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Post by michaelgrahmstylie on Jan 13, 2018 21:29:24 GMT -5
We are past the mid point of our schedule, enough time to draw some conclusions. Kudos to Ewing for replacing Pickett with Blair in the starting lineup. That starting five is the best we can assemble this year and each should play upwards of 30 minutes a game. Derrickson and Govan are much improved over last year and are carrying this team. Both are legitimate All Big East candidates. By far the biggest surprise is Blair. He is an unconventional player who doesn't look like he belongs on the court but is savvy and finds ways to put the ball in the basket. Not a great handle and not a great passer, but passable at each. I think the sky's the limit in his four years. Johnson is my favorite player but has been a disappointment. He does lots of good things: fighting for rebounds, scrambling on the floor for the ball, moderately good on defense. But his handle is not good and he is too passive on offense. Mulmore is, by far, our best option at the point. Only one I am comfortable with bringing the ball up court. Good handle, usually makes good passes. But he is very limited offensively though he has been moderately successful from deep. Pickett is by far the biggest disappointment. I keep hearing he has the most upside. I don't see it. Awful ball handling, too prone to turnovers, doesn't rebound much, and his deep shots are not falling. I have no optimism he will ever be the truly productive player we hoped for. Mosely is hot and cold. Pretty good on defense but his offense goes from "yeah" to "what the heck". Too many turnovers, handle needs work. Only guard with any capability for driving to the hoop. Tough as nails. By far he should be the first off the bench. Dickerson should never be on the court except in the case where Mulmore and Mosely are not available. Walker: too little playing time to know but I love his willingness to fight for rebounds. Last comment: watching several cases of Ewing talking to Pickett, looks like a father talking to his son while the son pays attention to the father like you wish your teenage son had paid attention to you. Would love to have Pickett visit me. Seems like an outstanding kid. Likewise for Johnson. Good post. I agree 100%. I agree with all except your view on Pickett. He's a freshman. He's good. He'll be fine.
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the_way
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Post by the_way on Jan 13, 2018 21:40:06 GMT -5
I think the letdown stems from Pickett looking the part. Similar build as KD and people think that will translate to the court. Kinda like Vernon Macklin when they thought he was similar to KG, and didn't translate to the court early enough for some.
Pickett is raw, very raw. Hasn't really shown much in terms of basketball skills. He needs coaching and, as mentioned, he is very receptive to it (unlike Macklin). That is a plus. As long as the young man doesn't get down himself and stays upbeat, he'll be okay. Coach Ewing will continue to work with him and get him on track.
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Post by jld54 on Jan 13, 2018 22:25:22 GMT -5
Agreed. Pickett is the type of player that would get 10-15 minutes on a top level team, and get PT after some seasoning. Patrick does not have this luxury and Pickett and Blair as well are thrown in above their heads and are undergoing a baptism by fire. Also, as another poster mentioned recently, he joined the program very late in the summer and did not come in with the other frosh to become acclimated to the campus, etc. He may be hitting the wall a bit early because of this and need time to get stronger as well.
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GIGAFAN99
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Post by GIGAFAN99 on Jan 14, 2018 7:53:26 GMT -5
Is this response for real? Yeah idk... Coach K has 2 lottery picks and 4 first rounders on his team and he still lost to BC and NC State. They're both great coaches but that's just the way the ball bounces sometimes. If Coach K were ever the underdog in his first 7 conference games, his back would hurt so fast he'd have an ad deal with Icy Hot.
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FrazierFanatic
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Post by FrazierFanatic on Jan 14, 2018 7:57:05 GMT -5
Yeah idk... Coach K has 2 lottery picks and 4 first rounders on his team and he still lost to BC and NC State. They're both great coaches but that's just the way the ball bounces sometimes. If Coach K were ever the underdog in his first 7 conference games, his back would hurt so fast he'd have an ad deal with Icy Hot. True. Although he WAS 10-17 and 11-17 his second and third years at Duke.
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calhoya
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Post by calhoya on Jan 14, 2018 8:55:02 GMT -5
Pickett is young, raw and from all accounts a willing student of the game--he will be fine as long as the coaches build the confidence. Dickerson is a back-up pg, never intended to start and I agree that he should only see the court for spot minutes when Mulmore is in foul trouble or playing out of control. Yet, from all the venom he seems to generate, you would think that he is reason the game was lost yesterday.
The game yesterday was lost for a reason that had less to do with guard play than the simple fact that the other team is more talented and the Hoyas have absolutely no back-up for Govan or MD when both are in foul trouble. Walker is willing, but raw and undersized. It is a hole in the line-up that has not been exposed all year until yesterday.
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the_way
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Post by the_way on Jan 14, 2018 8:59:45 GMT -5
If Coach K were ever the underdog in his first 7 conference games, his back would hurt so fast he'd have an ad deal with Icy Hot. True. Although he WAS 10-17 and 11-17 his second and third years at Duke. Yep, they wanted him fired. In this day and age, he probably would have been fired.
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jwp91
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Post by jwp91 on Jan 14, 2018 9:11:31 GMT -5
I agree Blair has earned the starting spot over Pickett but I don’t think he should start.
Our problems yesterday started when we put the 2nd team in. Without Blair, they were completely impotent and got rolled. It started the run that took us from 26-21 to 31-44.
If we aren’t going to play only 6-7 players, then I think we need Blair to provide some offensive firepower when that 2nd team plays.
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njhoya78
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Post by njhoya78 on Jan 14, 2018 12:17:48 GMT -5
Plus/minus for yesterday's game, as calculated from the play-by-play posted at guhoyas.com:
Derrickson +4, Pickett even, Mulmore -3, Johnson -6, Walker -7, Dickerson -10, Blair -11, Govan -11, Mosely -17, Hines DNP/coach's decision, Muresan DNP/coach's decision.
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hoyazeke
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Post by hoyazeke on Jan 14, 2018 12:34:25 GMT -5
I agree Blair has earned the starting spot over Pickett but I don’t think he should start. Our problems yesterday started when we put the 2nd team in. Without Blair, they were completely impotent and got rolled. It started the run that took us from 26-21 to 31-44. If we aren’t going to play only 6-7 players, then I think we need Blair to provide some offensive firepower when that 2nd team plays. This is an excellent point. But do we even have a lead early if Juggy doesn't start? We probably aren't beating the top 4 in the BE this year so I say less try to jump on the middle/lower teams and survive the 2nd team lulls.....also SH is probably the physically toughest team in the conference, so we won't get manhandled by other teams when we play our backups.....imo
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Post by glidehoyas (Inactive) on Jan 14, 2018 18:31:36 GMT -5
Times are tough and coach Ewing predicted this. I hope that the young guys will grow/develop, and that we pick up an additional couple of competent young players for next year- a center and a point guard or point forward....a coach on the floor who is multitalented anbd can bail us out of constant crisis. I am perplexed by Pickett, I thought he would be further along by now. He was more highly ranked than anyone else, and looked competent in the Kenner League. His shot has deserted him and shaken his confidence. I would love to see if he could operate down low. The rest of this year will be an experiment in developing players and trying to win. I think coach Ewing is going through an exercise in patience and compassion. Go Hoyas! yeah Pickett just needs to sit and learn. Jay Wright would've red-shirted the young man, but we needed him this season. He was thrown into the fire, so to speak.
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Post by glidehoyas (Inactive) on Jan 14, 2018 18:51:59 GMT -5
This team has so many problems it's really hard to know where to start. I actually think today's game wasn't that bad. We lost to a very good Seton Hall team with a lot of veteran players on the road. We played well at the start and played well in phases of the second half. Over the final 20 minutes of the game, we played Seton Hall to a draw. If we keep it together and don't get our heads down, I think we could actually give them a game in a few weeks in Washington. Given the way the game went, I'm honestly a bit surprised by the general tone on the board. Yes, it's frustrating to lose, and, of course, we did our usual frustrating things in losing, but we also did show some toughness in stretches of the game. Govan did well playing with four fouls. Derrickson played well again. I actually thought Mulmore and Johnson both had moments. Blair did ok in his first game as a starter. That said, I do come back to my first sentence -- this team has many problems. Coach Ewing isn't going to "coach" his way out of that problem this season. You can't win basketball games with just a starting five. You need, at a minimum, 7 or 8 players to field a competitive basketball team, and you have to combine those players into various rotations. We really can't play, especially against good competition, without both Derrickson and Govan in the game. We need them both so that all the pressure isn't on the one of them in the game. Today, we had to play without them for large stretches due to foul trouble. Beyond those two, the players who are "on" differ from day to day. Mulmore was ok today, but he's frequently awful. Blair and Jagan usually show promise. Blair was ok today, and I thought Jagan was awful. There's no way that our coach can prepare our team for consistent rotations because the players play completely differently from game to game. I seriously doubt that Coach Ewing truly knows what to expect until he goes out there to see them play. I will say that the careless turnovers are frustrating. To my untrained eye, it looks like we are just throwing away the ball to places where people aren't. I think it's a consequence of trying to run a new system and convince players to play faster. Ewing wants players to run. He wants guards to drive. When we run and drive, we make mistakes. Lots of mistakes. So, he could either give up on teaching these guys anything, or continue to teach them and work through mistakes. He has chosen the latter path, but it doesn't make the turnovers less agonizing at times. I'm not happy with the game today, but I do think this team actually deserves some credit. For me, the Creighton game was a low point. That day, the opposing team could just name their score and we did everything wrong. Today we did a lot of things wrong, but we did some things right against a very good team on the road. We also didn't give up, as evinced by the second half score and the fact that several times we cut it to 8 points and had opportunities to cut the lead further and just couldn't. Truth! We do have walk ons that can play. Put them in the mix. imo
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EasyEd
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Post by EasyEd on Jan 14, 2018 20:09:06 GMT -5
Eleven straight posts.
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Post by glidehoyas (Inactive) on Jan 14, 2018 20:50:00 GMT -5
Whoa wait did someone say Tremont Waters? lol .. people tell me to let it go. ...joking ..yeah Pickett just needs to sit and learn. Jay Wright would've red-shirted the young man, but we needed him this season. He was thrown into the fire, so to speak. I think Guard play was a huge issue yesterday. imo True Seton Hall is very talented and wanted this game more. Leadership/Guard is where it starts and ends ... Most guards did want to come but we didn't get it until we recruited Waters. Right the Georgetown offense didn't hold us back. Not getting/having a true point guard set us back for years. Right pgs weren't a priority for the simple reason in that offense you didn't require one, but I've always known and others as well that you ALWAYS need a floor general. Throw Starks in there in the mix. I agree Wright was about a year off, is why I feel we should've used Sapp his last year after watching him all summer I knew he was ready to lead. It didn't happen I'm still Editeded about that one. when Pickett came in the game too early. The turnovers started then it became contagious. Off the bench Dickerson at the point, Jagan and Blair (he's starting now, but) on both wings. This works but we fiddle diddle too much at the guard spots. Leadership/Guard is where it starts and ends ...
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bostonfan
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Post by bostonfan on Jan 15, 2018 8:28:54 GMT -5
This game unfolded pretty much the way I thought it might. For long stretches of this game the Hoyas were able to compete with and play fairly even with Seton Hall, but they had a 5 -8 minute period at the end of the first half where they turned the ball over too often and could not get shots to fall and Seton Hall was able to run out to a comfortable lead. The Hoyas did show some good resolve and continued to play hard and when they took better care of the ball they were able to get the shots they wanted. The defense was not great, but it was not awful either. Seton Hall is just as better team at this point.
The lack of depth and the carelessness with the ball came back to haunt Georgetown like it has in the other games they have lost this year. If they can put together a full 40 minutes of efficient basketball, Georgetown is going to be competitive with most of the teams in the Big East, outside of Nova and Xavier
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seaweed
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Post by seaweed on Jan 16, 2018 10:59:40 GMT -5
Didn't read all the discussion, but 4 pt, 1 assist and 7 TOs from our bench will never do. Now that Coach has "coached up" the starters and seemingly settled on a primary lineup, time to get some serious work done down the bench. The potential is there, especially Jagan and Pickett, but we need to get better on-court results from the 6 thru 9 slots on the roster.
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