Georgetown - American 11/16/21 Discussion

[DanMcQ]

Nowhere to go but up.

[SSHoya]

AU is 2-0 with wins over Marist and W & M.

www.theeagleonline.com/article/2021/11/2021-22-american-university-mens-basketball-season-preview

www.cbssports.com/college-basketball/gametracker/recap/NCAAB_20211109_MARIST@AMER/

theathletic.com/college-basketball/boxscore/?id=39632

[madgesiq92]

Objectively we should be a four point underdog in this game.

[professorhoya]

American has alot of size.
Starters 6-9, 6-8, 6-6
6-6, 6-2

Bench 6-11, 6-6, 6-6
5-9

Wing Guard Bexton seems to be their best player

[hoyas212]

Losing this would be very bad for optics. And a loss isn’t out of the question, American should be significantly better than Dartmouth. They have a senior guard, Becton, who can fill it up. And a forward, O’Neil, who can shoot from the outside and potentially cause Jabari Walker flashbacks.

And if we had to retain/bring back JT3 staffers to serve under Ewing, AU assistant Scott Greenman was the guy to hire.

[professorhoya]

Nov 14, 2021 8:56:39 GMT -5 hoyas212 said:

Losing this would be very bad for optics. And a loss isn’t out of the question, American should be significantly better than Dartmouth. They have a senior guard, Becton, who can fill it up. And a forward, O’Neil, who can shoot from the outside and potentially cause Jabari Walker flashbacks.

And if we had to retain/bring back JT3 staffers to serve under Ewing, AU assistant Scott Greenman was the guy to hire.

Bexton is a good 3pt shooter and the 6-9 Johnny O'Neil is career 36%.
6-6 Conor Nelson shot 25% last year so the sample size on him is small on his 3pt % this year.

I would say not as good as Dartmouth at shooting 3s.

O'Neil looks like a poor man's Mike Miller but with less handles.
I think Billingsley and Malcolm will have to guard him. If they play him small ball center than Tim or Mutombo has to make him pay defensively. (Which is what we were trying to do with Big Tim vs Jabari Walker, till Walker decided to horse collar Big Tim and the refs let him get away with that)

[saxagael]

Bexton is really good and could be a handful. The size could be a bit of an issue.

Hoyas need to play like they did to start the second half of Dartmouth with defense, ball movement, and spacing.

It will be interesting to see what the freshmen and Rice do. Hopefully Timothy is back and Ryan coming off the bench behind him.

[nbhoya]

The fact that we’re using a comparison to Ivy League power Dartmouth as a barometer, and bemoaning the potential beastly size advantage of…checks notes… American, tells you all you need to know about the state of the program.

[jwp91]

Dartmouth looked bad their first game of the year. We looked bad the first game of the year. I think we should look better simply from having a game under our belt.

[hoyainla]

If American decides to only shoot 18 3s in this game we should be fine. As much as some people are trying to lower expectations we can't be at the level where we are debating if this game will be competitive. We will be about 14 point favorites and we should be. If we are really at the point where we are thinking this game is a toss up what are we really doing? I expect a much better performance because I don't think they will do what Dartmouth did from a offensive strategy.

[notjuanjones]

AU fan here. Just FYI, it's Stacy Beckton, Jr., not Bexton. AU played very well, I thought, in the opener against Marist (preseason #3 in the MAAC). We led by nine with three minutes left and somehow let Marist back in it to send it to overtime. Then we made a bunch of big plays to come back from three down in the last minute of OT. Didn't play as well at William and Mary, though Beckton was terrific with 24 and 9, and we held on for the win. First time we've started 2-0 in 11 years. We haven't shot the three well at all so far, but rebounding and defense have been good. Look forward to the matchup Tuesday.

[hoyaatheart55]

Nov 14, 2021 20:13:35 GMT -5 notjuanjones said:

AU fan here. Just FYI, it's Stacy Beckton, Jr., not Bexton. AU played very well, I thought, in the opener against Marist (preseason #3 in the MAAC). We led by nine with three minutes left and somehow let Marist back in it to send it to overtime. Then we made a bunch of big plays to come back from three down in the last minute of OT. Didn't play as well at William and Mary, though Beckton was terrific with 24 and 9, and we held on for the win. First time we've started 2-0 in 11 years. We haven't shot the three well at all so far, but rebounding and defense have been good. Look forward to the matchup Tuesday.

A matchup with us is sure to cure that 3 point shooting problem.

[rhw485]

Ok can't undo what happened on Saturday.  How the team moves forward and responds is what matters at this point.  Things I'll be looking for:

• Dante's shot.  I'm not really sure what I'm expecting here.  If it was a conscious offseason change then I'm assuming he's sticking with it.  If he's compensating for an injury I'm not expecting that to heal in two days.  Maybe I'm just hoping it was nerves.  His shot looked fine off the dribble going to his right so maybe this really was something temporary.
• Don Carey:  Looking back at the stats, his usage rage was 17.4%.  As the senior leader of this team, we need him to do more to create offense.  I realize that's not what he's done historically but was hoping that's what he was focused on in the offseason.  Way too passive in the first half.  Help set the tone for the young guys
• Defensive 3 point attempts.  There's really two lines of thinking I've seen as it relates to 3 point defense.  There's a few teams that have been able to consistently have teams shoot worse from 3 compared to national average, examples include Virginia, Syracuse, Houston.  For everyone else, it's a game of limiting the number of attempts and accepting you can't control whether teams make or miss.  Obviously after the Dartmouth game our defensive 3 pt % is 349th in the country.  Dartmouth made two threes that stick out as ones I'd live with (Cornish heave at the shot clock buzzer and Barry step-back off dribble over Wilson) but the rest felt like shots Dartmouth got in normal flow of their offense.  Need to run people off the line, stop sagging in unnecessarily, and force teams to challenge our centers at the rim.  From Casual Hoya pod, sounds like American will run similar Princeton principles so hopefully we're better prepared.  Hoopsvision covered the 3 point defense discussion, hopefully linking to right video but don't have time to re-watch
• 3 point shooting from non Carey / Rice.  On re-watch, there were a few times where Dante ran pick n roll and then made good read to swing to either Riley or Aminu.  Those guys want to drive but the defense was short closing out and willing to let them shoot.  It resulted in hesitation. For Riley he hesitated, jab stepped and then took an out of rhythm 3.  For Aminu he took one dribble in, realized his defender was off, then tried a step back 3.  They need to be decisive decision makers in those spots.  And if teams don't respect them to shoot it's going to be really difficult for them to get to the rim on drives.

The Dartmouth game won't define the season, the response will.

[hoyasaxa2003]

Nov 15, 2021 9:29:04 GMT -5 rhw485 said:

Ok can't undo what happened on Saturday.  How the team moves forward and responds is what matters at this point.  Things I'll be looking for:

• Dante's shot.  I'm not really sure what I'm expecting here.  If it was a conscious offseason change then I'm assuming he's sticking with it.  If he's compensating for an injury I'm not expecting that to heal in two days.  Maybe I'm just hoping it was nerves.  His shot looked fine off the dribble going to his right so maybe this really was something temporary.
• Don Carey:  Looking back at the stats, his usage rage was 17.4%.  As the senior leader of this team, we need him to do more to create offense.  I realize that's not what he's done historically but was hoping that's what he was focused on in the offseason.  Way too passive in the first half.  Help set the tone for the young guys
• Defensive 3 point attempts.  There's really two lines of thinking I've seen as it relates to 3 point defense.  There's a few teams that have been able to consistently have teams shoot worse from 3 compared to national average, examples include Virginia, Syracuse, Houston.  For everyone else, it's a game of limiting the number of attempts and accepting you can't control whether teams make or miss.  Obviously after the Dartmouth game our defensive 3 pt % is 349th in the country.  Dartmouth made two threes that stick out as ones I'd live with (Cornish heave at the shot clock buzzer and Barry step-back off dribble over Wilson) but the rest felt like shots Dartmouth got in normal flow of their offense.  Need to run people off the line, stop sagging in unnecessarily, and force teams to challenge our centers at the rim.  From Casual Hoya pod, sounds like American will run similar Princeton principles so hopefully we're better prepared.  Hoopsvision covered the 3 point defense discussion, hopefully linking to right video but don't have time to re-watch
• 3 point shooting from non Carey / Rice.  On re-watch, there were a few times where Dante ran pick n roll and then made good read to swing to either Riley or Aminu.  Those guys want to drive but the defense was short closing out and willing to let them shoot.  It resulted in hesitation. For Riley he hesitated, jab stepped and then took an out of rhythm 3.  For Aminu he took one dribble in, realized his defender was off, then tried a step back 3.  They need to be decisive decision makers in those spots.  And if teams don't respect them to shoot it's going to be really difficult for them to get to the rim on drives.

The Dartmouth game won't define the season, the response will.

Thanks for sharing that video, it's really great. Sampson is a really good coach. The video shows how an effective defense really works, we are far from that level unfortunately.

[professorhoya]

Nov 15, 2021 10:15:34 GMT -5 hoyasaxa2003 said:

Nov 15, 2021 9:29:04 GMT -5 rhw485 said:

Ok can't undo what happened on Saturday.  How the team moves forward and responds is what matters at this point.  Things I'll be looking for:

• Dante's shot.  I'm not really sure what I'm expecting here.  If it was a conscious offseason change then I'm assuming he's sticking with it.  If he's compensating for an injury I'm not expecting that to heal in two days.  Maybe I'm just hoping it was nerves.  His shot looked fine off the dribble going to his right so maybe this really was something temporary.
• Don Carey:  Looking back at the stats, his usage rage was 17.4%.  As the senior leader of this team, we need him to do more to create offense.  I realize that's not what he's done historically but was hoping that's what he was focused on in the offseason.  Way too passive in the first half.  Help set the tone for the young guys
• Defensive 3 point attempts.  There's really two lines of thinking I've seen as it relates to 3 point defense.  There's a few teams that have been able to consistently have teams shoot worse from 3 compared to national average, examples include Virginia, Syracuse, Houston.  For everyone else, it's a game of limiting the number of attempts and accepting you can't control whether teams make or miss.  Obviously after the Dartmouth game our defensive 3 pt % is 349th in the country.  Dartmouth made two threes that stick out as ones I'd live with (Cornish heave at the shot clock buzzer and Barry step-back off dribble over Wilson) but the rest felt like shots Dartmouth got in normal flow of their offense.  Need to run people off the line, stop sagging in unnecessarily, and force teams to challenge our centers at the rim.  From Casual Hoya pod, sounds like American will run similar Princeton principles so hopefully we're better prepared.  Hoopsvision covered the 3 point defense discussion, hopefully linking to right video but don't have time to re-watch
• 3 point shooting from non Carey / Rice.  On re-watch, there were a few times where Dante ran pick n roll and then made good read to swing to either Riley or Aminu.  Those guys want to drive but the defense was short closing out and willing to let them shoot.  It resulted in hesitation. For Riley he hesitated, jab stepped and then took an out of rhythm 3.  For Aminu he took one dribble in, realized his defender was off, then tried a step back 3.  They need to be decisive decision makers in those spots.  And if teams don't respect them to shoot it's going to be really difficult for them to get to the rim on drives.

The Dartmouth game won't define the season, the response will.

Thanks for sharing that video, it's really great. Sampson is a really good coach. The video shows how an effective defense really works, we are far from that level unfortunately.

Except the whole cheating part.

[hoyasaxa2003]

Nov 15, 2021 10:17:45 GMT -5 professorhoya said:

Nov 15, 2021 10:15:34 GMT -5 hoyasaxa2003 said:

Thanks for sharing that video, it's really great. Sampson is a really good coach. The video shows how an effective defense really works, we are far from that level unfortunately.

Except the whole cheating part.

Sampson's NCAA violations were obviously very bad, but (a) most of the rules he violated at the time are no longer violations, (b) as far as we know, he's been clean at Houston, and (c) even if he has had character/integrity problems, he's a good coach. It's like Pitino. The guy clearly has character weaknesses and isn't the most clean guy, but he can coach, and one can still learn things from them.

[prhoya]

Nov 15, 2021 10:17:45 GMT -5 professorhoya said:

Nov 15, 2021 10:15:34 GMT -5 hoyasaxa2003 said:

Thanks for sharing that video, it's really great. Sampson is a really good coach. The video shows how an effective defense really works, we are far from that level unfortunately.

Except the whole cheating part.

So, nothing to take away from the video?

[puppydog100]

Four years in, this is now Ewing's team.

Looking forward to brighter days ahead. However, in the current college basketball environment, GU will never be an elite program.

[hoyas212]

Nov 15, 2021 12:30:38 GMT -5 puppydog100 said:

Four years in, this is now Ewing's team.

Looking forward to brighter days ahead. However, in the current college basketball environment, GU will never be an elite program.

If Villanova and Gonzaga can be elite, then Georgetown definitely has the institutional capability to be elite.  Not as easy as at North Carolina or Kentucky, but doable.  

Back to the AU game, their coach Mike Brennan served under JT3 at Princeton and Georgetown.  You will see some concepts that remind you of early JT3 Hoya teams, though not an exact replica.  If GU plays man to man, we will probably get beat on some back door actions, the main key on defense should be awareness of who will shoot 3's and prevent or contest those shots.  Wouldn't mind seeing some 2-3 zone from GU either. Outside of Dante, we have length if nothing else on defense.  What's been done for 4+ years on defense hasn't worked regardless of personnel, why not see if something else works better.  

[hoyasaxa2003]

Nov 15, 2021 12:30:38 GMT -5 puppydog100 said:

Four years in, this is now Ewing's team.

Looking forward to brighter days ahead. However, in the current college basketball environment, GU will never be an elite program.

It depends on what you mean. Will Georgetown ever be a "blueblood" again contending for the championship every year over a decade? Probably not, but we can certainly do better than finishing in the bottom half of the conference. The BET was a good start, but the Dartmouth loss was a big step back. The way to turn it around is to beat American, convincingly.