I've said it before and I'll say it again this is becoming a very fun thing to watch. Bill Self has managed to take this young group and molded them into a team that resembles what we've all grown to expect and love from a Bill Self squad.
This one went about as I expected, but I think it's worth mentioning that this was a game we took control early and maintained throughout much like last years squad would have during conference play.
Taking a look at the game flow chart you can see this was a game where it felt under control early and we gradually put it away. A little different in that we handled this one as early as we've seen since tracking this particular chart.
One other thing I thought worth mentioning is the spread was 11.5 in this one so once again we've continued to cover the spread in most instances proving we're handling business where and how we've been expected to.
More Stats, Charts and Breakdown after the jump...
Keys to the game. Handled these again with a fair amount of ease. The one we still can't seem to control and need to improve on is the TO% but it's getting better. This will certainly be a big factor Monday. I commented during the game thread and still feel like passing in the halfcourt might be one of the areas I noticed the biggest improvement today. Quick, crisp passes around the court with very little indecisiveness which we had early in the year with the youngsters.
Player impact chart is as usual dominated by one of the dynamic duo of Cole and Sherron. Today both had strong games but it was Cole's work on the interior that really stands out. Another great sign in this one is in the points and field goal rows. This team is becoming much more balanced and much less dependent on Sherron to set the pace in this area.
A look at the team stat shows a few things of note. Despite the feeling in the OGT that we were missing a lot of open 3's, which we did, we still shot well above average and far more than average from behind the arc. Owned the boards, thanks to Cole. Pretty much on par in terms of the turnovers which is again our biggest area this team can improve on.
Player stats here and while we saw more appearances from players such as Releford and Appleton, the bench actually looks to have gotten a little shorter with 7 guys really handling the majority of the minutes. Again very balanced attack, good shot selection and props to Cole for a monster game on the boards finishing with 18 on the day.