wouldn't be better off for stretches with Williams guarding someone shorter (since Hogg can't keep up with them anyway), and Hogg guarding someone bigger.

Physicality gives us problems anyway, so yeah, I wouldn't expect anything less from a team that's already physical anyway.

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I wonder, given how important it is to limit threes, if we wouldn't be better off for stretches with Williams guarding someone shorter (since Hogg can't keep up with them anyway), and Hogg guarding someone bigger.

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Agree that Hogg should be capable of guarding most of the average-ish college post players, but moving Williams further away from the basket would do a lot to hurt our rim protection.

Something to keep in mind is that this team doesn't have a rotation that has been set, because so many guys have had to hold different roles throughout the year (because of injuries and suspensions). Moving Hogg to the 4 would allow you to play Wilson and Gilder and Flagg together...a lineup that if it gets more time together, could be very difficult to guard (especially if Gilder is shooting well). I also wouldn't mind seeing Collins on the floor as a guy who can stretch the defense when teams play zone. He is solid enough defensively, especially if there is a matchup you like him in, that he can give you some minutes to be able to move over Hogg.

-John Pugliese
@johnpugliese

Yeah but that's part of it, they don't shoot a lot of shots at the rim anyway.

Only problem with the small lineup, which I have advocated at times for this year also, is that we would likely be horrible at rebounding out of it.

It would be a great offensive lineup, theoretically, if we were good at finding mismatches (or holes in the zone) and attacking them.

This game has the feel though of one of those games where you don't really see a clear role for Trocha and he'll score like 15 or something.

bobinator said:

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Yeah but that's part of it, they don't shoot a lot of shots at the rim anyway.

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True. Missouri is like our alter ego when it comes to inside-outside balance. So we might not need the rim protection this weekend as much as other games. What about defensive rebounding? Would we be comfortable with Hogg trying to keep Mizzou's post guys off the offensive glass? From the stats, Jontay does not appear to do much offensive rebounding, but Tillmon has been a beast there.

Williams would still have to rebound, but actually him coming to the boards from the perimeter might actually make him a better rebounder. Too often he just stands there under the basket anyway, and Hogg is usually fairly good at blocking out when he tries.

Plus it's not like Williams is always right under the basket. He's always hunting for blocks and winds up out of position fairly often anyway.

This isn't really something that I'd start out the game doing or anything, just an idea if we're having a hard time defending them.

We have a few different guys that could play different roles and we haven't really seen them do it much.

This is actually a game I feel pretty good about. In general, I think we struggle with good inside-out teams. That is, teams with a legit post presence. Stevens for Ole Miss came in with a rep as a guy who would stretch you, but he bothered us almost entirely with his quickness in he paint. I don't see a guy like that anywhere for Mizzou.

We don't typically guard the perimeter, but if that's literally all we have to do, we do it well (see WVU and OSU - two perimeter teams).

Good tread.

John Pugliese said:

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I also wouldn't mind seeing Collins on the floor as a guy who can stretch the defense when teams play zone. He is solid enough defensively, especially if there is a matchup you like him in, that he can give you some minutes to be able to move over Hogg.

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I take back everything nice I said about you

Haha yeah, I just chose to ignore that. I can't imagine a scenario where there's a matchup "I'd like him in."

Collins has a role if we're shorthanded or in serious foul trouble or something, but hopefully that's not the case.

wacarnolds said:

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John Pugliese said:

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I also wouldn't mind seeing Collins on the floor as a guy who can stretch the defense when teams play zone. He is solid enough defensively, especially if there is a matchup you like him in, that he can give you some minutes to be able to move over Hogg.

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I take back everything nice I said about you

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Yea. I don't know. I love Collins but as long as Wilson and Gilder are healthy, he sits. Clearly guard 5 or 6 behind those two, Caldwell, Chandler and under-control Starks. He's ahead of out-of-control Starks but that's it.

The best click bate I could come up with!!

I'm in on Hogg playing 4 and a lineup of the guards A&M has in the rotation...I think it stretches defenses out. Starks is the odd man out, although you did see him playing alongside both Wilson and Caldwell...just hurts them defensively because of a lack of length.

G'morning, guys.

Great job of pregame coaching. Hope coaching staff is tuned-in ...

Hope it's a good game. See you there?

John Pugliese said:

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Something to keep in mind is that this team doesn't have a rotation that has been set, because so many guys have had to hold different roles throughout the year (because of injuries and suspensions). Moving Hogg to the 4 would allow you to play Wilson and Gilder and Flagg together...a lineup that if it gets more time together, could be very difficult to guard (especially if Gilder is shooting well). I also wouldn't mind seeing Collins on the floor as a guy who can stretch the defense when teams play zone. He is solid enough defensively, especially if there is a matchup you like him in, that he can give you some minutes to be able to move over Hogg.

-John Pugliese
@johnpugliese

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Collins doesn't stretch the defense because they don't respect his spot up shot enough. And I don't trust him to knock em down when we really need them either. On defense he is a huge liability, despite working hard.

Lost me at playing Collins. He's a major liability on both ends of the floor. He sits on the bench unless it's garbage time

At this point in the season the Aggies need to be locked into three things: turnovers, team defense, and rebounds.

I would go as far as to say burn the scouting report on Mizzou and focus strictly on improving those three things every practice. If the Aggies win the turnover and rebounding battle and play consistent defense, there is a high probability they will win just about every remaining conference game on the schedule, even if they aren't shooting lights out.

Caldwell needs a breakout game where he shines in the transition game. I'm hoping this will be it and his confidence improves going forward.

Aggies win the rebound battle today 46-38.
Aggies win the turnover battle today 4 to 8. This might be the fewest turnovers for the Aggies on the season.
Great team defense today limiting the Tigers to just 27% from the field.

Aggies did not have a great game offensively today yet they managed to win by out-efforting the Tigers. Every game in conference will be a grind, but if the Aggies limit turnovers, out rebound their opponent, and play great defense like today, they will win ball games.

They are a good 3 point shooting team and they shot 22.2 % today. People talk about our 3 point defense too much.

bobinator said:

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This game has the feel though of one of those games where you don't really see a clear role for Trocha and he'll score like 15 or something.

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