ODU beats Hoyas 61-57 - Discussion

good perspective sir saxa good perspective go hoyas

In my view this game exposed our team weakness -- lack of depth. This team has a six-man rotation, with the sixth man a freshman. If even 2 starters are having an off game we do not have the depth to overcome this. We did fine against Butler and Washington because at least 4 of the top six had good games. But this team has no one who can come off the bench for an offensive or defensive spark, or just to changes things up.

The lack of depth also precludes an aggressive defense to change
momentum, e.g., a press or half-court trapping defense, because of foul/fatigue issues. This may be where losing transfers the past few seasons hurts us -- not that the actual players like Macklin or Rivers hurts us -- they both are so-so players, but not having players in those roles is a problem.

ODU played better against us than Washington, Butler or Temple. Clark had his first off game. A lot of unforced turnovers in a limited possession game. Vaughn's two fouls in first half kept us from sitting Greg which needed to happen. Monroe's defensive fundamentals are horrible. His shot selection inside is poor. Wright remains in a deep funk. I was not that impressed by our wins because our opponents had not played well against us and are generally over-rated. Our 2-3 zone is awful. No one can count on being 22 for 22 from the foul line. 16 for 22 would be solid, so adding a missed front end, sub-standard foul shooting is about a three point factor. That said, the foul line disparity would have us howling about the home court if we were on the other side of it.

I am not sure that I buy this as a trap game or a game where we didn't try. With a lively home crowd in a tiny gym with helpful officiating, we were lucky to only lose by four. ODU played very well and we played a little below our normal game based on the four I have seen on television and the Butler game I saw in person. We are nowhere near the 11th best team in the country and will need to work hard to be one of the eight best in our conference. A three game losing streak to end 2009 is not out of the question. Having been punched in the eye, we need to see whether our response from this team is going to be better than last year's team. If not, pitchers and catchers will need to report early.

Finally, the real culprit is Johnny Jones for posting the first loss thread. Stay away from the kool-aid.

We played very well against Washington, so I dont know how you can say we have not impressed and our overrated. We played poorly last night and ODU played very well. It happens, but one loss doesnt mean we are all of a sudden going to struggle to beat Harvard and SJU, and will have to fight just to finish in the top 10 of our conference. We are much better than those teams. We've deserved to win every game we won, and we deserved to lose last night. I hope this is a wake up call.

We've all said it before, but the book against us is and always will be play tough defense and stretch out possessions. Not a surprise that Temple and ODU were our toughest games. We dont create in transition well enough, dont have an explosive offense. Our strategy is to run every possession for the optimal shot, that is why we are always ranked so high in Pomeroy. Our offensive efficiency is high because the JTIII is to optimize possession.

It seems to me -- and I was stuck "watching" the snow-blown MASN coverage, so take this with a salt mine -- that this was as much, if not more, a mental as a physical loss. True, Wright was off his game for a good bit of the night, Clark was often lost on defense, and Greg's right (make that wrong) hand was ugly, but this team just didn't seem ready to play, right from the tip-off. Even on TV, the lack of energy was palpable. The turn-overs, which admittedly have plagued us in the past, have generally involved trying to make a play, force a drive or ball into the paint, whatever. They were not always, but frequently, the product of intensity. Last night's TO's too often looked like the product of sleep-walking. That, like free-throw shooting, tells me that concentration and preparation were issues. That's bad, but fixable. And I think that Coach will fix it.

A couple of other observations re prior posts. As a left coaster who was at the game here in California last week, I have to disagree with both the notion that Washington isn't pretty damn good, or that we didn't play well against them. See my post-game musings of last week. (It may be worth remembering that UW is still picked to win the (admittedly down) PAC 10, and was picked number 9 in the country by SI pre-season). Second, the bench scoring, which has been mentioned by a number of prior posters, IS a big problem (and was one of the few real low points in the Washington win); it is likely to be bigger issue as the grind of the BE season sets in. Finally, I like Mark Tillmon, but he's really not much help as an analyst. Grammatical "fingernails on the chalkboard" commentary aside, he offers no real insight, is an apostle of the obvious, and is maddeningly repetitive. I'm glad to see him have a chance on MASN, but he's going to have to improve in all of these areas to have any prospect of moving up the sportscaster ladder.

The win against UW looked good yesterday as the Huskies killed former 25th ranked team the Portland Pilots. Of course, since the Hoyas and UP (to some degree, because it is my son's alma mater) are my favorite teams, yesterday was a washout, basketball-wise.

As someone else mentioned somewhere along these posts, I found it interesting too that Jerrelle was subbed in before Henry this game. I think we're gonna see more of that or, at the least, Henry and Jerrelle splitting minutes.

I think Vee's going to see more time as well and our depth (and hopefully our turnover rate) will not be major issues in a month. Love this team and I'm almost glad in a way that we took a bad loss. You can always get more out of a loss than a win and hopefully we do that. Bring on Harvard. Time to $%*! some smaaat kids! Hoya Saxa.

I'm glad to see all the usual suspects out in force, who only post on this board when we lose, and do so with some perverse annoying glee.

I will take the other road and follow the advice of HoyaSinceBirth. Start booking reservations for Indy!!!!

Oh, and please beat the crap out of Harvard.

Go Hoyas!
I've already erased my recording of last night's awful events.

we were lazy and sloopy and not hustling till we were too far behind and too late to pull it out good energy at the end but just not enough to make up for rest of the game go hoyas COME OUT STRONG VS. HARVARD