The Pokes lost a heartbreaker in Fort Collins last night to those 100k student debt carrying Juul addicts. Our role players clearly responded to Linder’s challenge to them by keeping us in the game, and if you’re looking for a silver lining in a shitshow of a game, that was a big one. We’ve given Drake Jeffries his props earlier this season, but Xavier DuSell finally showed flashes of the player we thought we’d see at the start of the season.
Despite having Maldo on the bench for most of the first half because of a couple doy-doy fouls, the Wyoming offense fumbled its way to 27 points through Ike distributing the ball to shooters from the post. It looked a bit dysfunctional at times with some boneheaded turnovers, but they did a good enough job making the extra pass to open shooters to weather the storm and stay within reach of the Rams.
The halftime adjustments (or lack thereof) and the execution is where Linder needs to take a look in the mirror. I’m not questioning his ability to coach, he’s a big part of where we are right now, but it took until about 5 minutes left in the game to get Ike involved, and at that point he was out of the flow of the game. The patience and confidence he usually shows with his footwork and leverage looked hurried and sloppy. It’s easy to point the finger at Ike in that situation, and you wouldn’t be wrong, but Linder needs to take some accountability for taking so long to get into the right set for our playmakers.
As frustrating as it was to watch and as disappointing as it was to lose to the Cesspool of Sin University, there are positives to take from this game. We played the worst game we could’ve possibly played offensively and we still had a chance if not for some doy-doy turnovers and mistakes; our role players answered the challenge from Coach Linder which kept us from getting our shit pushed in.
Positives.
Love you, love the Pokes, bye.
The Morning Flush 