Closing out games

[hoyaboy1]

Against WVU, we cut it to 54-51 and had lots of chances to tie. Against Marquette we went up 49-48. Today we cut it to 59-57 and missed a 3. Yet none of these games ended up being competitive in the last minute or two. Sad.

[RockawayHoya]

It's the difference between being an upper echelon team and a solid team. Making plays when it matters. If you can consistently do it, you can be an elite team. If you do it only half the time (like we did against Duke, Pitt, etc.), you're just another solid team.

[DFW HOYA]

This is becoming a tired team in games. Starters are playing a lot of minutes and it adds up in late February.

[FOTP]

Agreed. Plus we need all our guys to play better. When we have 6 guys in essence we need them to play better. We can't have games like Brandon had...

[SirSaxa]

dfw said:

This is becoming a tired team in games. Starters are playing a lot of minutes and it adds up in late February.

I agree, but would add that the mental strain is as significant as the physical. Depth is very valuable. Good to see Jessie playing more and more minutes.

[RockawayHoya]

Nova played just as many guys as we did. Not an excuse.

[hoyaboy1]

Lots of teams play their starters as much as we do. Either it isn't fatigue or our guys don't work hard enough off the court.

[the_way]

rockawayhoya said:

It's the difference between being an upper echelon team and a solid team. Making plays when it matters. If you can consistently do it, you can be an elite team. If you do it only half the time (like we did against Duke, Pitt, etc.), you're just another solid team.

^^^Hit the nail right on the head. We are solid team, not a good or a great one. We gave a valliant effort today, but it was quite obvious Villanova was better. This reminded me of the UCONN game. We hung around, hung around, and everytime we got it close, UCONN would open up the lead again. Same with Villanova today.

[EasyEd]

Even against Duke and Pitt we almost lost it at the end.

[RockawayHoya]

ed said:

Even against Duke and Pitt we almost lost it at the end.

True, but you are also talking about the #1 team in the country in one game and another game where we were down 15 at one point. Doesn't matter if you win by 3 or 30. Just matters if you win.

[the_way]

dfw said:

This is becoming a tired team in games. Starters are playing a lot of minutes and it adds up in late February.

It has nothing to do with fatigue. We aren't playing St. John's and S. florida and Cincinatti at home anymore. We are playing real teams now, top-tier teams at home AND on the road.

[FLHoya]

dfw said:

This is becoming a tired team in games. Starters are playing a lot of minutes and it adds up in late February.

I agree with that in principle.

But at the same time, I see Allen Ray's three pointer with about 3 mins to go (the one that took the friendly roll)...and that's the SAME EXACT LOOK that Shan Foster of Vanderbilt had ALL DAY in the second half against us in November, in our third game of the year, when fatigue as we're defining it wasn't an issue.

You could see that shot coming about 5 seconds before it happened. And it's not a fatigue thing...it's something that has been bugging us when we go the 2-3 zone all year. VERY vulnerable to the corner three off rotation. Chain reaction...starts when Jessie Sapp (whose got the part of the "2" on the side the shot comes from) follows a man in the opposite direction for a few steps, then "corrects" by running towards Kyle Lowry who has the ball. Lowry passes to Mike Nardi (who's Sapp's "man" at this point), and Jeff Green's now on the wrong end of a 2 vs. 1 situation. Runs out wildly on Nardi, who passes to Ray and it's all over in about 5 seconds...5 point deficit to 8 point deficit.

It happens to us all the time. I don't think it's fatigue, I think it's more of a discipline issue on defense in that zone. Great commentary last night during the Cuse-Lousiville game about how the 2-3 zone works best when the entire thing is moving as a UNIT. Too often we've got one spare part chasing something.

I think the main problem we had in the second half was giving up too many "easy" threes. If Allen Ray steps back and hits one over a guy--well, he's a talented guy, that'll happen. But when Nardi can curl to the top of the key and have all day to get a look...I can buy fatigue as an explanation to a degree, but I can't call it the only thing at play here.

The preceding possession to Ray's three is a good case study too I think, cause it involved the other defining thing Nova did to take control--use their uber-talented guards to penetrate.

Kyle Lowry got a high screen at the 3-point arc that got in the way of Ashanti Cook. Cook fights it off a little, but once he gets around the screener he kind of takes a side step or two and just...ball watches I guess, as Lowry curls around Hibbert's help defense and lays it up around Jeff Green. He's within distance to make a run at the play, certainly affect the outcome buy his presence. But he doesn't. And I'm going way out on limb to project what a player is "thinking", but it didn't seem to me like AC gave up on the play b/c he was fatigued or gassed. Thought he couldn't have an impact on the play, given that Roy and Jeff are there? Maybe. KL does make a great play.

So I guess, what I'm saying, two things Nova did at the end of the game were successful:

1. Getting open threes through ball movement

2. Penetration from guards.

And I'm not sure I'd call "fatigue" the leading cause of either. Contributing? Sure. But I think on #1 the discipline issue that's been there since the start of the season, and on #2 just a sheer talent gap and a little bit of the lack of a killer instinct...those should be considered first.

I was, however, very encouraged by the effort and the poise and, at many points, the intelligence of the offensive display that far exceeded anything we saw on Thursday night. Guess we can hope for a frustration game on Wednesday.

[big16]

The end of the game today was due to two things:
1. Thier Guards are better than ours (we know this, no surprise)
2. Shot selection late (which is where most of our problems are due offensively). Two old-fashioned 3 piont plays that were created by having our two best players going to the hoop and finishing against smaller players. Then what? AC/JG/DO all miss 3's. Why? In defense to JG's, his was late in shot clock and an open look. Thier big men where in foul trouble for a reason, they couldn't handle our bigs down low. I don't buy fatigue as being an issue, since I didn't see thier guards sitting much. Lots of games are lost from the shoulders up and it played a part in lots of our loses.