DFW HOYA
Platinum Hoya (over 5000 posts)
Posts: 5,752
|
Post by DFW HOYA on Feb 4, 2014 8:40:49 GMT -5
DePaul is coming back as a program with some very promising young players. I just question having them play so far from their school on a Monday night. The driving distance from the DePaul campus to Rosemont is 15 miles. The driving distance from Georgetown to the former Capital Centre was as much as 22 miles.
|
|
|
Post by aleutianhoya on Feb 4, 2014 8:53:42 GMT -5
Great game for Jabril. Not sure why so many people are surprised. On the other hand, Nate fouled out in 25 minutes, Moses in 22 minutes and Hopkins in 11 minutes in what must be some kind of record. Seriously, how? At least Nate had 10 boards. The fouls at the rim called against both teams were as bad as I've ever seen it. Sometimes both teams just contest everything hard at the rim and the fouls are legitimate, but that wasn't the case here. At least twice that I recall (once Nate and once Mikael), the guy just stood there with arms completely straight up in the air and got called for a foul. Not even on a driving guard but on a post move. If the defender leaned in with their arms, you'd practically need a protractor to tell. That can't happen because there's literally nothing else the defender can do -- if he moves backward, it's actually more legitimately a foul if there's contact. It's a very easy no call. Another one on Nate was a typical battle for position that I thought was a very bad call with limited contact and no advantage for either player. (He's always going to pick up one or two over the back calls if he plays enough minutes. I don't have any problem with those -- I think most are properly called -- and I have no problem with him getting them because he does keep a lot of balls alive.) Moses, on the other hand, is simply a foul machine. While that last one may have been a good acting job, it was a stupid play. There was no need to try to front at that stage of the game. I think he probably doesn't get called for many more that could be called. (The same is true of Jabril. If you watch him off the ball, he's very frequently playing middle linebacker and just giving a shoulder to every cutter through the lane.) We got the benefit of at least as many bad calls as were called against us. I think the key takeaway from this game -- as with Michigan State -- was that we won without getting a terrific 40 minute game from both DSR and Markel. Markel played perfectly well and both obviously got to the line. But if you had told me two weeks ago that those two would shoot such a low percentage from the field in any given game, I'd guarantee a loss. Some of that, as others have said, is Jabril picking up some slack, but some of it is just a marginally better all around effort from everyone. That bodes well for the rest of the year. For sure, we aren't going to win consistently against good teams without those two putting up efficient numbers, but at least now I feel pretty good that if they do put up efficient numbers, everyone else will do enough and we'll get a win. They shot just south of 50% combined against Xavier and Marquette and we lost both -- they were 9-30 combined yesterday and we won.
|
|
drquigley
Diamond Hoya (over 2500 posts)
Posts: 3,382
|
Post by drquigley on Feb 4, 2014 8:59:31 GMT -5
Ugly win but a win. Wish DePaul would come around. Need a Chicago BE presence.
|
|
Jack
Diamond Hoya (over 2500 posts)
Posts: 3,411
|
Post by Jack on Feb 4, 2014 9:01:28 GMT -5
I'm not ready to take the pleasure cruise that I am sure I would find in the in-game comments here, so this may have been covered (or perhaps even on New Year's Eve), but I can't believe Thomas Hamilton has a kid playing for DePaul. Tommy's dad made Joshua Smith look like Lee Scruggs. As I recall he never actually got his act together to play college hoops, then got a cup of coffee with the Celtics at one point. His high school teammate and fellow 7-footer Rashard Griffith had an almost equally unimpressive career, despite being ranked above Rasheed Wallace at one point.
Jabril is useful, especially in this incarnation. He still carries himself tough, but maybe getting cracked in the jaw has calmed down some of his worst tendencies. I especially like him off the bench - he can replace any member of the starting line-up and improve either the offense or the defense, and assuming no one has fouled out (ha!) he is part of the best crunch time 5. Which 2 of Cameron, Lubick, Hopkins, and Ayegba round out that lineup is situational. Maybe in another 2-3 games he can even surpass Mr. Smith as the third leading scorer this season.
|
|
drquigley
Diamond Hoya (over 2500 posts)
Posts: 3,382
|
Post by drquigley on Feb 4, 2014 9:30:34 GMT -5
One thing that should scare us is the horrible foul shooting of our bigs. At the end of close games when we are still in one and one we can't let Moses or Nate touch the ball. Izzo picked up on this and had his guys foul Moses. I was actually happy when our bigs fouled out last night. Fortunately we had a big enough lead last night but I can see us losing a big game or two when we can't convert.
|
|
biggmanu
Silver Hoya (over 500 posts)
Posts: 671
|
Post by biggmanu on Feb 4, 2014 9:58:28 GMT -5
Jabril's broken jaw that lead to Reggie establishing himself as a starter has definitely helped this team. If Reggie gets a couple looks early followed by a calmer Jabril coming into the game it has really opened up the missing piece of this offense that was vacated by Otto. Jabril was too amped up to start games pre-jaw injury and would have two fouls before the game got into any rhythm really limiting his usefulness. Jabril and Bowen should absolutely be our bench with Moses for the rest of the season.
|
|
|
Post by detmut on Feb 4, 2014 9:59:46 GMT -5
does anyone know why that technical was called on depaul?
|
|
chep3
Golden Hoya (over 1000 posts)
Posts: 2,314
|
Post by chep3 on Feb 4, 2014 10:32:56 GMT -5
Hamilton was yelling at the ref after getting stripped by Jabril.
|
|
thebin
Diamond Hoya (over 2500 posts)
Posts: 3,848
|
Post by thebin on Feb 4, 2014 11:11:32 GMT -5
DePaul is coming back as a program with some very promising young players. I just question having them play so far from their school on a Monday night. The driving distance from the DePaul campus to Rosemont is 15 miles. The driving distance from Georgetown to the former Capital Centre was as much as 22 miles. I'm not exactly sure what your point is. (Literally I'm not sure, this is not a rhetorical ploy.) Are you saying they should be OK because we were during the 80s? If that is what you are saying, we're we not one of the best programs in the country when we moved our games to Landover? Obviously not the case with DePaul. More importantly I think the model of playing home games a 30 minute car ride away from campus was always a flawed one but is doubly so in this day and age. There is SO much more to do now than even 15 years ago. Too many choices for that kind of remote home game stuff. I'm more nervous about our long term future doing Verizon (which is at least in the middle of a city and near public transit) now than ever since we no longer routinely play the programs where we could expect 13-16K in attendance. I'm afraid our attendance is going to drop quickly to the 8K range where the building feels totally dead. I am uneasy that we are proceeding with the IAC center, such a big ticket item, without seriously considering including/changing the plan to accomodate a 6-7K home gym. I assume the unreal amount of garbage this would excite out of the local zoning board brown shirts is a major stumbling block to getting this important upgrade done within a decade, and yet I feel very vulnerable relying soley on the Verizon center without regular Cuse, UConn, WVU, Pitt, and ND games. I don't pretend there is a viable solution to this problem, but it does seem a vulnerability far more exposed in the new BE than in the old one.
|
|
|
Post by FrazierFanatic on Feb 4, 2014 11:16:28 GMT -5
One thing that should scare us is the horrible foul shooting of our bigs. At the end of close games when we are still in one and one we can't let Moses or Nate touch the ball. Izzo picked up on this and had his guys foul Moses. I was actually happy when our bigs fouled out last night. Fortunately we had a big enough lead last night but I can see us losing a big game or two when we can't convert. Good point, because with our offensive sets they are going to come out and get the ball almost every time. Hopefully we have some sets that keep them down low at the end of the game to reduce the opportunities to foul them.
|
|
Deleted
Deleted Member
Posts: 0
|
Post by Deleted on Feb 4, 2014 11:28:29 GMT -5
The driving distance from the DePaul campus to Rosemont is 15 miles. The driving distance from Georgetown to the former Capital Centre was as much as 22 miles. I'm not exactly sure what your point is. (Literally I'm not sure, this is not a rhetorical ploy.) Are you saying they should be OK because we were during the 80s? If that is what you are saying, we're we not one of the best programs in the country when we moved our games to Landover? Obviously not the case with DePaul. More importantly I think the model of playing home games a 30 minute car ride away from campus was always a flawed one but is doubly so in this day and age. There is SO much more to do now than even 15 years ago. Too many choices for that kind of remote home game stuff. I'm more nervous about our long term future doing Verizon (which is at least in the middle of a city and near public transit) now than ever since we no longer routinely play the programs where we could expect 13-16K in attendance. I'm afraid our attendance is going to drop quickly to the 8K range where the building feels totally dead. I am uneasy that we are proceeding with the IAC center, such a big ticket item, without seriously considering including/changing the plan to accomodate a 6-7K home gym. I assume the unreal amount of garbage this would excite out of the local zoning board brown shirts is a major stumbling block to getting this important upgrade done within a decade, and yet I feel very vulnerable relying soley on the Verizon center without regular Cuse, UConn, WVU, Pitt, and ND games. I don't pretend there is a viable solution to this problem, but it does seem a vulnerability far more exposed in the new BE than in the old one. I agree with the bin's predictions of attendance fall-offs in the NBE. Nothing huge, but significant enough that Verizon begins to feel empty. Some of this can be tempered with winning seasons with the new recruiting class and the resumption of rivalry games with Cuse/Terps as well as premier OOC games like Kansas. But if the next 5 years are like the previous 5, I do think our attendance will average in the 8k range. The subject of an on-campus arena has always been the third rail of this message board. Whenever it gets brought up the immediate response is that the neighborhood/zoning will never allow it. I think all of us understand the very real logistical, financial and political restraints for making this happen, but my question is: Can it be done? At the end of the day, if the university and donors put all their weight behind a reasonable project to upgrade McDonough, can we get a 8k on campus facility? Do we have enough leverage and carrots to offer the local community to make this type of project conceivable? I think everyone agrees that the new practice facility is a huge upgrade but there's really no explaining how far a sold-out home arena for every game would be.....
|
|
|
Post by aleutianhoya on Feb 4, 2014 11:41:16 GMT -5
One thing that should scare us is the horrible foul shooting of our bigs. At the end of close games when we are still in one and one we can't let Moses or Nate touch the ball. Izzo picked up on this and had his guys foul Moses. I was actually happy when our bigs fouled out last night. Fortunately we had a big enough lead last night but I can see us losing a big game or two when we can't convert. Good point, because with our offensive sets they are going to come out and get the ball almost every time. Hopefully we have some sets that keep them down low at the end of the game to reduce the opportunities to foul them. I don't know if anyone else saw this, but toward the end of the Michigan State game, we ran that very high weave-type set to spread the defense, and Nate waved to whoever had the ball not to throw it to him, so he couldn't be fouled.
|
|
|
Post by hoyasaxa2003 on Feb 4, 2014 11:54:17 GMT -5
Jabril Trawick came up big in this game, and I am hoping that's a sign of things to come (even before he was injured, he was our third most efficient player, even though his O rating was only about 100).
That said, I still think free throws are the key to these next 4 games. We need to either be on par with our opponent or get more free throws, which was definitely not the case in our 5 previous losses. Since our offense has been struggling, this is the best way for us to efficiently score points - and of course, we mostly want DSR and Starks shooting them.
The game itself was a bit sloppy and not nearly as crisp as against MSU, but luckily our guys did enough to pull away at the end. Another strong effort should put us in good position against Butler on Saturday.
|
|
|
Post by wrestlemania on Feb 4, 2014 12:34:07 GMT -5
DePaul is coming back as a program with some very promising young players. I just question having them play so far from their school on a Monday night. The driving distance from the DePaul campus to Rosemont is 15 miles. The driving distance from Georgetown to the former Capital Centre was as much as 22 miles. DePaul is nothing if not reliable -- the seats that were empty ten years ago remain empty today. Say what you want about JTIII, but that could very well have been GU's future had he not taken the job. Cheers to Oliver Purnell but I'm not sure anyone can win there. They should curtain off the empty portions of the Verizon Center, as they do at other types of events. Not a complete solution but better than staring at a canyon of empty chairs. I'll start to worry when the only fan in the midcourt lower level is the guy who won't take off his down jacket and falls asleep while his hot dog hits the floor. I think I saw a few of those last night.
|
|
OldHoyafan
Golden Hoya (over 1000 posts)
Posts: 1,387
|
Post by OldHoyafan on Feb 4, 2014 13:02:23 GMT -5
What a difference a week makes. I know Nova and DePaul are miles apart as a team, but the look in the eyes of the Hoyas during the middle and near the end of last nights game was totally different than the Nova game. Last night they all looked confident that they could win that game even when they were behind in the second half. The Nova game as well as the previous two games there was a look of a team not sure that they could come back from the deficit. The "What's going to happen bad next?" look was not there last night. JT3 and staff have done a great job of selling the idea to this team that you still can win tough BE games with limited offense if you can limit the other team from scoring. You have to give III credit from learning from the Marquette game. In the Marquette game he played a zone in the last minute up by three and allowe Mayo a look at a 3pt shot. Last night when the Hoyas got up by more than two scores he had his guys play tight man around the 3pt line and force them to drive to the basket for two points instead of letting them get closer with a 3pt shot. This team is still offensively challenged especially with DSR hobbled by a rib injury, but the last two games have shown that they still can play good "team" man-to-man and zone defense enough to win. Even with the officiating crew reverting back to the calling of touch fouls in the paint that disqualified three Hoyas, they still won playing good smart team defense. Moses is still letting his man beat him to position on the court,which results in most of his fouls. He tries to use his hand to deny position instead of his feet. Do not know if he has the lateral quickness to improve this or if this is just a lack of understanding in time what the offensive player is trying to set him up for. Either way unless he improves the Hoyas are going to have to go small at the end of games a lot the rest of the way.
|
|
Filo
Diamond Hoya (over 2500 posts)
Posts: 3,910
|
Post by Filo on Feb 4, 2014 13:16:19 GMT -5
Some obervations / reactions to some of the post on the game thread:
Yes, that was just a ridiculouly called game (on both ends), continuing the pattern of these BE officials making games near-unwatchable. Having said that, our big men really need to smarten up. All 3 fouled out? Against Depaul? Really? They knew from the get-go what type of game the refs were calling and should have been smart enough to avoid some of the ticky-tack fouls.
In addition to DSR, which has been discussed, Cameron is ice-cold from the outside. Do dead-eye shooters come to GU to unlearn how to shoot from the outside?
Whoever said Moses has clubs for hands is dead-on. Ugh.
Remember all those Hoya teams that used to horribly suck when pressed? Good to see this team handling the press. I think this is one of JTIII's better adjustments.
Glad to see the facilities discussion here. Really missed that one...
|
|
hoyaloya
Century (over 100 posts)
Posts: 156
|
Post by hoyaloya on Feb 4, 2014 13:53:21 GMT -5
facilities ? We had the solution presented to us and blew it. We let the Mt.Vernon campus go to GW.
|
|
|
Post by centercourt400s on Feb 4, 2014 16:16:20 GMT -5
They should curtain off the empty portions of the Verizon Center, as they do at other types of events. Not a complete solution but better than staring at a canyon of empty chairs. Every home game at Verizon this year has had sections behind each basket that are covered over with white plastic showing some sort of Georgetown logo/slogan. It was strange to see it during the Villanova game because it forced some students all the way up into the 200 section.
|
|