mfk24
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Post by mfk24 on Jan 27, 2015 22:33:55 GMT -5
This is the game I watched as well. Yeah, if this were our first matchup against Xavier I'd be concerned that this looked like a blueprint on how to beat us -- you sag off everyone, prevent the ball from getting to Smith, and get the young guys to overthink looking for a "good shot," and then you're in position to grab the defensive board. As it is, we lost on NYE (in a game I admittedly didn't see), so I think it's mostly that Stainbrook on Smith allows them the luxury of playing that defense. As has been mentioned earlier in this thread, he's a fifth-year senior center who knows exactly who he is -- a giant who is going to cause problems for centers his size not used to going against the same. A giant on Smith throws off our spacing, a merely large human doesn't. All that said, we played like Edited. We have played like Edited in the past, though not this much like Edited this year. Given my comments in the first paragraph, I think we can play less like Edited in the near future. True. And even if that were the recipe to beating us, there are very few teams with the personnel to do it. Stainbrook is as big a guy as we'll see at 6'10 270. There might be teams with 7 footers or guys in the 250 range but the girth and the strength that extra poundage affords him is what I think Josh struggles with.
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Post by professorhoya on Jan 27, 2015 22:39:21 GMT -5
Things with X is they do a bunch of things well that hurt us: 1. They play really good Pack the Line defense which takes away the 3pt shot and dribble penetration in the paint. 2. Stainbrook neutralizes Joshua Smith (and puts him in foul trouble which means less offense). It also shows that the offense really struggles to run when Joshua Smith can't dominate. 3. X is a really good free throw shooting team at 72% (Stainbrook at 75% which is excellent for a center). So it's hard to catch up on them. 4. They fast break really well and get alot of easy buckets because they have athletic personal and finishers (besides Stainbrook). Which again makes it hard to come back against. 5. They have 3 very good 3pt shooters in Miles Davis, Bluitt, and Abell. I agree with all of this. I guess my question is why Xavier's pack the line defense is so much more effective against us versus other teams in the BE. Xavier is generally considered a bad defensive team and yet, we are completely baffled by them. I just do not get it. Is it simply because we can't shoot when they sag and everyone else who plays them can? I think what the data shows is that Joshua Smith is such a huge part of our offense right now (till/if Copeland, Paul White, Peak, Tre can consistently score) not only in scoring but in creating shots for other players that when there is a guy (Stainbrook) who can neutralize Joshua Smith, then the offense disappears. In other words offensively without Joshua Smith our offense is worse than those other BE teams that beat Xavier's Pack the Line. This actually isn't surprising because if you take away Joshua Smith then it's kind of like last years team which was horrible at scoring. Now the good news is there are very few teams with a Stainbrook who can stop Joshua Smith from dominating. And Copeland and Paul White have alot of upside and can continue to improve.
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Post by hoyasaxa2003 on Jan 27, 2015 22:43:35 GMT -5
It seems like this year whenever we win, people begin thinking we are destined to go undefeated the rest of the season, and then when we lose a game, all is lost. Did we play horribly for most of the game! Yes. SFHoya99 made great points above. We didn't make free throws, we turned it over 17 times, and our rebounding was horrible.
We also shot threes significantly worse than in the last couple of games, and our offensive was really terrible the first half. The thing is, I think we simply played badly. I know it goes against the grain of being fanatical about our team, but there are some days you are simply going to lose, and it simply doesn't mean a whole lot. People like to make grand proclamations about coaching, rotations, effort, etc. - and some of them are legitimate points - but the fact is that no matter what you do on some nights, you are simply going to lose. And when you turn it over 17 times, I'm not sure there's much the coaching staff can do to make the difference.
The good news is that we are 6-3, and we still have two very winnable games against Creighton and DePaul, and two winnable games against St. Johns, along with the rest of the schedule. Are we going to be a 1 or 2 seed in the NCAA tournament? Likely not, but I think there's a good chance we could get somewhere in the 3-5 range if we play better the rest of the season. We know our guys can do it, but the execution isn't there all the time.
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mfk24
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Post by mfk24 on Jan 27, 2015 22:43:37 GMT -5
Things with X is they do a bunch of things well that hurt us: 1. They play really good Pack the Line defense which takes away the 3pt shot and dribble penetration in the paint. 2. Stainbrook neutralizes Joshua Smith (and puts him in foul trouble which means less offense). It also shows that the offense really struggles to run when Joshua Smith can't dominate. 3. X is a really good free throw shooting team at 72% (Stainbrook at 75% which is excellent for a center). So it's hard to catch up on them. 4. They fast break really well and get alot of easy buckets because they have athletic personal and finishers (besides Stainbrook). Which again makes it hard to come back against. 5. They have 3 very good 3pt shooters in Miles Davis, Bluitt, and Abell. I agree with all of this. I guess my question is why Xavier's pack the line defense is so much more effective against us versus other teams in the BE. Xavier is generally considered a bad defensive team and yet, we are completely baffled by them. I just do not get it. Is it simply because we can't shoot when they sag and everyone else who plays them can? When we beat them last year we had 3 total turnovers. THREE. We shot 42% from 3, and 52% from the floor but it was really the Markel Starks show the only other player in double figures was Trawick. Basically we didn't give them easy points in transition or off turnovers and had a go to guy that could take over a game. DSR hasn't proven to be that guy yet so we rely on much more team/offense to score.
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Post by RockawayHoya on Jan 27, 2015 22:50:03 GMT -5
Extremely disappointing loss (probably the worst of the season), because a lot of what killed us tonight was self-inflicted as opposed to anything Xavier did. A ton of careless turnovers (although I did not really understand some of the traveling violations early). Shot ourselves in the foot repeatedly with poor free throw shooting (even adequate FT shooting would have put some real game pressure on X in the final 2-3 minutes). And it was one of those nights where it seemed like we had a ton of shots rim in and out and nothing would fall. Regardless, we still should have been far more competitive than we were in this game. It honestly looked like everyone in the building (players and fans) assumed they had done enough over the past 14 days to assume victory was a foregone conclusion. Too bad it doesn't work that way (students, you still have to show up even though its not a holiday weekend).
I thought one thing Xavier was more successful at than any other team we've faced this year is forcing Josh and Hop to operate much further from the rim than they're used to. Having our bigs operate from 18 feet from the rim as opposed to 14-15 feet can make all the difference in the world, and it did tonight. I don't think we were prepared for their physicality, and when we failed to adjust, we got frustrated and it led to some really stupid fouls. But I didn't think their overall defensive effort was overwhelming. And they didn't shoot the lights out either. They just took advantage of our extreme sloppiness and made enough plays to keep us at bay.
In my eyes, Xavier has very much replaced Pitt as the team we want to measure ourselves up against to figure out if we can play physical enough (and smart enough against physical play) to be competitive in winning a conference championship. Tonight showed we're not there yet. The good news is that there's still time for this team to group to continue to develop, but tonight has to be a serious wake up call for anyone who think we're just going to waltz to a 2-team race with Nova for the title. There are several teams that could still walk away with this thing (Xavier being one of them) and anything less than a strong effort against any of these teams just simply won't get it done.
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hoyainspirit
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When life puts that voodoo on me, music is my gris-gris.
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Post by hoyainspirit on Jan 27, 2015 22:51:57 GMT -5
I'll be sure to tell my patients and kids What you said is just creepy OK
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Post by professorhoya on Jan 27, 2015 22:54:39 GMT -5
I agree with all of this. I guess my question is why Xavier's pack the line defense is so much more effective against us versus other teams in the BE. Xavier is generally considered a bad defensive team and yet, we are completely baffled by them. I just do not get it. Is it simply because we can't shoot when they sag and everyone else who plays them can? When we beat them last year we had 3 total turnovers. THREE. We shot 42% from 3, and 52% from the floor but it was really the Markel Starks show the only other player in double figures was Trawick. Basically we didn't give them easy points in transition or off turnovers and had a go to guy that could take over a game. DSR hasn't proven to be that guy yet so we rely on much more team/offense to score. Not sure that's really a fair assessment since Starks basically had another 3pt threat and scorer in DSR and DSR doesn't really have that luxury from the perimeter this year. I mean Starks only averaged 17 ppg last year (46% and 32% from three) compared to DSR 15 ppg (42% and 38% from three) so it's a little bit of an exaggeration to say that DSR is failing to be the guy or leader compared to Starks.
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Post by FrazierFanatic on Jan 27, 2015 22:55:22 GMT -5
I think it all boils down to one issue that one of our venerated posters has pointed out oh about 47 times, Chris Mack outcoached JTIII because he knows when to call time-outs. And there you have it boys and girls, that was the difference maker. And, perhaps, not enough Aaron Bowen. Aaron was not very good on offense, and surprisingly ineffective on defense, so no. As for the timeouts, I presume that JTIII tries to let the players figure things out if possible. But tonight we needed to break momentum in the first half when the game got away.
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mfk24
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Post by mfk24 on Jan 27, 2015 23:02:13 GMT -5
When we beat them last year we had 3 total turnovers. THREE. We shot 42% from 3, and 52% from the floor but it was really the Markel Starks show the only other player in double figures was Trawick. Basically we didn't give them easy points in transition or off turnovers and had a go to guy that could take over a game. DSR hasn't proven to be that guy yet so we rely on much more team/offense to score. Not sure that's really a fair assessment since Starks basically had another 3pt threat and scorer in DSR and DSR doesn't really have that luxury from the perimeter this year. I mean Starks only averaged 17 ppg last year (46% and 32% from three) compared to DSR 15 ppg (42% and 38% from three) so it's a little bit of an exaggeration to say that DSR is failing to be the guy or leader compared to Starks. I guess my point is that there would never be posters clamoring for Starks to take over a game or be more aggressive on offensive. He just did it when he sensed we needed it. You could argue that's because he had no choice with such limited options on offense, which has some merit, but I feel like every other game, especially the losses, we're waiting on DSR to take over and he seems reluctant to do that. It'd be different if DSR had 20+ and we got nothing from anyone's else be he was scoreless for a long stretch. It's not necessarily about pure points scored, it's about getting a bucket for your team when they need it, carrying the production when nothing else is going a la Otto in the Cuse game or Free against UConn. I haven't seen DSR be that guy yet.
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guru
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Post by guru on Jan 27, 2015 23:03:33 GMT -5
As crappy as the team played I still can't get over the student showing. It was just an atrocious atmosphere all game long. Even the promotion stuff fell flat (Jesuits can't shoot by the way). It all really added to the depressing vibe of the whole night. That was not a setting worthy of a program of our stature. Hopefully no big recruits were in the house.
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Filo
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Post by Filo on Jan 27, 2015 23:03:41 GMT -5
I think it all boils down to one issue that one of our venerated posters has pointed out oh about 47 times, Chris Mack outcoached JTIII because he knows when to call time-outs. And there you have it boys and girls, that was the difference maker. And, perhaps, not enough Aaron Bowen. Aaron was not very good on offense, and surprisingly ineffective on defense, so no. As for the timeouts, I presume that JTIII tries to let the players figure things out if possible. But tonight we needed to break momentum in the first half when the game got away. Sorry I wasn't clear that my post was sarcastic.
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Post by professorhoya on Jan 27, 2015 23:11:17 GMT -5
Not sure that's really a fair assessment since Starks basically had another 3pt threat and scorer in DSR and DSR doesn't really have that luxury from the perimeter this year. I mean Starks only averaged 17 ppg last year (46% and 32% from three) compared to DSR 15 ppg (42% and 38% from three) so it's a little bit of an exaggeration to say that DSR is failing to be the guy or leader compared to Starks. I guess my point is that there would never be posters clamoring for Starks to take over a game or be more aggressive on offensive. He just did it when he sensed we needed it. You could argue that's because he had no choice with such limited options on offense, which has some merit, but I feel like every other game, especially the losses, we're waiting on DSR to take over and he seems reluctant to do that. It'd be different if DSR had 20+ and we got nothing from anyone's else be he was scoreless for a long stretch. It's not necessarily about pure points scored, it's about getting a bucket for your team when they need it, carrying the production when nothing else is going a la Otto in the Cuse game or Free against UConn. I haven't seen DSR be that guy yet. I guess to me that's partly because Markel was pretty much loved by alot of people and was a self admitted politician who knew how to work the room whereas alot of people have had alot of doubts about DSR from the time he came here and DSR isn't as charming as Markel. You look at ppg they are really not that different. It's not like Markel lead the Hoyas to the promisedland last year so he doesn't really have that on DSR as well. I think there have been plenty of games this season where DSR was clutch and a leader whether it be going on a scoring binge, blocking a key shot at the end of a game or getting steals or assists.
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Post by FrazierFanatic on Jan 27, 2015 23:15:39 GMT -5
Aaron was not very good on offense, and surprisingly ineffective on defense, so no. As for the timeouts, I presume that JTIII tries to let the players figure things out if possible. But tonight we needed to break momentum in the first half when the game got away. Sorry I wasn't clear that my post was sarcastic. The timeout point was valid although a little exaggerated - and I never know when Bowen mentions are sarcastic or straightforward!
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Post by FrazierFanatic on Jan 27, 2015 23:16:20 GMT -5
As crappy as the team played I still can't get over the student showing. It was just an atrocious atmosphere all game long. Even the promotion stuff fell flat (Jesuits can't shoot by the way). It all really added to the depressing vibe of the whole night. That was not a setting worthy of a program of our stature. Hopefully no big recruits were in the house. I believe Kaleb was there.
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EtomicB
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Post by EtomicB on Jan 27, 2015 23:20:53 GMT -5
The lack of EFFORT in the first half was atrocious. How III can sit there and the post game and say there wasn't a lack of effort blows my mind. Blame is shared by everyone, but I really wish that we had thrown in some wrinkles in the offense in the first half when the sagging man to man was giving us fits. Or should I say just tossing the ball around the perimeter slowly and not attacking. Our offense does not work AT ALL against a sagging man to man without any wrinkles. They'r were perfectly content to sit back and see us hold the ball and toss it around the perimeter trying to force it into Josh or force a back cut that isn't open. Run some freaking screens to get people open for god sakes. Some high low, two man game. Needed to recognize this earlier and make every effort to get earlier shots to open the game up a bit. For a team that embarrassed them last time out and to come out like that AT HOME is unbelievably frustrating. I can handle missing shots, I can handle losing, I can't handle lackadaisical effort. Very very frustrated this evening. This^^ Games where the system isn't working as efficiently, the team needs to be able to have a plan B or C.. Xavier was in a great rhythm defensively, continually running sets wasn't doing much to get them on their heels a little..
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guru
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Post by guru on Jan 27, 2015 23:26:03 GMT -5
Final thought: the Xavier fans in our section seemed like real a-holes. Their old big east comp would be West Virginia - made the way the game went even more painful.
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mfk24
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Post by mfk24 on Jan 27, 2015 23:31:37 GMT -5
I guess my point is that there would never be posters clamoring for Starks to take over a game or be more aggressive on offensive. He just did it when he sensed we needed it. You could argue that's because he had no choice with such limited options on offense, which has some merit, but I feel like every other game, especially the losses, we're waiting on DSR to take over and he seems reluctant to do that. It'd be different if DSR had 20+ and we got nothing from anyone's else be he was scoreless for a long stretch. It's not necessarily about pure points scored, it's about getting a bucket for your team when they need it, carrying the production when nothing else is going a la Otto in the Cuse game or Free against UConn. I haven't seen DSR be that guy yet. I guess to me that's partly because Markel was pretty much loved by alot of people and was a self admitted politician who knew how to work the room whereas alot of people have had alot of doubts about DSR from the time he came here and DSR isn't as charming as Markel. You look at ppg they are really not that different. It's not like Markel lead the Hoyas to the promisedland last year so he doesn't really have that on DSR as well. I think there have been plenty of games this season where DSR was clutch and a leader whether it be going on a scoring binge, blocking a key shot at the end of a game or getting steals or assists. I concede that he's made clutch individual plays, there are several examples I can think of, again that really wasn't my point and really I'm not comparing him to Starks in any way other than as part of a group of players like Starks did in that Xavier game, Otto, Austin, etc. that were guys who had games where they just went to work and carried the team when we otherwise would have lost. I just get the sense that, especially in our losses, you're looking for him to take over and he hasn't really been able to put the team on his back the way we've had other guys do it. Not that he hasn't scored or been productive or hit a key shot or paraded to the line and hit clutch free throws to snatch a win.
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SFHoya99
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Post by SFHoya99 on Jan 27, 2015 23:33:17 GMT -5
Sixty six possessions. Seventeen turnovers. Over 26% of possessions. And most of them unforced. Just awful. Season low on offensive rebounds BY FAR. The previous worst was 19% in a lazy blowout of Creighton -- double what we did today. Next worst was 28%.
You can talk about a bunch of other stuff, but these two aspects of the game were horrific.
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Post by RockawayHoya on Jan 27, 2015 23:37:37 GMT -5
Xavier's display of boxing out during the game (especially in the 1st half) was downright clinical. THAT is how I would want our team to focus on boxing out and hitting the glass. Directly contributed to that season low in offensive rebounds.
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Post by JohnnyJones on Jan 27, 2015 23:38:53 GMT -5
As crappy as the team played I still can't get over the student showing. It was just an atrocious atmosphere all game long. Even the promotion stuff fell flat (Jesuits can't shoot by the way). It all really added to the depressing vibe of the whole night. That was not a setting worthy of a program of our stature. Hopefully no big recruits were in the house. I had no issue with the students and other fans that showed up tonight - they did what they could to help during the few times where the team gathered some momentum and cut into leads. But I agree about the student showing. On a 4 game winning streak (including the great home wins over Butler and Nova), the national ranking, the play of the freshman, etc., I was sure there would be a huge student turnout. I was shocked at how few students turned out. I think we just need to accept the fact that basketball is simply not as important to the student body now as it was during our time on the Hilltop over the past 40 years (for me 88-92). The crowd got into it the few times we cut it to 10 and then especially when we goty it to 7 with still about 330 to play (I think?). But otherwise I agree that things were just off tonight. In addition to the promotions - it is especially embarassing that in two of the last 3 home games (tonight and Butler) the video that runs before the team has been introduced has malfunctioned. Tonight there was no sound as the video played - so you could clearly hear the Xavier team doing some loud dance / chant as the backdrop to our intro video. The sound for the player introductions is also typically muddled / crappy. Do we bring our own equipment or could it possibly be that bad for the Caps and Wizards too? And to top it off, I cant stand the fact that our player introductions no longer include a reference to the player's hometown!
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