A 5-10 min stretch last night Lovering was the best player on the court

Size advantage was definitely a big factor in Lovering’s effectiveness. TDS’ doesn’t have a lot of size in their frontcourt, amongst other weaknesses. They are definitely a guard-centric team and often play a three-guard lineup.

Ausar was terrific last night, but it’s important to consider the matchup advantages that allowed him to have success in his ISO play. He had a strength and athleticism advantage against Mag and a significant quickness advantage against Traore. As much of a physical and ahtletic specimen as Keita is, he’s still very underdeveloped skill- and IQ-wise and can be exploited. Keita’s game doesn’t look like it has developed much in three years. Utah did a good job in recognizing their frontcourt vulnerabilities and attacking them.

Ausar has attempted much of the same ISO play throughout the year with mediocre-poor results against teams that have more size. He is generally more effective/efficient when he is playing off the ball and getting set up with set plays and being opportunistic with his athleticism when the defense is in scramble mode, such as fast breaks and offensive rebounding. That said, I love his effort and intensity.

It’s interesting how our recent win streak has come about as we’ve gotten more aggressive inside and made a conscious effort to get the ball into the low block. Through most of the non-conference schedule we lived and died by the three – we were the top 3-point team in the country for a while. Now, obviously it really helped our inside presence that we got Lovering back, Lohner joined the team, Wahlin improved his offense, and Dawes improved his defense. But we’ve almost been two completely different teams this season.