After Thursday night's loss to Arizona State,  you may be left wondering... Are Ken Bone's Cougs actually getting worse? We have now lost three straight games, were embarrassed by our rivals,  have yet to put together two halves of good basketball, our star player is in a deep funk, and there is no break in sight with a match-up against Arizona looming on the horizon. It's enough to send even the most resilient Coug fan spiraling into despair. So how on earth is it that I was encouraged by what I saw Thursday night? Read on and I'll tell you...

You can go ahead and put all the X's and O's aside and sum up this game quite simply... Arizona State made their shots and the Cougs did not. This was especially true from 3 point land and most conspicuously from the hand of Klay Thompson which has been deep-freeze cold for most of Pac-10 play. ASU shot over 56% from the field, and over 41% from downtown, while the Cougs mustered a mere 41% from the field and just 3 of 18 from beyond the arc. They even bettered us at the charity stripe, 81% - 63%. We were out-shot, badly, in our own gym.

Now I am well aware that lapses in defense lead to open shot attempts that can drastically increase a teams shooting percentage, but our shot attempts were not any less open than ASU's. They just did not fall, period. Klay in particular had a horrific night shooting, which has been a common theme lately, but even Nik, the Pac-10 leader in 3 point shooting, was an ice cold 1 for 6 from downtown. Brrrrrrr.

It was that chilly folks, and this game could easily have ended up looking more like the game we played against these guys in Tempe. But it didn't. In fact we made a few 2nd half runs that got us as close as 4 points. Why? because in spite of the cold shooting we actually played pretty well tonight.

The Defense - People are going to continue to be critical of our defense, and rightly so. We gave up a lot of open looks to the Sun Devils tonight, and we continue to suffer lapses that leave you scratching your head. But we also made a ton of great plays defensively that, had we been shooting even mediocre, may have been enough to turn this game in our favor. Unlike the UW game last weekend, we did not fold the tents at the defensive end and continued to battle hard with a lot of very effective full court pressure. ASU is a veteran squad with good ball handlers, yet the Cougs were opportunistic to the tune of 11 steals, many resulting in fast break points. While we didn't suddenly become a good defensive team tonight (I'm sure the 56% shooting for ASU was all the evidence you needed of that), we finally put in the type of effort we'll need if we want to be effective defensively. We'll never be a shut down, dominant defensive juggernaut like we were during the Bennett years, but we can be a very opportunistic play-making defense, getting lots of points off turnovers.

The Offense - My primary frustration with the Ken Bone offense is its reliance on individual play making. When you look at the 2nd half at UW and the first half against ASU you see an offense that doesn't really know what to do when its primary play-makers aren't hitting their shots. While I'm not a proponent of the Hoosier Doctrine "4 passes before you shoot", "every shot should have an assist" style offense, I do appreciate effective half court offensive sets to maintain some scoring when your play makers are not effective, or not in the game. I can accept that our first option is for Klay or Reggie to create for themselves, but when that has broken down or is not available, we need to have better off ball movement and execution off screens to create some easy baskets for the rest of the roster. Against UW this kind of offensive execution was completely non-existent, but tonight I was encouraged by what I saw. A number of times tonight our half court offense resulted in Capers getting free near the basket for easy flushes that ended scoring droughts and provided critical momentum. Getting players like Capers, Lodwick, Casto and Watson open for some easy buckets, not only gets them into the games, but also takes pressure off Klay and Reggie who are guilty of trying to do too much at times.

Bottom line, I am not discouraged by what I saw tonight. I saw a young team making some important strides against a very solid veteran led squad. These young Cougs have a LOT to work on, but they are working on it, and although we've hit the skids for the moment, we are learning lessons that are going to pay off in a big way.

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