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They should have ran, ran, and ran some more. I've heard Brey talk about the conditioning program supposedly paying dividends, but they didn't use it against Marquette after the golden eagles had just played the night before. ND had 4 days off to energize and didn't match their intensity. I've seen ND's bench players put in some quality minutes so I know they could have contributed. We should have made Marquette work a lot harder for their baskets when we were the fresher team. I don't think they would have shot the ball as well as they did with more aggression and pressure from ND. They would have gone by us some but they couldn't maintain that pace especially if we pushed the ball in transition. Some believe we tried to protect Harangody with the zone. He only played 7 minutes the 1st half and did not play at all the last 10 minutes of the half as ND pushed their lead from 1 to 6 points. Seemed unnecessary to pack back in the zone especially as ineffective as it was. IT WAS JUST TOO EASY TO PENTRATE THE ZONE AND KICK OUT FOR AN UNCONTESTED 3pt JUMPER. To answer your question....Substitute often against guard dominated teams, pressure the ball and push it in transition. Make them earn every dribble from beginning to end. If our reserves can't contribute then why did we recruit them? At the very least they should be able to eat minutes up while our starters rest. Tori Jackson got a chance last year and performed very well once he got settled in. Maybe it is too late this year to try that, but we will be lucky to get past the second round with the points we are giving up on defense as it stands right now. Also, it is apparent Harangody needs an additional inside scoring presence to help him when teams attempt to take him away from the offense. That should be priority one in recruiting the next couple of years. I think we only have one scholarship available this year when Kurz leaves. It would be wise to use it on an inside scorer and rebounder.
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