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I wish fans valued defense as much as offense.

This was a great sign for Shrews and the program. The players responded to what was obviously an intense nine or ten days of practice. Defense is about effort, thinking, and communication, and the players did that. You'll note that ND's best defensive player, Imes, is one of the least athletically-gifted. Stanford has a red hot scorer at the two-guard spot and Shrews had the guys trap him on every ball screen set for him Shrews took a page from Kelvin Sampson's playbook, and it worked to perfection. When you play defense with the intensity they played with tonight, you demoralize the opponent. Stanford's star was so demoralized by the end of the game that when Stanford cut it to like four in the last minute or so, he passed away the ball rather than shoot it, and his teammate chucked up a 27-footer that had no chance.

Also of note was the appearance of Mark Zackery in the game. I can already see that he is the fastest player on the team, and the fastest in some time. I didn't say quickest. Burton probably still owns that title, but endline to endline, Zackery is a bullet.

Gives me hope, particularly w some guys coming and developing these youngsters. They typically stay at ND because they understand the long game.

In this day and age, players would not stick around for multiple seasons for a coach they don't like. We can form judgments about Shrews, but ultimately the players have to respect him, not us. I watch a lot of sports and have seen a lot of college players get into arguments with their coaches. I haven't seen that once with them towards Shrews, nor have I ever seen the signs of dissension and poor attitudes. Given Shrews' strategy of building the program on four-year guys, this is obviously a significant criterion by which he is evaluated. Job well done, thus far, and particularly when look at Burton, whom any number of high-major programs would welcome as a transfer.

I hope his strategy works, but I'm skeptical. Shaka Smart is employing the same philosophy at Marquette, and as I predicted, it isn't working.

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Win ugly if we must. Much better than losing.

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