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Post by ColumbiaHeightsHoya on Feb 14, 2020 12:48:33 GMT -5
There is a very slim chance Cisse makes the move into the 2020 class, but it is an option. Arguably the best shot-blocker in America, Cisse could immediately impact a high-major program from the day that he steps onto campus. Many had assumed that his move to Lausanne Collegiate School would lead to a commitment to the local Memphis program. While the Tigers are involved, the connection between prospect and program is overblown. Rather, the sweepstakes for Cisse is wide-open. He has already taken an official visit to Florida State, and is a top target for programs such as Georgetown, Georgia, Illinois, Kentucky and UConn. If there is a sleeper in all of this, it is LSU. If Cisse does reclassify, the Tigers would be his likeliest landing spot. I sense a "Strong ass offer" coming in from Wade. Not every kid gets paid and many programs don't have to do this. LSU just reeks of cheating though. Despite the talent, Wade hasn't been able to do much with it. He is the Mike Hopkins of the south. It's probably because they are down south I just don't notice.
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Post by ColumbiaHeightsHoya on Feb 14, 2020 10:40:14 GMT -5
There is a very slim chance Cisse makes the move into the 2020 class, but it is an option. Arguably the best shot-blocker in America, Cisse could immediately impact a high-major program from the day that he steps onto campus. Many had assumed that his move to Lausanne Collegiate School would lead to a commitment to the local Memphis program. While the Tigers are involved, the connection between prospect and program is overblown. Rather, the sweepstakes for Cisse is wide-open. He has already taken an official visit to Florida State, and is a top target for programs such as Georgetown, Georgia, Illinois, Kentucky and UConn. If there is a sleeper in all of this, it is LSU. If Cisse does reclassify, the Tigers would be his likeliest landing spot. I sense a "Strong ass offer" coming in from Wade. Not every kid gets paid and many programs don't have to do this. LSU just reeks of cheating though. Despite the talent, Wade hasn't been able to do much with it. He is the Mike Hopkins of the south.
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Post by ColumbiaHeightsHoya on Feb 14, 2020 8:53:09 GMT -5
He has that "No One Is In The Building But Me" jump shot. The kid barely hits net, let alone rim, with the D in his face. That release is repeatable and ultra quick. No doubt the kid has a pure jump shot and looks to have great range on it. As mentioned, everyone needs shooters these days. The only thing I get little concerned about from some of the highlights is that he does not seem to be a really quick, explosive athlete. He gets to the rim in his high school games OK, but not sure if he has a another gear that would allow him to play a little faster and still be comfortable. I think he is a big time prospect, but in the back of my mind I am thinking he could be the next Reggie Cameron!! Is this hoyaballa in disguise. DSR, Domingo & Cameron were all on his hit list. He was right about 2 of 3.
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Post by ColumbiaHeightsHoya on Feb 13, 2020 13:10:41 GMT -5
Maybe this will go down as the Pickett/Ighoefe game. Q has a propensity to foul. Pickett breaks out of a multiple season slump and hits 8 3's. Ighoefe provides D & boards and the Hoyas escape with the dramatic W.
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Post by ColumbiaHeightsHoya on Feb 11, 2020 11:44:35 GMT -5
Butler's D is below par. Hopefully Jamarko gets the scouting report this time. They only have 2 shooters. Guard those two outside, take your chances with their point guard shooting it and don't let Golden or Nze get easy looks inside. This should be a W (should have been the first go around too). I do not think it is fair to blame Pickett for the barrage of threes last game against Butler. He helped out when other players were beaten on drives to the basket. If we are not going to help on those plays, we need to sag wayyy off their ball handlers and beg them to fire away. They cannot drive to the rim with impunity. And, to be fair, Butler is going to get some good looks from three. They are a solid team, and every open three for them does not mean that one or more Hoyas somehow screwed up. Good teams get off good shots. Now, Pickett's offense may be another story. I really want him to get some confidence and turn the corner on that end. It was nice to see him make that three against DePaul; we need more of those. Hoyalove, there was a sequence where McDermott dropped I think three in a row on us. Yes the dribbler got level with the D player on him but didn't have a clear lane to the hoop. That is also where rim protection from our backside wing defender could help but rolling out the 3 guard line-ups we give that away. It's a pick your poison situation but I would rather a contested 2 at the rim than a wide open 3. Pickett opted for the wide open 3 every time and it crushed us and our tentative lead.
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Post by ColumbiaHeightsHoya on Feb 10, 2020 9:35:22 GMT -5
Butler's D is below par. Hopefully Jamarko gets the scouting report this time. They only have 2 shooters. Guard those two outside, take your chances with their point guard shooting it and don't let Golden or Nze get easy looks inside. This should be a W (should have been the first go around too).
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Post by ColumbiaHeightsHoya on Feb 7, 2020 11:37:48 GMT -5
It sure would have been interesting if Ewing would have benched Akinjo last year after the Marquette game for waiving off his call and taking the final shot himself (and getting swatted and losing us the game). Extremely harsh I know because you never want to completely chain down a players creativity but that seemed like a situation where a kid willfully dismissed his coach. It would have set expectations in advance but also could have just triggered and earlier Akinjo exit (which also probably would have been a plus in hind site). Ewing did not start Akinjo the following game, so he basically did bench him. Though he ended up playing 30 minutes anywyay. I would have put him in a suit and made him watch from the bench. Not sure of the result the next game but the season amounted to a first round NIT loss at home and major turmoil in year two.
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Post by ColumbiaHeightsHoya on Feb 7, 2020 10:24:39 GMT -5
It sure would have been interesting if Ewing would have benched Akinjo last year after the Marquette game for waiving off his call and taking the final shot himself (and getting swatted and losing us the game). Extremely harsh I know because you never want to completely chain down a players creativity but that seemed like a situation where a kid willfully dismissed his coach. It would have set expectations in advance but also could have just triggered and earlier Akinjo exit (which also probably would have been a plus in hind site).
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Post by ColumbiaHeightsHoya on Feb 6, 2020 12:59:51 GMT -5
We win the next four: Depaul, butler, Providence, @depaul... Lose at Marquette, beat Xavier at home, lose at Creighton, beat Nova at home. That is 6-2. Highly unlikely. Let's say we drop the butler and Nova home game. That is 4-4. Probably on the wrong side and needing a strong BET. It is absolutely doable. We could win or lose any of these games as I think Seton Hall was our toughest match up followed by Nova. The NCAA stinks this year. There is basically Baylor, Gonzaga, and then the field. This is a great year to just try to scrap in because a sweet 16 birth is a matter of a few bounces going your way vs. overwhelming talent. Is it bad for me to cheer the downfall of UNC this year? Anthony is going to go pro and they will have gotten nothing from him for the effort.
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Post by ColumbiaHeightsHoya on Feb 6, 2020 9:16:51 GMT -5
Gotta be sick. Thought the same thing.
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Post by ColumbiaHeightsHoya on Feb 4, 2020 16:14:53 GMT -5
SHU 86, Hoyas 68
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Post by ColumbiaHeightsHoya on Feb 3, 2020 14:49:51 GMT -5
Get creative here. Maybe have the creative writing dept. professor mock up a quick story about the kid and have Pat deliver it. I am pretty sure most schools won't go to that level of coordination between the athletic & academic depts.
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Post by ColumbiaHeightsHoya on Feb 3, 2020 14:28:08 GMT -5
Gotta junk the game up. Throw zone at them, throw a 3/4 court press at them, maybe hit 'em with Ighoefe vs. Muresan if Jamorko gets in foul trouble. We are desperate and need to reflect that in style of play.
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Post by ColumbiaHeightsHoya on Feb 3, 2020 9:12:03 GMT -5
What I am saying is that I wish Pickett had cold-cocked that punk. I said nothing about the result...but I will say that Kermit Washington being run out of the game for that play was and remains a disgrace. Fights happen in sports- it is part of the game. Yeah, so Kermit Washington played five more seasons and 261 games in the NBA after the 1977-78 season when the punch occurred ( en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kermit_Washington#NBA_career_statistics). Not sure how that equates to "being run out of the game". I honestly felt Pickett overreacted. It was a block out. Get him the next time down or give him a hard foul on a drive. Don't chase after him in the open court as we are making a run. We gave up four free throws on that and Jagan's brain fart. Can't do that as our margin of error is essentially zero when we are playing two walk-ons in the heat of the game.
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Post by ColumbiaHeightsHoya on Jan 31, 2020 13:49:12 GMT -5
Disagree, the name of the game is player development... Who knows who'll you'll get recruiting wise but if you can develop the players you do have then success will follow, that's the real key to Gonzaga, UVA & Nova... Player development helps your coaching and your future recruiting, it's the key for programs like Gtown... You aren't really disagreeing. Gonzaga, UVA, and Nova also have talented players. They aren't only getting a bunch of nobodies and developing them into 5 star players. You need talent to develop first. The talent has to be there. It starts with recruiting. Recruiting is also the evaluation phase of how well a kid will fit into the program, which also fits into the development of a player. To that end, when Ewing started everyone said you had to give him a pass in year one and I agreed with that. Year 2, he strung together a nice class but has subsequently lost 75% of that group so despite his wins for Akinjo, Carter, Leblanc & Mac, you only have Mac left. Year 3 should have been the year he started hitting home runs as everyone said we were front runners for Stewart (Washington), Cockburn (Illinois) because they either wore Pat's number or were Jamaican or some other reach. Bacot (UNC), Anthony (UNC), Baker (UT), Dixon (Nova), SHannon (Tx. Tech) were also kids we felt we had a shot at. We ended up with none of them. At the end of the day we didn't get those kids and we then fell back to a mad scramble to get two projects and Qudus who was rated 136. Qudus will be great for us and I think he is a better fit than many of those others because he will be with us for a longer stint than the kids who will bolt in one or two years. In our next class (year 4), we have two hopefully diamonds in the rough but neither are top 100 guards as well as a top 100 wing player. We have the 5th rated class in the big east in a year where we need a monster class. Schools like Nova barely have needs to fill so they almost don't count in this assessment. That year 2 miss is where all the angst resides because we needed a huge class, we got a huge class, but we couldn't hold the huge class. It is college basketballs Seinfeld car reservation episode's. The holding is the most important part. Now the question is how much do you forgive Ewing for what transpired and how much time does he get to correct the mistakes that occurred?
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Post by ColumbiaHeightsHoya on Jan 30, 2020 16:41:55 GMT -5
Played a couple times with a few players. The biggest grouping however was me, a friend, Othella, Arnette Jordan who was a walk on and we had one other, maybe John Jacques. We played against Don Reid, Duane Spencer, Irvin Church & two other players. We got up early with some surprising buckets by me and my friend and then the tide turned. I was guarding Spencer. He was every bit of 6'10, I am 6'4. Rebounds were hard to come by.
Also remember playing against Victor in a game. He was borderline unstoppable.
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Post by ColumbiaHeightsHoya on Jan 30, 2020 9:31:25 GMT -5
But I’ll give Ewing a reprieve on this set of circumstances and expect improvement next year and NCAA tournament results in 2022-23. Horrible to type that, but it’s my new norm. Three more years without the NCAA would make eight consecutive years out of the NCAA. The program isn't structured to absorb those kind of financial losses and reputational damage. JT III was out after missing the NCAA's two straight years, Craig Esherick was out after three. I question how patient the University would be with any coach in 2022 who's missed it five times. Agreed! Willard was on deaths door and got lucky otherwise he would have been out. My interest as a season ticket holder is definitely falling and of my group of 6 tickets divided between 3 of us, I could see the other two dropping out after this year. We have been together since '01. It is just hard to justify the cost & more importantly the time commitment to continually see a losing product. I bring a group of 80's hoyas fans to a game once a year as all are DC natives. We have been doing it for about 5 years. I think they have never witnessed a W.
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Post by ColumbiaHeightsHoya on Jan 29, 2020 14:38:01 GMT -5
The season has turned into a little bit of a dumpster fire, due to the manpower shortages engendered by the transfers of Akinjo/LeBlanc/Alexander/Gardner. We can debate how much of that lies at the feet of the coaching staff, including Patrick Ewing. However, I don't know how anyone can evaluate the coaching job presently being done, because there isn't any depth to this team. It's easy to criticize the coaching strategy when Sean McDermott is left open for uncontested three after uncontested three...but what alternatives did Ewing have when Pickett was unable to keep McDermott in check? It's also easy to assume that this team will continue to reside at the bottom of the Big East Conference standings next season. Things can also change dramatically if the incoming recruits can step right in and contribute in a positive manner. It is disconcerting that we are still waiting for things to improve. That being written, as hard as this may be for some on this board to believe, Georgetown basketball may never again approach the level of excellence to which we were accustomed, and indeed by which we were spoiled, in the 1980s and 1990s. This is as much a function of how the college basketball universe has been altered by the one-and-dones and the recruiting boundaries which are routinely abused by "rogue" programs (which shall remain nameless). Georgetown is not likely to follow the path of least resistance, and dive into the sludge-filled end of the recruiting pool. Maybe we, as program supporters, have to accept that the Hoya basketball program may not be well suited to continued participation at the highest level of competition. Is Gonzaga participating in the sludge-filled end of the recruiting pool? What about Nova, Butler, Xavier, Dayton? I think you are correct that the continued success may not be possible but a winner can be built in many ways. We just haven't had to run a true national coaching search so we don't know how to do it. I would speak to our peers at Butler, Xavier & Nova who have done a very good job at it. In the case of Butler & Xavier, they have done it time and again. They developed a young assistant who was there when other coaches bolted like Mack, Stevens, Matta, Lickliter, Holtman, Miller. That is not an accident, that is a program. There is no way any of our assistants meet that description. There is the problem.
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Post by ColumbiaHeightsHoya on Jan 28, 2020 9:07:38 GMT -5
Akinjo also led us to a first round loss against Harvard in the NIT his freshman year so I wouldn't worry about rankings too much. The key will be if he plays his game and within a defined role all while listening and taking coaching. This would be a big pick-up to solidify a core going forward.
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Post by ColumbiaHeightsHoya on Jan 24, 2020 16:48:01 GMT -5
THere was a recent article on Brad Underwood with Illinois. Talked about how he completely changed his system due to how the game was being played, reffed, etc. This is what JTIII didn't do in time. I think Pat will adapt (I pray and I am not religious). The best coaches design systems to highlight their teams strengths and shield their weaknesses. I really hope we can turn the corner and use some zone, match up 1/3/1, or any other junk just to throw teams off a bit.
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