[comment reposted per request]

Just got back  Recently returned from my first trip to the Galen Center. It was an eyeopening experience.

We are a very, very soft team, physically but particularly mentally. We were outmuscled on the ball, and outmuscled off the ball. $c was niggling all game and we could not deal with it. Every time a referee makes a bad call, we totally overreact in our play – particularly when we are called for questionable charges, we stop taking it to the hoop. Smith took a couple of cheap shots off the ball and responded by bundling into a guy clumsily for his 4th foul. An older gentleman from $c told me that Smith gave the fans the bird as he was walking off the court at the end of the game – if so, Howland shouldn’t take him on the Oregon trip. He was surely frustrated with the abuse he was taking and the cheap foul calls against him, but if he really did that I am disgusted.

Lane was terrible; not strong enough on defense, a black hole on offense. Stover seems totally confused on both ends and doesn’t have enough ability to compensate. Watching him trying to set a screen, and TH halfheartedly trying to use it, was depressing.

Zeke clearly wasn’t on his game (mitigating factor being his injury), but we need him to be a serious scorer and assertive with the ball to do well. Anderson had a decent game off the bench with the odd lapse.

Nelson is up and down, as ever. His post defense was more effective than Lane or Stover insofar as he is less easy to push around. His offense runs hot and cold and he seems to force shots when he should pass and force passes to guys not expecting them.

I think Tyler Lamb will be good, but he is too deferential right now and still playing like a freshman.

I never felt like Lee wasn't trying hard, and I think with home refs he might have got a few more calls trying to force the issue offensively; but insofar as people think he has an NBA game, I don’t know what he does well enough to warrant that.

And, Honeycutt… is totally underachieving, making terrible decisions and not playing to his strengths. He needs to shoot the open 3s, not take two dribbles into a double team; he needs to move off the ball into gaps from which he can shoot or pass, not put his head down and try to take a smaller player off the dribble. Our guards need to take initiative, and Smith needs to stay on the court long enough to be creative in the offense, and that will allow TH to float like a butterfly and sting like a bee. No player on our team fluctuates between grace and clumsiness like TH, from silky smooth to jarringly inept. A lot is on him, some is on his teammates.

Watching all the little battles on the court, it was clear $c wanted it more. Very depressing.