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Post by strummer8526 on Mar 11, 2009 23:07:32 GMT -5
It seems to be a general belief on this board that the team was playing well until Monroe got T'd up in the Duke game. Specifically, they were playing together offensively. From my own observations, I concur with this belief. But I decided to see what our offensive efficiency was up to and including the Duke game, vs. our efficiency AFTER. I understand that this is heavily competition inflated, but bear with me. Pre-Duke O Efficiency: 112.8 Post-Duke O Efficiency: 90.3 YIKES! For comparison's sake, a 112.8 would rank 34th nationally. While certainly not great for a JTIII Hoya team, it's respectable, and reasonable to expect from a first year team learning the offense. In fact, the only JTIII club that ALL had to learn the offense in the same season was 2004-05. What was their offensive effeciency? 113.1, and 34th nationally. How about that O after Duke? Well, ummm, hehe, about that... a 90.3 ranks 309th nationally. No, you didn't read that wrong. That's not a typo. 309. Yes, as I said above, there is a large difference in competition levels. But Georgetown was also worse both offensively AND defensively in BOTH games against St. John's than it was against Memphis. Not sure there's an easy explanation for that. But the point is, for those who point to Duke as the turning point (myself included), there appears to be some real, solid objective evidence behind it besides simple W's and L's. JTIII has some work to do. Thanks for actually putting some numbers behind this theory. I am also one of the people who thinks that the Duke game was some kind of epic turnaround for us (and in the worst way). It is good to know that early in the season, we had the potential to be great. It means that there is something to build on next year. But it's sad to see so clearly when everything went wrong.
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bmartin
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Post by bmartin on Mar 11, 2009 23:19:39 GMT -5
I think Big East teams watched the Pitt game tape and saw how to guard us. If Greenberg broke down the Pitt-Georgetown tape to prepare Va Tech for a game with Richmond, I'm sure Big East coaches did the same before playing us: www.newsadvance.com/lna/sports/college/virginia_tech/article/hokies_squash_spiders/12433/Over the past three days, Greenberg watched footage of Pittsburgh playing Georgetown to formulate a strategy to defend the Spiders’ offense. Like Georgetown, UR relies on spacing and back-cutting. Greenberg combined that research with assistant Ryan Odom’s scouting report for a plan that worked almost flawlessly. “We didn’t give up one back-door layup,” Greenberg said. Richmond coach Chris Mooney saw how the approach frustrated his team. “I think we settled just a little bit for harder shots that we don’t neccesarily need to settle for,” he said.
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sleepy
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Post by sleepy on Mar 11, 2009 23:38:14 GMT -5
I think Big East teams watched the Pitt game tape and saw how to guard us. If Greenberg broke down the Pitt-Georgetown tape to prepare Va Tech for a game with Richmond, I'm sure Big East coaches did the same before playing us: www.newsadvance.com/lna/sports/college/virginia_tech/article/hokies_squash_spiders/12433/Over the past three days, Greenberg watched footage of Pittsburgh playing Georgetown to formulate a strategy to defend the Spiders’ offense. Like Georgetown, UR relies on spacing and back-cutting. Greenberg combined that research with assistant Ryan Odom’s scouting report for a plan that worked almost flawlessly. “We didn’t give up one back-door layup,” Greenberg said. Richmond coach Chris Mooney saw how the approach frustrated his team. “I think we settled just a little bit for harder shots that we don’t neccesarily need to settle for,” he said. Ehh, thats the same defense Pitt's played against us for three years now. I doubt Big East coaches just discovered it this year.
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Buckets
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Post by Buckets on Mar 12, 2009 1:01:31 GMT -5
So, anyways, I ran through and took our OE and DE numbers by game from KenPom. Then from OE I subtracted our opponents' season average raw DE, which gives some measure of our offensive performance against a particular opponents' defense. Then I did the same for opponents' season raw OE minus our defensive efficiency that game (this way, positive numbers mean good for GU). This is pretty simplistic, but I'm not really working with a very large database here. Note: I started with the UConn game because it was easy to grab Big East numbers and I didn't feel like looking through for all the other teams. TEAM | Conn | Pitt | ND | Prov | SU | Duke | WVU | SHU | Cin | MU | RU | Cin | SU | USF | MU | UL | Nova | SJU | DeP | SJU | O+/- | 27.4 | -4.3 | 3.5 | 8.6 | 32.8 | 9.1 | -9 | -7.4 | -7.7 | 17.1 | -6.9 | -7.1 | 26.2 | 2.6 | 14.6 | -0.1 | -6.7 | -15.7 | -25.8 | -9.1 | D+/- | 11.3 | -0.7 | -4.6 | 4.6 | -0.3 | -4.5 | 1.1 | 2.6 | -4.3 | -20.4 | 18.6 | 5.2 | -19.8 | 29.9 | -10.3 | -10.2 | 25.8 | 11.1 | 26.9 | 1.3 |
So, what can we take from this? Marquette and Syracuse did not figure out how to guard us, for whatever reason. There's four big offensive pluses that jump out here after the UConn game, and they're both against those two teams. Looking at just the Duke and after games, you can split them up pretty nicely into three categories (except @cin, which was just a subpar effort on our part all-around). When you look at the four wins, it's three average offensive efforts (and one abysmal one against DePaul) coupled with well-above average defensive games. When we lose to good teams, it's because we don't play defense: against Duke, Marquette twice, Cuse, and Louisville, we were equally or much more efficient on offense than their average opponents, but they were also a lot more efficient on their offensive ends as well. When we lose to mediocre and bad teams, it's because we can't play offense. When we lose to bad teams, it's the offense: both St. John's games, Seton Hall, and home against Cinci fall into this category (so does WVU, but whatever). How do you explain it? Who the hell knows. I'll just throw my theory in: first, what we all know, we're not very good on defense. We get by on athleticism defensively versus lesser teams, and this just doesn't work against the big boys (except, apparently Villanova). As for the offense, I think we get tense when we feel like we should win, and start thinking about things, whereas when we're not favored, we go out and execute. We didn't have a really good offensive game against any of the bad teams in the Big East, yet we're able to go out and fire against Marquette, UConn, and Syracuse. How do you fix this? Not really sure, but hopefully another year of working together gets guys more accustomed to each other.
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sleepy
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Post by sleepy on Mar 12, 2009 1:07:58 GMT -5
So, anyways, I ran through and took our OE and DE numbers by game from KenPom. Then from OE I subtracted our opponents' season average raw DE, which gives some measure of our offensive performance against a particular opponents' defense. Then I did the same for opponents' season raw OE minus our defensive efficiency that game (this way, positive numbers mean good for GU). This is pretty simplistic, but I'm not really working with a very large database here. Note: I started with the UConn game because it was easy to grab Big East numbers and I didn't feel like looking through for all the other teams. TEAM | Conn | Pitt | ND | Prov | SU | Duke | WVU | SHU | Cin | MU | RU | Cin | SU | USF | MU | UL | Nova | SJU | DeP | SJU | O+/- | 27.4 | -4.3 | 3.5 | 8.6 | 32.8 | 9.1 | -9 | -7.4 | -7.7 | 17.1 | -6.9 | -7.1 | 26.2 | 2.6 | 14.6 | -0.1 | -6.7 | -15.7 | -25.8 | -9.1 | D+/- | 11.3 | -0.7 | -4.6 | 4.6 | -0.3 | -4.5 | 1.1 | 2.6 | -4.3 | -20.4 | 18.6 | 5.2 | -19.8 | 29.9 | -10.3 | -10.2 | 25.8 | 11.1 | 26.9 | 1.3 |
So, what can we take from this? Marquette and Syracuse did not figure out how to guard us, for whatever reason. There's four big offensive pluses that jump out here after the UConn game, and they're both against those two teams. Looking at just the Duke and after games, you can split them up pretty nicely into three categories (except @cin, which was just a subpar effort on our part all-around). When you look at the four wins, it's three average offensive efforts (and one abysmal one against DePaul) coupled with well-above average defensive games. When we lose to good teams, it's because we don't play defense: against Duke, Marquette twice, Cuse, and Louisville, we were equally or much more efficient on offense than their average opponents, but they were also a lot more efficient on their offensive ends as well. When we lose to mediocre and bad teams, it's because we can't play offense. When we lose to bad teams, it's the offense: both St. John's games, Seton Hall, and home against Cinci fall into this category (so does WVU, but whatever). How do you explain it? Who the hell knows. I'll just throw my theory in: first, what we all know, we're not very good on defense. We get by on athleticism defensively versus lesser teams, and this just doesn't work against the big boys (except, apparently Villanova). As for the offense, I think we get tense when we feel like we should win, and start thinking about things, whereas when we're not favored, we go out and execute. We didn't have a really good offensive game against any of the bad teams in the Big East, yet we're able to go out and fire against Marquette, UConn, and Syracuse. How do you fix this? Not really sure, but hopefully another year of working together gets guys more accustomed to each other. Thats a pretty good theory Freemoney, and the only thing I have been able to use as an explanation and I am happy the numbers support it. It really just makes no sense, but I find this happens a lot in my own basketball experiences, so I don't think its that uncommon, especially for young teams. The extent to which we did it, however, is whats rather head-scratching.
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Post by hoyaheaven on Mar 12, 2009 7:11:24 GMT -5
Can someone please give one area of the '09 Hoyas that the coaching staff didn't manage miserably. Just one.
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bmartin
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Post by bmartin on Mar 12, 2009 7:30:08 GMT -5
Sure, Pitt ran the same defense as in the past but we are not the the same team as previous years. Teams figured out they did not need to double down on Monroe so they did not leave DaJuan and Austin open. Also they figured out that any pressure on the ball would get our guards to pass around the perimeter without running the offense.
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NCHoya
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Post by NCHoya on Mar 12, 2009 9:14:43 GMT -5
All these numbers and stats point to one thing - the problem with this team was absolutely mental triggered by the Duke loss. Something fundamentally happened to this team's psyche during that game. And, by no means is this unprecedented.
I was reminded by a poster in another thread about the 00-01 SHU team with Eddie Griffin. That team relied heavily on freshman including one and done Griffin and had almost an identical 2nd half swoon. Guess what the cause was for that team - a locker room fistfight between Griffin and a senior player. I see very clear parrallels. I am not going to tell you how the next few years of SHU basketball went after that, it would be depressing. However, you cannot compare Amaker and JT3 as coaches or Monroe to Griffin as players.
The good thing is the off-season in cbb is so long to forget this crap I think we should recover well and have some good learning for next season. I expect to see the same team that started this season, all season next year. Should be a good season if this was more of a mental collapse than a lack of ability issue.
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the_way
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Post by the_way on Mar 12, 2009 9:22:49 GMT -5
Guys, this paralysis by analysis is comical.
Folks will run around like a chicken with their head cutoff in total denial that we are not a good basketball team.
We are not an offensive efficient team this year. No ball movement to create high-percentage shots. No consistent low-post threat.
Basically, if we shot the 3 well (which was the exception and not the rule), we won. When we didn't, we lost.
AND we don't play defense AND we don't rebound.
How are you going to win games with these issues?
you aren't.
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Post by centercourt400s on Mar 12, 2009 9:46:32 GMT -5
The idea that there is a smoking gun that represents the single reason why our season went off the skids is pure speculation. If anyone has evidence of a locker room problem, incident or whatever, speak up. I doubt that there is any.
I think the problem was that they were tired and discouraged after Duke, and West Virginia playing as well as they did against us at home shocked the guys and badly damaged their confidence. Maybe it shouldn’t have but it did. Then they played the next 3 BE games on the road which is tough for any team, especially one with little experience. Still, had they beaten SH maybe they could have regained confidence, but losing there just shattered whatever was left.
I think this is a much more plausible explanation than some phantom ‘incident’ being the turning point of the whole season.
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bmartin
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Post by bmartin on Mar 12, 2009 10:05:36 GMT -5
A lot of focus on Monroe, Wright, Sapp, and Nikita, but in Big East play we needed Summers and Freeman to consistently combine for 30-35 points and 12-15 rebounds and they were almost never both on. They are the shooters we needed to maintain our offensive efficiency.
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SFHoya99
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Post by SFHoya99 on Mar 12, 2009 10:38:32 GMT -5
The idea that there is a smoking gun that represents the single reason why our season went off the skids is pure speculation. People want a grand, unifying theory. There likely isn't one. As much as the_way's "paralysis by analysis" line makes no sense (there's nothing we are paralyzed from doing), he's right in that it's simply likely a lot of things that snowballed. At the very end, I simply think losing got to them. Before that, though, it would be one thing or another, and it just seemed we couldn't break through. That's enough to discourage anyone.
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Post by DownTownJoeyBrown on Mar 12, 2009 12:52:40 GMT -5
In my opinion our downfall began when other teams realized that Monroe was a pass first big man and did not want to / could not carry us offensively. Prior to the Duke game etc. Monroe was guarded very tightly and double consistantly in the paint. This allowed him to use his tremendous passing ability to hit open shooters and cutters creaing an offense with flow and balance.
At some point, be it Pitt, Duke or WVU, teams realized that Monroe was not going to beat us on his own. The sagged off, stoped doubling and took away his passing lanes. They also started to do a better job of denying him the ball.
Without a serious threat in the post (Hibbert or Green) this team started to get stagnant. Other defenses adjusted and our guys got frustrated. We were never able to snap out of it and the tough and physical opponents we faced this year didnt help.
Just my thoughts. I wouldnt be surprised if something happened in the locker room as well. Not like III to bench our senior leader like that if there wernt some other issues.
At the end of the day, we may never know. Lets just hope Monroe and Julian beef up this summer and get some help from Hibbs, Zo, Pat, Dik etc. on their post game. Sky is the limit for Monroe but we could certainly use some help from another big man with post game (crossing my fingers for a good recruit)
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professorhoya
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Post by professorhoya on Mar 12, 2009 12:54:42 GMT -5
All these numbers and stats point to one thing - the problem with this team was absolutely mental triggered by the Duke loss. Something fundamentally happened to this team's psyche during that game. And, by no means is this unprecedented. I was reminded by a poster in another thread about the 00-01 SHU team with Eddie Griffin. That team relied heavily on freshman including one and done Griffin and had almost an identical 2nd half swoon. Guess what the cause was for that team - a locker room fistfight between Griffin and a senior player. I see very clear parrallels. I am not going to tell you how the next few years of SHU basketball went after that, it would be depressing. However, you cannot compare Amaker and JT3 as coaches or Monroe to Griffin as players. The good thing is the off-season in cbb is so long to forget this crap I think we should recover well and have some good learning for next season. I expect to see the same team that started this season, all season next year. Should be a good season if this was more of a mental collapse than a lack of ability issue. I think the Griffin situation you bring up illustrates a good point of how an incident can snowball and destroy a teams season. Some people don't want to accept that instead wanting to treat players as robots who can just move past that but mentally something like the Griffin situation can have damaging effects. I am reminded of the Michael Westbrook-Stephen Davis training camp attack and how Norv Turner handled that badly IMO. Those were two Marquee players for that Skins team. That team ended up finishing 8-7-1. Terrell Owens - Hugh Douglass Meltdown in Philadelphia also comes to mind: www.hiphop-universe.com/underground/showthread.php?t=19441In general when a situation like this happens, regardless of who is to blame for the situation, unless one of the two persons involved in the altercation is removed from the team, it creates an uncomfortable situation that mentally effects the unit. If you can sit back and put yourself in this situation, perhaps by making an analogous comparison to such a situation happening at work or in class, then you can better put yourself into the perspectives of the players. The only time I can remember where a team actually survived such a situation was when defensive coordinator Buddy Ryan challenged coach Mike Ditka to a fist fight during halftime of the Bears-Miami Dolphin game during the Bears quest for an undefeated season. They ended up losing that game but won every other game and won the Super Bowl. It can be argued though that that Bears unit was two teams, the Defensive Unit which was controlled by Buddy Ryan, and the Offense Unit coached by Ditka. And since the two units were never on the field at the same time, the damage was less. Ryan did end up leaving after the season though to become Head Coach of the Eagles, which pretty much ended any chance at a dynasty.
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the_way
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Post by the_way on Mar 12, 2009 12:59:32 GMT -5
All these numbers and stats point to one thing - the problem with this team was absolutely mental triggered by the Duke loss. Something fundamentally happened to this team's psyche during that game. And, by no means is this unprecedented. I was reminded by a poster in another thread about the 00-01 SHU team with Eddie Griffin. That team relied heavily on freshman including one and done Griffin and had almost an identical 2nd half swoon. Guess what the cause was for that team - a locker room fistfight between Griffin and a senior player. I see very clear parrallels. I am not going to tell you how the next few years of SHU basketball went after that, it would be depressing. However, you cannot compare Amaker and JT3 as coaches or Monroe to Griffin as players. The good thing is the off-season in cbb is so long to forget this crap I think we should recover well and have some good learning for next season. I expect to see the same team that started this season, all season next year. Should be a good season if this was more of a mental collapse than a lack of ability issue. I think the Griffin situation you bring up illustrates a good point of how an incident can snowball and destroy a teams season. Some people don't want to accept that instead wanting to treat players as robots who can just move past that but mentally something like the Griffin situation can have damaging effects. I am reminded of the Michael Westbrook-Stephen Davis training camp attack and how Norv Turner handled that badly IMO. Those were two Marquee players for that Skins team. That team ended up finishing 8-7-1. Terrell Owens - Hugh Douglass Meltdown in Philadelphia also comes to mind: www.hiphop-universe.com/underground/showthread.php?t=19441In general when a situation like this happens, regardless of who is to blame for the situation, unless one of the two persons involved in the altercation is removed from the team, it creates an uncomfortable situation that mentally effects the unit. If you can sit back and put yourself in this situation, perhaps by making an analogous comparison to such a situation happening at work or in class, then you can better put yourself into the perspectives of the players. The only time I can remember where a team actually survived such a situation was when defensive coordinator Buddy Ryan challenged coach Mike Ditka to a fist fight during halftime of the Bears-Miami Dolphin game during the Bears quest for an undefeated season. They ended up losing that game but won every other game and won the Super Bowl. It can be argued though that that Bears unit was two teams, the Defensive Unit which was controlled by Buddy Ryan, and the Offense Unit coached by Ditka. And since the two units were never on the field at the same time, the damage was less. Ryan did end up leaving after the season though to become Head Coach of the Eagles, which pretty much ended any chance at a dynasty. Fights happen all the time in locker rooms, even among successful teams. Its commonplace. Thats not an issue. Its why you hear folks laugh all the time about players having to like each other to play well together. A lot of times that aint the case on successful teams.
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Post by swflahoya on Mar 12, 2009 13:13:24 GMT -5
Somehow, despite visiting this room almost everyday this year, I have NO idea what locker room incident everyone is referring to. I can only assume the admin. rules are leading to all the cryptic references, I'm just out of the loop. I really did look in the 2nd half of the season like the guys just didn't want to play with each other.
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professorhoya
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Post by professorhoya on Mar 12, 2009 13:17:30 GMT -5
Fights happen all the time in locker rooms, even among successful teams. Its commonplace. Thats not an issue. Its why you hear folks laugh all the time about players having to like each other to play well together. A lot of times that aint the case on successful teams. It depends. A Michael Jordan punching a rather insignificant teammate/player like Steve Kerr in the face or Will Perdue in practice has less effect since everyone knows who the boss is. I think it can be a problem when a situation involves two leaders or key players on a team as have been illustrated in the examples. I don't think you can ignore the possibility that it can have a major detrimental effect on a team psychologically and mentally and potentially could destroy that teams season.
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Post by centercourt400s on Mar 12, 2009 14:34:24 GMT -5
I think it is safe to say that no one has any evidence, or even any credible hearsay, that there were any ‘incidents’ amongst players which led to the reversal of fortune for the team. The speculation occurring on this thread is equally as credible as me saying that I think that a witch doctor hired by Jim Boeheim may have infiltrated the team’s flight back from North Carolina after the Duke game and cursed them.
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SFHoya99
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Post by SFHoya99 on Mar 12, 2009 15:42:45 GMT -5
In my opinion our downfall began when other teams realized that Monroe was a pass first big man and did not want to / could not carry us offensively. Prior to the Duke game etc. Monroe was guarded very tightly and double consistantly in the paint. This allowed him to use his tremendous passing ability to hit open shooters and cutters creaing an offense with flow and balance. At some point, be it Pitt, Duke or WVU, teams realized that Monroe was not going to beat us on his own. The sagged off, stoped doubling and took away his passing lanes. They also started to do a better job of denying him the ball. Without a serious threat in the post (Hibbert or Green) this team started to get stagnant. Other defenses adjusted and our guys got frustrated. We were never able to snap out of it and the tough and physical opponents we faced this year didnt help. Just my thoughts. I wouldnt be surprised if something happened in the locker room as well. Not like III to bench our senior leader like that if there wernt some other issues. At the end of the day, we may never know. Lets just hope Monroe and Julian beef up this summer and get some help from Hibbs, Zo, Pat, Dik etc. on their post game. Sky is the limit for Monroe but we could certainly use some help from another big man with post game (crossing my fingers for a good recruit) This is a great point - I noticed this as well. He stopped getting doubled and never made people pay. Really, he should have taken every opposing center to the hoop on every play in some games, and especially from a face up position.
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Post by centercourt400s on Mar 12, 2009 15:57:25 GMT -5
People seem to forget how raw freshmen are. You can't expect even the BE Rookie of the Year to effectively postup or score against the level of competition he faced this year. Having him as the #1 scoring option on all our possessions would have probably been a huge negative for him.
That being said, next year he should be utilized much more as a scoring threat.
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