rockhoya
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Post by rockhoya on Mar 6, 2016 20:27:22 GMT -5
But he wasn't the guy at the 5, that's my point. Agree to disagree with your seriously faulty standards What Govan lacks in experience to Hayes he more than makes up for in ability. You act as if Hayes was some four year starter and annual All American. Granted he was having a fantastic year in his final season and was someone who was making an impact. But his numbers weren't exactly All Big East worthy. Govan should have been more than capable of coming within 70% of his contributions when he got that starting gig. Hell, III himself told the CBS writer who covered Gtown in the pre-season that Govan could average at least 10 points a game as starter. Then again III may have been wrong which wouldn't be the first time. I suppose the point I'm making is that people on this board need to chill with this notion that Hayes couldn't be replaced. That would ignore the fact that some of the same folks were begging for Hayes to be taken out of the starting lineup in January when he struggled early on in the BE season. But that's par for the course on this site. You guys go from putting players on a pedestal to dismissing them as bums....in a span of a week in some cases. You're operating between extremes and missing the bigger picture. Jessie is behind on defense. With Brad, we gave up 71 points a game. Without him, 83. Expecting a freshman to step up and replace he production of a 4 year senior, no matter how talented, is unrealistic depending on the context. Nobody is giving Jessie a free pass, but nobody is gonna act like he's not a freshman or as if he has been the centerpiece of out frontcourt. Newsflash, he hasn't even been the best overall freshman big. While he's not a stopper, Marcus showed much more on the defensive end. Both seemed to hit a wall in conference play, and losing your starting 7ft, 260 pound center hurts a little bit. Nobody is saying hes irreplaceable, but at he end of the day you only have 13 Gus on the bench so be reasonable.
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SaxaCD
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Post by SaxaCD on Mar 6, 2016 21:10:45 GMT -5
I think Jessie is more talented than Brad, and earlier this season he was a much better defender at the hoop as well, but since he has had to play more minutes, he has looked more and more like a tired freshman. I think the loss of Hayes has hurt the team in two ways -- it's removed Govan's safety net and also increased the speed of him hitting "the wall", and also, while Hayes often sees smaller guys scoring right over him, ironically he has been a vocal communicator on defense. That means that while as a last line of defense, we're not missing much, as far as communicating with other guys on the floor and calling out defensive positions, we might be missing a lot right now (sort of a "do what I say, not what I do" approach to defense). Either way, the numbers aren't lying. Our bad defense has gone to horrible since Hayes broke his hand. I think that by next year, Jessie will be as good offensively and better defensively than Hayes. But Hayes' injury has negatively affected the team much more than I thought it would.
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dreamhoya
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Post by dreamhoya on Mar 6, 2016 21:32:07 GMT -5
Agreed. Though Jesse needs to play "bigger". I think either center would've benefited from a true power forward he likes to bang and rebound. at least imagine a Hopkins type with either of these centers. GU would be better defensively. that's why i think Trey should play more. yes he needs to get stronger but he has a defensive mindset.
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SaxaCD
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Post by SaxaCD on Mar 6, 2016 22:00:15 GMT -5
Agreed. Though Jesse needs to play "bigger". I think either center would've benefited from a true power forward he likes to bang and rebound. at least imagine a Hopkins type with either of these centers. GU would be better defensively. that's why i think Trey should play more. yes he needs to get stronger but he has a defensive mindset. He also has decent passing instincts, and that is sorely lacking right now. By the way, I loved how Copeland fundamentally rebounded vs Nova. Lots of getting in position, grabbing the ball and really corralling it. During his funk, I would have expected the foul trouble to throw everything off, but he was efficient in his limited shots and really went after the ball -- great to see consistent good play from him, and if both he and LJ can continue to perform and DSR can shoot better (hopefully MSG will help with that), the next game or 4 could at least be watchable.
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Post by hoyaguru on Mar 6, 2016 23:31:47 GMT -5
Put the new walk on in the game, Ra'Mond Hines. Heard he's a defensive monster. A shot stopper. Heard he played with Kris Jenkins (Villanova) in high school and was a great player.
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bostonfan
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Post by bostonfan on Mar 7, 2016 8:27:24 GMT -5
This was a really disappointing game to watch on a few levels. The whole debate on this board about JT III's offensive system has been beaten to death and I still don't think the system itself is an issue, but watching this game against 'nova you got the impression that the players might have lost some confidence in the system. Watching them play in the first half they seemed so apprehensive and almost waiting for something bad to happen on offense. In the second half, while they never really made a serious run, they seemed to play with much better pace and freedom and just let some of their ability take over. LJ just started taking the ball and attacking at every opportunity.
It is irrelevant if the fans like the offensive system, but it is important that the players have confidence that the system they play in is going to be successful and gives them their best chance to win games. Nova is a better team, but the second half showed that the Hoyas have the ability to play with the good teams in this league when they play with some confidence, which makes this season so frustrating.
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hoyainspirit
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Post by hoyainspirit on Mar 7, 2016 8:45:38 GMT -5
The "system" would have looked fine if we would have hit a reasonable percentage of those open 3s we missed.
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Post by hoyasaxa2003 on Mar 7, 2016 9:51:11 GMT -5
This was a really disappointing game to watch on a few levels. The whole debate on this board about JT III's offensive system has been beaten to death and I still don't think the system itself is an issue, but watching this game against 'nova you got the impression that the players might have lost some confidence in the system. Watching them play in the first half they seemed so apprehensive and almost waiting for something bad to happen on offense. In the second half, while they never really made a serious run, they seemed to play with much better pace and freedom and just let some of their ability take over. LJ just started taking the ball and attacking at every opportunity. It is irrelevant if the fans like the offensive system, but it is important that the players have confidence that the system they play in is going to be successful and gives them their best chance to win games. Nova is a better team, but the second half showed that the Hoyas have the ability to play with the good teams in this league when they play with some confidence, which makes this season so frustrating. The second half displays why all the talk about the system is over blown. In the second half, we ran quite a few isolations for LJ Peak to try to allow him to attack the basket. I cannot remember any instance in the past where we did that. And, it's not like the team said screw it, let's isolate for LJ. Clearly, JT3 wanted to use that strategy and did.
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rockhoya
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Post by rockhoya on Mar 7, 2016 10:04:04 GMT -5
This was a really disappointing game to watch on a few levels. The whole debate on this board about JT III's offensive system has been beaten to death and I still don't think the system itself is an issue, but watching this game against 'nova you got the impression that the players might have lost some confidence in the system. Watching them play in the first half they seemed so apprehensive and almost waiting for something bad to happen on offense. In the second half, while they never really made a serious run, they seemed to play with much better pace and freedom and just let some of their ability take over. LJ just started taking the ball and attacking at every opportunity. It is irrelevant if the fans like the offensive system, but it is important that the players have confidence that the system they play in is going to be successful and gives them their best chance to win games. Nova is a better team, but the second half showed that the Hoyas have the ability to play with the good teams in this league when they play with some confidence, which makes this season so frustrating. The second half displays why all the talk about the system is over blown. In the second half, we ran quite a few isolations for LJ Peak to try to allow him to attack the basket. I cannot remember any instance in the past where we did that. And, it's not like the team said screw it, let's isolate for LJ. Clearly, JT3 wanted to use that strategy and did. Causation and correlation. We've started plenty of games running our system only to scrap it and play better in he latter half of games. They ran ISOs for LJ because after 30 games III is still trying to see if his players skills are suited to his offense, which they are not.
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Post by hoyasaxa2003 on Mar 7, 2016 11:43:10 GMT -5
The second half displays why all the talk about the system is over blown. In the second half, we ran quite a few isolations for LJ Peak to try to allow him to attack the basket. I cannot remember any instance in the past where we did that. And, it's not like the team said screw it, let's isolate for LJ. Clearly, JT3 wanted to use that strategy and did. Causation and correlation. We've started plenty of games running our system only to scrap it and play better in he latter half of games. They ran ISOs for LJ because after 30 games III is still trying to see if his players skills are suited to his offense, which they are not. First of all, unless the coaches or players talked to the press about it, we really have no idea why the isolations happened. Given that LJ seemed to be "on," that is the most logical reason - go with the hot hand. The idea that the players decided, on their own, to scrap the system and run them is just silly. There's no way JT3 would allow that to happen. And, for the 38th time, our team was horrible this season because our defense was putrid. It had nothing to do with the offense. Yes, there may have been a game here and there where better offense would have won, but the defense has been consistently atrocious, and we consistently spot the other team easy points via FTs. Until the defense is fixed, I really don't think harping on the offense is productive.
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Mar 7, 2016 11:49:00 GMT -5
The second half displays why all the talk about the system is over blown. In the second half, we ran quite a few isolations for LJ Peak to try to allow him to attack the basket. I cannot remember any instance in the past where we did that. And, it's not like the team said screw it, let's isolate for LJ. Clearly, JT3 wanted to use that strategy and did. Causation and correlation. We've started plenty of games running our system only to scrap it and play better in he latter half of games. They ran ISOs for LJ because after 30 games III is still trying to see if his players skills are suited to his offense, which they are not. What offense are these kids skills suited for in your opinion...
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vv83
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Post by vv83 on Mar 7, 2016 12:54:25 GMT -5
Causation and correlation. We've started plenty of games running our system only to scrap it and play better in he latter half of games. They ran ISOs for LJ because after 30 games III is still trying to see if his players skills are suited to his offense, which they are not. First of all, unless the coaches or players talked to the press about it, we really have no idea why the isolations happened. Given that LJ seemed to be "on," that is the most logical reason - go with the hot hand. The idea that the players decided, on their own, to scrap the system and run them is just silly. There's no way JT3 would allow that to happen. And, for the 38th time, our team was horrible this season because our defense was putrid. It had nothing to do with the offense. Yes, there may have been a game here and there where better offense would have won, but the defense has been consistently atrocious, and we consistently spot the other team easy points via FTs. Until the defense is fixed, I really don't think harping on the offense is productive. The one aspect of our offense that was at times devastating this year - the live ball turnovers out on the perimeter. Telegraphed, lazy passes. Govan getting stripped at the high post. These plays usually resulted in an uncontested basket on the other end for the opposition. Even if the offense was good enough to win otherwise, these turnovers just killed us. We have always had a lot of these kind of turnovers - part of it is focus, but I do think part of it is the fact that we run the same motions over and over on the perimeter. Other teams are looking to jump these passes and go after Jessie (once they figured out he was often soft and sloppy with the ball at the high post), And I think our players do too often get lazy/sloppy with both throwing and receiving these perimeter passes. Just the vision of Widemann repeatedly stripping Govan of the ball leading to fast break baskets in the early second half of the Butler game is enough to keep me awake at night throughout the off-season! So while the offense was OK for the most part, I think on the whole these kind of turnovers turn the offense into at least a mild negative - because they are not just failed possessions offensively, but they also turn into instant, fast failed possessions defensively. Given how many close games we played this year, it may be fair to say that these kind of turnovers alone cost us at least one or two games this season.
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rockhoya
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Post by rockhoya on Mar 7, 2016 13:11:00 GMT -5
Causation and correlation. We've started plenty of games running our system only to scrap it and play better in he latter half of games. They ran ISOs for LJ because after 30 games III is still trying to see if his players skills are suited to his offense, which they are not. First of all, unless the coaches or players talked to the press about it, we really have no idea why the isolations happened. Given that LJ seemed to be "on," that is the most logical reason - go with the hot hand. The idea that the players decided, on their own, to scrap the system and run them is just silly. There's no way JT3 would allow that to happen. And, for the 38th time, our team was horrible this season because our defense was putrid. It had nothing to do with the offense. Yes, there may have been a game here and there where better offense would have won, but the defense has been consistently atrocious, and we consistently spot the other team easy points via FTs. Until the defense is fixed, I really don't think harping on the offense is productive. Nobody suggested they scrapped the system on their own, what are you reading? The point is LJ was "on" because he was playing a style more conducive to his strengths....and there is evidence to support that, not only from this game.
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hoyainspirit
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Post by hoyainspirit on Mar 7, 2016 13:16:36 GMT -5
First of all, unless the coaches or players talked to the press about it, we really have no idea why the isolations happened. Given that LJ seemed to be "on," that is the most logical reason - go with the hot hand. The idea that the players decided, on their own, to scrap the system and run them is just silly. There's no way JT3 would allow that to happen. And, for the 38th time, our team was horrible this season because our defense was putrid. It had nothing to do with the offense. Yes, there may have been a game here and there where better offense would have won, but the defense has been consistently atrocious, and we consistently spot the other team easy points via FTs. Until the defense is fixed, I really don't think harping on the offense is productive. The one aspect of our offense that was at times devastating this year - the live ball turnovers out on the perimeter. Telegraphed, lazy passes. Govan getting stripped at the high post. These plays usually resulted in an uncontested basket on the other end for the opposition. Even if the offense was good enough to win otherwise, these turnovers just killed us. We have always had a lot of these kind of turnovers - part of it is focus, but I do think part of it is the fact that we run the same motions over and over on the perimeter. Other teams are looking to jump these passes and go after Jessie (once they figured out he was often soft and sloppy with the ball at the high post), And I think our players do too often get lazy/sloppy with both throwing and receiving these perimeter passes. Just the vision of Widemann repeatedly stripping Govan of the ball leading to fast break baskets in the early second half of the Butler game is enough to keep me awake at night throughout the off-season! So while the offense was OK for the most part, I think on the whole these kind of turnovers turn the offense into at least a mild negative - because they are not just failed possessions offensively, but they also turn into instant, fast failed possessions defensively. Given how many close games we played this year, it may be fair to say that these kind of turnovers alone cost us at least one or two games this season. In addition to the turnovers, which most certainly were a killer, I would also add the poor offensive rebounding and 3 point shooting. I'm not sure how we solve the rebounding issues...
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MCIGuy
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Post by MCIGuy on Mar 7, 2016 13:21:41 GMT -5
First of all, unless the coaches or players talked to the press about it, we really have no idea why the isolations happened. Given that LJ seemed to be "on," that is the most logical reason - go with the hot hand. The idea that the players decided, on their own, to scrap the system and run them is just silly. There's no way JT3 would allow that to happen. And, for the 38th time, our team was horrible this season because our defense was putrid. It had nothing to do with the offense. Yes, there may have been a game here and there where better offense would have won, but the defense has been consistently atrocious, and we consistently spot the other team easy points via FTs. Until the defense is fixed, I really don't think harping on the offense is productive. This site has always blamed the defense of this team over the years when game or season outcomes don’t go as we hope. Trying to blame the offense on the other hand has always led to a reflexive counter that the offense was just fine and those complaining were ignoring “the stats” and simply putting more emphasis on style rather than effectiveness. You read stuff like the offense was just fine, shots simply didn’t fall or players didn’t execute, etc. Here’s the thing….the defense has been pretty bad this season. But I think most of us understood early on that the defense was going to be a glaring weakness of this team. So the one thing the Hoyas needed was a consistent, potent offense which this team was very capable of producing. And yet in almost all of the team’s losses the blame could arguably be attributed to an offense that sputtered at the wrong time or too many inappropriate times. It was either more games in which the team suffered through unacceptable scoring droughts or games in which the team found itself in a hole because its offense wasn’t able to keep up in the first half only to start clicking in the second half when it was (ultimately) too late. Its true defenses win championships and with THIS defense the Hoyas weren’t going to cut down any nets in March. And yet a team can still have a very good to great regular season when it has enough offensive fire power. These Hoyas have that offensive firepower. But there were far too many frustrating games in which it looked as if the team was clueless in how to attack a zone or how to take advantage of their height inside or how to get to the FT line to end droughts or how to do something else on offense when the threes weren’t falling. Yeah, giving up 50 points to a team is inexcusable. But falling behind teams by 20 points in a first half because the team doesn’t know how to punch back quick enough when it gets punched in the mouth is equally bad.
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drquigley
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Post by drquigley on Mar 7, 2016 14:08:52 GMT -5
First of all, unless the coaches or players talked to the press about it, we really have no idea why the isolations happened. Given that LJ seemed to be "on," that is the most logical reason - go with the hot hand. The idea that the players decided, on their own, to scrap the system and run them is just silly. There's no way JT3 would allow that to happen. And, for the 38th time, our team was horrible this season because our defense was putrid. It had nothing to do with the offense. Yes, there may have been a game here and there where better offense would have won, but the defense has been consistently atrocious, and we consistently spot the other team easy points via FTs. Until the defense is fixed, I really don't think harping on the offense is productive. This site has always blamed the defense of this team over the years when game or season outcomes don’t go as we hope. Trying to blame the offense on the other hand has always led to a reflexive counter that the offense was just fine and those complaining were ignoring “the stats” and simply putting more emphasis on style rather than effectiveness. You read stuff like the offense was just fine, shots simply didn’t fall or players didn’t execute, etc. Here’s the thing….the defense has been pretty bad this season. But I think most of us understood early on that the defense was going to be a glaring weakness of this team. So the one thing the Hoyas needed was a consistent, potent offense which this team was very capable of producing. And yet in almost all of the team’s losses the blame could arguably be attributed to an offense that sputtered at the wrong time or too many inappropriate times. It was either more games in which the team suffered through unacceptable scoring droughts or games in which the team found itself in a hole because its offense wasn’t able to keep up in the first half only to start clicking in the second half when it was (ultimately) too late. Its true defenses win championships and with THIS defense the Hoyas weren’t going to cut down any nets in March. And yet a team can still have a very good to great regular season when it has enough offensive fire power. These Hoyas have that offensive firepower. But there were far too many frustrating games in which it looked as if the team was clueless in how to attack a zone or how to take advantage of their height inside or how to get to the FT line to end droughts or how to do something else on offense when the threes weren’t falling. Yeah, giving up 50 points to a team is inexcusable. But falling behind teams by 20 points in a first half because the team doesn’t know how to punch back quick enough when it gets punched in the mouth is equally bad. Don't think I have ever disagreed with a post more. No way you can expect an offense to keep up with an opponent that is scoring 45-50 points in the first half. Not only that but it is hard to score easy baskets when your defense isn't getting turnovers or stops and fast breaks. Defense wins games because it generates offense not the other way around. We desperately need to tremendously improve our defense or what we saw this year will become the norm.
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MCIGuy
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Post by MCIGuy on Mar 7, 2016 14:43:38 GMT -5
Just think about what you just wrote. If the team the Hoyas played against can score 45 -50 points in a first half then that means it is in theory possible for the Hoyas to do the same. You do understand how that works right? If they aren't able to match the other team in offensive production in that half surely they are at least talented enough not to fall behind 20 or more in that half.
Let me put it this way…the Hoyas were one of the few teams in the country this year to have a 7 foot senior who could score at a high percentage in the paint, a good collection of three-point shooters who could be a threat to rain buckets from deep if not guarded close enough and as a squad capable of knocking down FTs better than most in the country. But if the offense sputters and the team is susceptible to unforced turnovers, if the big man doesn’t get enough touches in the paint to take advantage of his height and scoring ability, if a coach keeps players struggling from the three-point line in a game in order for them to continue their struggling rather that put other capable options on the court in their place, if the team keeps jacking up long shots exclusively instead of diversifying their attack, if they don’t drive effectively enough or post up enough to get calls to send them to the FT line to take advantage of their free throw shooting, if they often look clueless in running a fastbreak …then these advantages become pretty much null and void.
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Post by hoyasaxa2003 on Mar 7, 2016 15:05:34 GMT -5
This site has always blamed the defense of this team over the years when game or season outcomes don’t go as we hope. Trying to blame the offense on the other hand has always led to a reflexive counter that the offense was just fine and those complaining were ignoring “the stats” and simply putting more emphasis on style rather than effectiveness. You read stuff like the offense was just fine, shots simply didn’t fall or players didn’t execute, etc. Here’s the thing….the defense has been pretty bad this season. But I think most of us understood early on that the defense was going to be a glaring weakness of this team. So the one thing the Hoyas needed was a consistent, potent offense which this team was very capable of producing. And yet in almost all of the team’s losses the blame could arguably be attributed to an offense that sputtered at the wrong time or too many inappropriate times. It was either more games in which the team suffered through unacceptable scoring droughts or games in which the team found itself in a hole because its offense wasn’t able to keep up in the first half only to start clicking in the second half when it was (ultimately) too late. Its true defenses win championships and with THIS defense the Hoyas weren’t going to cut down any nets in March. And yet a team can still have a very good to great regular season when it has enough offensive fire power. These Hoyas have that offensive firepower. But there were far too many frustrating games in which it looked as if the team was clueless in how to attack a zone or how to take advantage of their height inside or how to get to the FT line to end droughts or how to do something else on offense when the threes weren’t falling. Yeah, giving up 50 points to a team is inexcusable. But falling behind teams by 20 points in a first half because the team doesn’t know how to punch back quick enough when it gets punched in the mouth is equally bad. A few things: - There have definitely been a few times at the end of games where JT3 has said things along the lines of "the shots didn't fall," or "we got good looks, they just didn't go in." Generally, I have disagreed with those comments. There have been many games where we have taken contested, bad shots, which is the reason they haven't gone in. For those who say I am an apologist for the program, please note that here I am disagreeing with what JT3 has said. - Defensively, this is easily the worst team JT3 has had. On KenPom, we are ranked 116. The worst defense we ever had previously under JT3 was 2014 (ranked 107), and then 2005 (98th). But, you don't need statistics to tell you that our defense is putrid. - Offensively, this has been one of JT3's worst seasons, though statistically KenPom says 2013 was worse. Keep in mind that team was basically Otto Porter and very little other help offensively. That's the team that beat Tennessee 37-36 over forty minutes. That was not a great offense, but Porter grew over the season, and JT3 basically allowed the offense to go through him (we were not running anything close to pure Princeton), and it worked okay. Plus, that team had the number 2 defense nationally. - JT3 knows how to coach defense. The real problems started with the rule changes. In 2012 and 2013, we had the 10th and 2nd best defenses. 2014 was 107, 2015 was 42, and this year sits at 116. Not coincidentally, our fouling got much worse after 2013. For JT3's entire career, his teams essentially fouled at average or better than average rates. From 2005-2013, these were our ranks on that category: 175, 23, 78, 163, 102, 89, 175, 175, 154. Starting in 2014, however were were ranked: 331, 305, and this year 345. We are currently ranked 345 out of 351 teams when it comes to fouling opponents. We are literally in the bottom 1.7% (of all Division 1) when it comes to how badly we foul. Now, West Virginia is the worst in the country, but the reason they are good anyway is because they apply full court pressure AND they force a lot of turnovers (they are second best nationally at forcing turnovers). We do not force turnovers with our press AND we foul all the time. It's basically the worst combination possible (which is why I say the calls for full court pressure are misguided). What is the effect? The most direct effect is that we give the other team a lot of free throws. The huge free throw disparity persisted right up to the end: since the beginning of conference play (including the Connecticut game), Georgetown took 367 free throws, and made 284 (77.38%). Our opponents have taken 559 and made 416 (74.4%). Over our last 19 games, our opponents took 192 more free throws than us, and made 132 more free throws than us. This literally means we gave our opponents, on average, more than 10 free throws per game. Considering that we lost many games by single digits, this is actually a huge reason why we have played so poorly. Now, some say we foul because we cannot defend. That might be true, but there's no reason why we should be 345th worst in the country. And we did not get there because referees have it in for us. We were just horrible at fouling. Keep this in mind: as bad as we are, even if we play normal defense, we give up about 1.01 points per possession (1.05 in conference play). Even if somebody is shooting 60% on FTs (well below average), they are still going to be getting about 1.2 points per possession (maybe slightly different when accounting for misses on the 1 and 1). Even bad defense is better than giving free throws, even to a poor free throw shooting team. - The reactive response would be, "We need to draw more fouls!" The thing is, we are actually 139/351 nationally at drawing fouls. I think it just seems like we don't draw enough because the other teams all get so many more because of our awful fouling rates. - You said, "And yet in almost all of the team’s losses the blame could arguably be attributed to an offense that sputtered at the wrong time or too many inappropriate times." I don't see how you could say that the losses could be attributed to offense when the defense is so bad and we are spotting our opponents so many free throws. Against Villanova, it was 27-6 after 9 minutes and 34 seconds of play. By my count, there were 18 possessions for each team in that sequence. That means Villanova scored 1.50 points per possession. The best team in the country offensively, Michigan State, scores about 1.22 per possession. Thus, in order to keep up with Villanova through offense alone, our offense would have had to score well more points over that ten minutes than the best offense nationwide regularly scores. This underscores that regardless of how good the offense might have been, it would not have mattered - we were so bad defensively, that we would have been in a hole regardless. Granted, it may have been a smaller hole, but you cannot give up 1.5 points per possession and expect to beat anybody. Clearly, scoring 6 points in 10 minutes is horrible. That was admittedly a horrible offensive stretch, so I get the frustration. We should have done better. But, if you're looking to place blame for close losses on anything, it's got to be defense and fouling.
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bostonfan
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Post by bostonfan on Mar 7, 2016 15:06:54 GMT -5
The defense absolutely needs to improve, and the biggest element that needs to improve is their ability to impact the ball on the perimeter and limit penetration. Too many times the Hoyas were beat on the perimeter and that caused the back line players to provide help defense leaving their players unguarded, which led to too many layups and wide open threes. Control penetration and the forwards and centers don't need to help and sag off their players. A couple of guards with good lateral quickness and the willingness to play tough D would have solved a lot of sins this year.
The two other big, year long issues was the turnovers and fouling too much. Both issues lead to easy points for the other team. Make the other team work hard for every shot and not just run out for layups off open floor turnovers. Keeping your opponent off the line where they were killed all year.
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guru
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Post by guru on Mar 7, 2016 15:13:37 GMT -5
This back-and-forth is darkly funny, as there's really nothing - not a single thing - that this team does well. Yes, it is particularly inept at playing defense, but it is also well below average at every single skillset required to play good team basketball.
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