Heading back home to play Colorado for this one. I don’t know a ton about this team, but they’re playing .500 ball in Big 12 play, so we can’t expect an easy game.
Remember how I said that it was starting to feel like the word was out about Honor Huff? WELL, the first half has proven that. Colorado is all but triple teaming Honor as soon as he comes off a screen. He finished the first half with only 4 shot attempts, and let me tell you, he WORKED for them. Luckily, for the first time all season I’m pretty sure, other players came to play. Eaglestaff led the way with 12, Amir Jenkins had 6 off the bench, and Brenen Lorient had 5. Don’t be fooled, though. We are still allowing Colorado to stay in the game.
Colorado is also playing the game by committee with 4 players having 5 or more points. There was a brief moment where I felt like we had their number and this was going to be a coast-able kind of game, but that’s what I get for thinking. The only thing that we’re doing exceptionally well through 20 minutes is rebounding; we’re winning that department 19–7 and I will certainly not look a gift horse in the mouth. We still need to be more efficient, especially from the free throw line (38%), but it has felt like we were in control of this half despite the close score. We have to get Honor some open looks because I’m just not convinced that Eaglestaff can get it done by himself, so hopefully Coach Hodge has something up his sleeve.
WELL IF IT ISN’T OUR MORTAL ENEMY: THE SECOND HALF. Oh my god, man. Every. Single. Time. I talk up this team so much and start to feel like we have something to build on and then we go 4 minutes without a basket to let the team back in the game. I don’t know how many times that has happened this year, but I do know it’s way more time that I would like from my basketball team. It’s also LITERALLY the problem that I was talking about too; Colorado is still defending Honor very well, and we’re trying to have someone fill the void only for them to fall flat on their face. In the first 9 minutes of the 2nd half, we’ve missed 6 shots. Honor has only taken 1 of the 10 shots we’ve attempted, we’ve missed 3 3s, and we’ve also missed 3 shots inside 7 feet.
I KNOW that I sound like a broken record, but oh my god I can’t keep doing this. We’re probably going to win this game, and all of this bitching will be for not, but we can’t beat the top 3 teams in this conference playing like this. This has been the case THE ENTIRE TIME THAT WE’VE BEEN IN THE BIG 12, so PLEASE just let us go to a different conference like the Sun Belt.
The only thing that even gave me a little bit of hope late in the second were the combined efforts of Brenen Lorient and Harlan Obioha. They were aggressive, they were active, and most importantly, they were able to use their physicality to slow the game down when we needed it the most. Brenen hit a 3 and a nice paint floater, and Harlan used his size to score us some offensive rebounds. We did end up winning the game, mostly in part to their effort, and without them I’m probably talking about a loss.
It was a stressful watch, but The Roundball Big 3 of the Game:
Treysen Eaglestaff — 22 points, 6 rebounds, 3 assists
Brenen Lorient — 12 points, 9 rebounds, 1 block
Harlan Obioha — 10 points, 9 rebounds (4 offensive)
We’ve got a couple days until our next game. We do have to head out to the desert as we take on Arizona State at their place. They seem pretty decent this year so I’m sure it’ll be another dog fight. I’ll see you then, Pops. I love you. I miss you.
Round The Game 
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