TBird41
Platinum Hoya (over 5000 posts)
"Roy! I Love All 7'2" of you Roy!"
Posts: 8,740
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Post by TBird41 on Jan 30, 2009 15:23:45 GMT -5
I wonder what lessons JT3 may be drawing from the current team. We all THINK he is realizing he needs some bigger, tougher guys up front. But maybe he is also looking at the psychological make-up of his team. Mickey D's have blown anyone's doors off. Macklin, Freeman, Wright. vs. Hibbert, Green, Ewing, Wallace. Seems there are other factors at play than being HS all americans. Interesting how you left someone off the list of McDonald All Americans that are on the team. Also, you have to admit that former Hoya teams with HS All Americans like Patrick Ewing and Alonzo Mourning did all right.
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SirSaxa
Silver Hoya (over 500 posts)
Posts: 747
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Post by SirSaxa on Jan 30, 2009 15:39:53 GMT -5
I wonder what lessons JT3 may be drawing from the current team. We all THINK he is realizing he needs some bigger, tougher guys up front. But maybe he is also looking at the psychological make-up of his team. Mickey D's have blown anyone's doors off. Macklin, Freeman, Wright. vs. Hibbert, Green, Ewing, Wallace. Seems there are other factors at play than being HS all americans. Interesting how you left someone off the list of McDonald All Americans that are on the team. Also, you have to admit that former Hoya teams with HS All Americans like Patrick Ewing and Alonzo Mourning did all right. Sorry TBird... you are right. My quick typing did not capture my entire thought. It should have read: NOT ALL THE "Mickey D's have blown anyone's doors off"
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chep3
Golden Hoya (over 1000 posts)
Posts: 2,314
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Post by chep3 on Jan 30, 2009 16:09:45 GMT -5
To be fair, it is not as if this team is getting blown out, which would be really troublesome, so there is some fight. We certainly didn't get blown out in the last two, but we definitely did, at home, to the last good team we've played. We will learn a lot about this team on Saturday. If we come out and fight and hang with them, then I don't care whether we win or lose. It'll show that we've turned a corner and I'll fully believe the wins are about to come. If we roll over like we did against WVU, then that means a 4 game skid isn't getting to them, which would be highly problematic.
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NCHoya
Diamond Hoya (over 2500 posts)
Posts: 2,924
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Post by NCHoya on Jan 30, 2009 16:46:48 GMT -5
I will give the current roster the benefit of the doubt. It seems like maybe when you are so supremely gifted like a McD AA you never really learn how to deal with adversity because you just do not face it at the HS level.
Meanwhile, Green, Hibbert, and especially Wallace, knew what it was like not to be the best player in the state or the best player on their own team. They likely had more basketball experiences where they needed to overcome their own shortcomings, I am thinking Hibbert with the physical limitations he came to GU with and Wallace's lack of experience playing big time HS basketball.
The current guys have really not had a tough basketball journey up until now, they have been able to get by on talent alone. Now that reality has struck them dead in the face, they likely need a significant adjustment period to figure out how to handle it. Likely more than 4 games!
I think we are just experiencing growing pains, but I do believe you can learn leadership through experience. While some guys come in as Frosh with the skill set others need to develop it. However, I do hope that JT3 values leadership a little more in recruiting. Obviously, you do not need 5 leaders on a floor, but a solid, heady PG is always something this offense and team will need. CW may be it, maybe it is Clark, but regardless, JT3 should always be looking at the pipeline.
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sleepy
Platinum Hoya (over 5000 posts)
Posts: 6,079
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Post by sleepy on Jan 30, 2009 18:17:47 GMT -5
I will give the current roster the benefit of the doubt. It seems like maybe when you are so supremely gifted like a McD AA you never really learn how to deal with adversity because you just do not face it at the HS level. Meanwhile, Green, Hibbert, and especially Wallace, knew what it was like not to be the best player in the state or the best player on their own team. They likely had more basketball experiences where they needed to overcome their own shortcomings, I am thinking Hibbert with the physical limitations he came to GU with and Wallace's lack of experience playing big time HS basketball. The current guys have really not had a tough basketball journey up until now, they have been able to get by on talent alone. Now that reality has struck them dead in the face, they likely need a significant adjustment period to figure out how to handle it. Likely more than 4 games! I think we are just experiencing growing pains, but I do believe you can learn leadership through experience. While some guys come in as Frosh with the skill set others need to develop it. However, I do hope that JT3 values leadership a little more in recruiting. Obviously, you do not need 5 leaders on a floor, but a solid, heady PG is always something this offense and team will need. CW may be it, maybe it is Clark, but regardless, JT3 should always be looking at the pipeline. Thank you, I think that is exactly what is going on right now. People on this board need to stop comparing this group to the 08 class. Right now. It is absolutly insane and totally unfair to the current players and even to the 08 class. That group was in a totally different situation and came from completely different backgrounds. People act as if players like Green, Hibbert, Wallace, Crawford and Ewing grow on trees. Well they don't. Also to act like all those players came in with the same mental toughness and ability to overcome adversity is also insane. These guys will develop it, they may not have come in with the same amount as previous players, but it doesn't mean they can't get there. But maybe your right, maybe every single player on our team has an inability to overcome adversity and no mental toughness and you can't improve either over the course of time. How exactly to you propose we find guys with that ability? Only go after non-all americans? Well not every single player on our team is an all-american, (Sapp, Wattad, Vaughn) and apparently they are all suffer the same mental weaknesses as everyone else. Should we only go after guys who played on bad high school teams? Is there some sort of character/how-to-face-adversity-test I am unaware of? Personally I think this has little to do with individual mental-toughness, but a lot do with they guys not sticking together in tough situations. That is a direct result of not having and identity, and not playing together very long. It has nothing to do with recruiting, talent, selfishness, the offense, but more we haven't come together as a team yet. The 08 class came into a unique situation, with a new coach and coming off the worst Gtown season in 30 years, they had to bond through adversity the second they stepped on campus. This team and these players are trying to do that on the fly, which isn't easy, and obviously isn't going well. They will get it together, whether it be this year or next is the question.
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FLHoya
Diamond Hoya (over 2500 posts)
Proud Member of Generation Burton
Posts: 4,544
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Post by FLHoya on Jan 31, 2009 1:05:33 GMT -5
Thank you, I think that is exactly what is going on right now. People on this board need to stop comparing this group to the 08 class. Right now. It is absolutly insane and totally unfair to the current players and even to the 08 class. That group was in a totally different situation and came from completely different backgrounds. People act as if players like Green, Hibbert, Wallace, Crawford and Ewing grow on trees. Well they don't. Also to act like all those players came in with the same mental toughness and ability to overcome adversity is also insane. These guys will develop it, they may not have come in with the same amount as previous players, but it doesn't mean they can't get there. One fact that I think is too frequently overlooked (it gets mentioned but isn't deemed as central to the overall theme IMO)--the 08 class referenced above went 8-8 in the BE for their freshman year and made the QFs of the NIT. They were great players and I would agree that as a group they had a once-in-a-generation mental toughness. But given that, it still didn't come together overnight. The common reference point for GU's "breakout" game under Thompson is the Duke victory in January 2006--or 1.5 seasons into the tenure of the 08 class. And they STILL had a three game losing streak in February and lost at winless USF to close that season. Then the following season they blew the ODU game in November and it got pretty testy on the board after the Oregon and Duke losses to start December. Whether you have "mental toughness" or not in your emotional makeup, it just isn't going to show results for the team immediately. I've been going on about the "experience" issue with the current team--they're at the same point as a group that we were in 2004-05: bunch of talented guys playing together for the first time and figuring out how to make this complicated system work. They just need time to figure out how to work with each other and maximize each other's strengths. And yes, they need time to improve individual strengths. Not that the 08 class didn't. Roy Hibbert took some time to develop into a candidate for 20+ minutes a game, much less a dominate force. Jeff Green's defensive performance against Illinois in December 2004 was humbling. Patrick Ewing looked like Harvey Thomas 2.0 for a while. Same deal with the current guys, as we're finding out: Greg Monroe needs to learn to use his right hand and become a stronger low post option; Jason Clark needs to improve his handle and limit TOs; Henry Sims needs to score from beyond 0.5 feet; Chris Wright needs to improve his decision-making...and we could on, because we've essentially got SEVEN guys playing their first full season in this system. I'm a big believer that things are what they are, but perception matters. I don't believe, for example, that this slump is entirely a mental meltdown or even a simple shooting slump. I believe, rather, that it's a manifestation of structural problems the team has had from Day 1 that finally caught up with them--through the law of averages and good old-fashioned scouting reports. What's making it seem so much more painful are two things to do with perception: 1. We won at UConn, blew out Syracuse and beat Memphis. We had the quality Ws--hell, there was a thread this month whose premise was "too bad we didn't beat Pitt, we woulda had a claim to #1 in the polls"--so Internet fans that we are we naturally got ahead of ourselves. If we'd lost to UConn and Cuse but say got the quality Ws at Marquette and vs. Louisville upcoming, it would've been a super painful January but "we're making progress!" would have been the mantra soon. In 04-05 we struggled but coming off the Esherick years we were conditioned to appreciate any kind of progress and see the larger picture. 2. We hyped the recruits. Not that Green and Hibbert were total unknowns, but when you have the McD's hype of Wright, Freeman and Monroe and the ranking of Clark and Sims, I think that creates an expectation of immediate results. Talent is one thing, but again NOT a substitution for experience and understanding of how to work with each other in the team concept. To this end, Summers' injury if it affects his participation is not helpful. It'll provide more minutes for guys who could use them--Wattad, Nikita, and Sims--but will stunt the growth of the team concept even further.
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richfame
Diamond Hoya (over 2500 posts)
Posts: 3,266
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Post by richfame on Jan 31, 2009 10:26:40 GMT -5
Summers and sapp were supposed to the the heart and glue of this yearsteam. So what happened?? Sapp has had and aweful year at the worst time. We needed him to be solid while our young guys matured this year. That has been problem number one. Summers hsben problem number too. HE IN m y eyes was supposed to be a leader as well. But summers probably too inconsistent on the court. Hes a very good player but did not make that leap togreat college player. Also it seems like every other game he was in foultrouble , if yournot on thecourt youreally cant help. The problem allthis happened at the worst time.
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HoyaNCCT
Silver Hoya (over 500 posts)
We will remind them.
Posts: 685
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Post by HoyaNCCT on Jan 31, 2009 14:20:09 GMT -5
Summers in on Saturday! Hellz yeah!
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