GIGAFAN99
Diamond Hoya (over 2500 posts)
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Post by GIGAFAN99 on Mar 9, 2014 9:50:05 GMT -5
Biggest Game of the Year: 18 minutes, 5 PF, 0-2, 3 TO, 0 PtWhat a joke. I'm pretty sure a random student taken out of the stands could have done better. And this is like the sixth or seventh time this season his line has looked like the last guy on the bench. Time to move on. Someone contact me when he's no longer on the team. How many times do we beat Creighton without him? He has 7 points and 8 fouls against DePaul this year. Better start our "DePaul guy" so we can get to Creighton. Then 10 points 9 fouls against Xavier so better get our "Xavier guy" for that one after our Creighton specialist does his job. We might even make it to Villanova (6pts 8 fouls) and give our "'Nova guy" some run. Our team-specific big man recruiting strategy is paying off!
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GIGAFAN99
Diamond Hoya (over 2500 posts)
Posts: 4,487
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Post by GIGAFAN99 on Mar 8, 2014 22:18:29 GMT -5
I think we are over complicating things. We lost this game when Trawick and Starks were benched with 3 fouls. We aren't built to come back from double digit deficits this year and that did us in. Pretty simple. Even this year, most of our losses can be attributed to foul trouble. It's not surprising out two best games of the season came in games called quite liberally, or the way games were called last year. It does make me wonder if the rule change had taken place last year and games were called similarly to this year, would we have been as good? I think we would be better than this year but and not much. The rule change has had a huge impact on the game. Now it's almost impossible to guard a plus athlete who can dribble penetrate without fouling. That's one of the reasons why Villanova (who was picked 4th in the BE) is doing so well this year. They play 4 guys on the floor who can dribble penetrate at the same time. If you look at the teams that we are getting blown out by they have dribble penetrators that are athletically superior (Kansas, Oregon, St. Johns, Seton Hall /Fuquan Edwards, Providence/Brice Cotton, Villanova) who are unstoppable or get our team in foul trouble. The teams we play better against like Creighton, Butler are less athletic than us and lack those aggressive rim attackers. I think it's also tough on us because we have a small backcourt (Starks, DSR), that lacks lateral quickness. Good shooters can shoot over them because they lack length and dribble penetrators can blow by them and expose the bigs who cover for them to fouls with the new rules. The past couple years we have had alot of length with Whit and Poter. Whit and Trawick could play shooting guard and Otto at 6-9 at small forward could give us alot of length which made it harder to shoot over and made the zone more effective. They could also hit the passing lanes with their length and get steals or turnovers. Marquette's having trouble adjusting as well since they lost Vander Blue and lack a good point guard. Even Syracuse is having problems. No team has really looked dominant and good this entire year except Florida and Wichita State who is untested. It's a very weird year in large part due to the rules which are frankly turning the game into a joke. Defense has gone out the window but the game isn't more exciting because it's just leading to more fouls and games being won because of free throws and foul trouble. New Rules: espn.go.com/mens-college-basketball/story/_/id/9830285/rick-pitino-john-calipari-bill-self-coaches-torn-rule-changes-2013-14-seasonWhat bothers me the most is there was also supposed to be a crackdown on grabbing cutters. Well guess what never happened? So the one thing that could help us never materialized and it's all hand checks. Wonderful.
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GIGAFAN99
Diamond Hoya (over 2500 posts)
Posts: 4,487
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Post by GIGAFAN99 on Mar 8, 2014 22:11:47 GMT -5
But SF, you haven't seen him in practice. In practice, he's like Dr. J married Kareem and had a baby and that baby married Lebron and had Hop.
Why are you basing so much of Hop's game on games? You earn minutes in practice.
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GIGAFAN99
Diamond Hoya (over 2500 posts)
Posts: 4,487
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Post by GIGAFAN99 on Mar 8, 2014 22:07:58 GMT -5
McDermott Cooley Garrett
Kind of shocked if it's not those three. I guess Wright might win for CoY.
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GIGAFAN99
Diamond Hoya (over 2500 posts)
Posts: 4,487
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Post by GIGAFAN99 on Mar 8, 2014 17:19:18 GMT -5
Strangely, I am watching SH @ Butler. Butler is hammering SH by 20 14 minutes into the game. I hope Butler wins - I would much rather play DePaul Wednesday (and I understand we could lose to anyone). Totally agree. DePaul is a wreck for a team that is not really any worse from an RPI standpoint. DePaul-Creighton-Xavier/Marquette if Providence loses tonight? We don't have to face an east coast team until the final? I'll definitely take that.
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GIGAFAN99
Diamond Hoya (over 2500 posts)
Posts: 4,487
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Post by GIGAFAN99 on Mar 8, 2014 15:56:00 GMT -5
Lubick plays like a freshman too often. The visible lack of development on this team can be directed at the assistant coaches. Lubick, Hopkins, Cameron, and Domingo are all in this boat together. If you want a laugh, look at the list of Hoyas with 100 starts...and realize Lubick is on it. Had there ever been a more irrelevant 4-year starter gifted his role?
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GIGAFAN99
Diamond Hoya (over 2500 posts)
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Post by GIGAFAN99 on Mar 5, 2014 10:59:20 GMT -5
Another factor that is going to be bigger then ever for us is conference tourneys. We really need the Green Bay's (RPI 48), Toledo's (RPI 40), North Dakota St's (RPI 44)of the worlds to win their tournaments and not have to then rely on the committee to choose us over them. Just add's more teams to the bubble group and not what we need at this point. I think all those teams are out if they don't win the their respective tournaments. They just don't have the top 50 wins. GB beat UVA but that by itself isn't enough. The others have zero top 50 wins. The dicey ones are the WCC or MWC with someone outside the top 2 winning it all. The granddaddy of all bubble-poppers is of course WSU losing in the MWC.
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GIGAFAN99
Diamond Hoya (over 2500 posts)
Posts: 4,487
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Post by GIGAFAN99 on Mar 5, 2014 10:22:13 GMT -5
Might be reading a bit too much into this, but did anyone notice Josh's suit looked big on him last night? It was noticeable, like Bob Dole convention noticeable (for anyone old enough to remember that).
Is this anything or might he actually be snacking on celery during his time off?
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GIGAFAN99
Diamond Hoya (over 2500 posts)
Posts: 4,487
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Post by GIGAFAN99 on Mar 5, 2014 9:56:11 GMT -5
But then you must factor out KState and VCU with Smith. Agreed. I know I am being a debbie downer. I want to make the tourney badly, but I think people are overestimating our profile. Based on the S-curve as of today we are IN (check your favorite s-curve site). So pre-Nova based on the past selection criteria the Hoyas are the last team in the field. Now that does not mean we'd be selected but it's a pretty good indicator nobody is overestimating our profile. We're playing our way out as much as we're playing our way in on Saturday. Hard to believe I know, but Seton Hall losses are more emotionally painful than damaging to our profile when we have so many top-50 wins banked.
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GIGAFAN99
Diamond Hoya (over 2500 posts)
Posts: 4,487
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Post by GIGAFAN99 on Mar 4, 2014 20:59:52 GMT -5
Go Marquette!
Any 9-9 tie, Provvy or St. Johns or both we'd win on strength of win (Everyone has Creighton, we'd have 'Nova). So that would get us out of that freakin' first round game at MSG.
Hope springs eternal!
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GIGAFAN99
Diamond Hoya (over 2500 posts)
Posts: 4,487
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Post by GIGAFAN99 on Mar 4, 2014 20:15:37 GMT -5
What about the O/U on the number of times we fly out at a 3 point shooter? Wish I took the under so far.
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GIGAFAN99
Diamond Hoya (over 2500 posts)
Posts: 4,487
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Post by GIGAFAN99 on Mar 4, 2014 20:09:18 GMT -5
The focus this team is showing... they look like a different group altogether.
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GIGAFAN99
Diamond Hoya (over 2500 posts)
Posts: 4,487
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Post by GIGAFAN99 on Mar 4, 2014 19:55:04 GMT -5
The list of contenders is a lot shorter than the "worst half of the year" list, but I think that was the best half of the year by a good margin. First half against St. Johns was pretty good but given the circumstances, this one makes its case.
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GIGAFAN99
Diamond Hoya (over 2500 posts)
Posts: 4,487
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Post by GIGAFAN99 on Mar 4, 2014 18:10:58 GMT -5
Over and Over. 22 and 9 respectively in a 74-66 win. The 9 for Nate - is that with a free throw or a 3?! Sacks McDermott for a safety.
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GIGAFAN99
Diamond Hoya (over 2500 posts)
Posts: 4,487
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Post by GIGAFAN99 on Mar 4, 2014 14:08:56 GMT -5
Over and Over. 22 and 9 respectively in a 74-66 win.
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GIGAFAN99
Diamond Hoya (over 2500 posts)
Posts: 4,487
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Post by GIGAFAN99 on Mar 4, 2014 14:07:25 GMT -5
About the season...I think everyone should be disappointed. The big picture view is that now it looks like it will 7 years straight without an Sweet 16 appearance and that is not good. You almost don't realize this is our longest Sweet 16 drought since JT went to his first in 1980. But somehow it is.
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GIGAFAN99
Diamond Hoya (over 2500 posts)
Posts: 4,487
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Post by GIGAFAN99 on Mar 2, 2014 19:04:46 GMT -5
GIGA, that's grossly underestimating what Otto was. People seem to forget that Otto went on a ridiculous tear during the Big East season. Painting him as a D-Leaguer is trying to paint him as less of a player than he was. He was the third pick in the draft for a reason, defining the defense and having on of the best offensive seasons a player has had under III. I don't think this season was a particularly good coaching job or a particularly good playing job by the team. But there's no reason to pretend Otto was less than he was to make your point. I said he was great. He's just not Larry Bird on Indiana State. As you point out, we have plenty of ranked recruits and DSR is a top player in any league. No disrespect to him, he is great but is he so rare that his departure should cause a collapse? If it does, not sure what that says about how we're assembling our teams. MCI, why are you talking about domination? How did we get from better than 7-9 to "domination"? I think most people had a pretty balanced outlook where we had a lot of questions but an experienced team with one of the best scorers in the league certainly had the talent to be in the top half of the league and be in the tournament. Is that all that unreasonable? Listen JTIII isn't getting fired and nobody is even calling for that. He's had a lousy year. Why is that such a big deal that we have to go back in time and make this team worse? Let's get a center and make it better. Or better yet, win the next two and turn the narrative around.
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GIGAFAN99
Diamond Hoya (over 2500 posts)
Posts: 4,487
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Post by GIGAFAN99 on Mar 2, 2014 17:25:40 GMT -5
I'll sum up this year's expectations this way:
25 wins + w(4 returning starters + 1 returning sixth man + 2 returning role players + 1 4 star recruit + 2 wild card bench players + weaker conference - Otto) = ?
We didn't have Whit or Josh for last year's regular season title run in the old Big East. So take them out of the equation and the above is what you have. Otto is good of course, but good enough to take us from 14 wins in a stacked super conference to 1-5 versus Marquette, a wounded Providence, and a mediocre at best Seton Hall?
Whittington and Smith are distractions for a team that literally lost one admittedly great player but joined a weaker conference. Forget Whit and Smith and all the hypotheticals about what they "might have been." Should a team that won 25 games and lost, again a great player but one headed to the d-league, and returns everyone else plus adds a 4-star shooter move to a weaker conference and finish 8th? I find it hard to believe the answer to that is objectively "yes".
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GIGAFAN99
Diamond Hoya (over 2500 posts)
Posts: 4,487
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Post by GIGAFAN99 on Mar 2, 2014 14:20:14 GMT -5
"Long stretch of games"? A touch of hyperbole. Perhaps the "long stretches" is incorrect because it isn't as if he had six or so really good games in a row. But with that being said for the majority of Big East play he has shot efficiently, rebounded well given his minutes and done a good job of not coughing up the ball. Aaron has more steals than turnovers the last 10 games. His offense is essentially dependent on whether he goes 1-4 (bad game) or 2-4(great game). All this while playing absurdly out of position much of the time as a 6'6 power forward. If Aaron returns and plays back-up small forward (also known as 'his actual position on any well-constructed team') he's more than adequate and certainly won't be cause for any board angst.
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GIGAFAN99
Diamond Hoya (over 2500 posts)
Posts: 4,487
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Post by GIGAFAN99 on Mar 1, 2014 22:51:14 GMT -5
X just beat Creighton, so we could see a fired up team on the court on Tuesday. Or we could see a poor defensive team that is getting upset by a #6 seed in the first week of the tourney. And it's senior day. Just win it and make 'Nova the game for the tourney. Why not Hoyas?
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