iowa80
Golden Hoya (over 1000 posts)
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Post by iowa80 on Jan 10, 2024 16:11:32 GMT -5
Sorry to the White Hair Hoya Caucus at the strategic seats and the Friends&Family behind our team's bench, but we need this: Baylor has a student section strategically placed behind the team benches and facing the camera, curling around to each baseline as well.Recruits compare and contrast. Apology accepted from a White Hair. The issue is as much about the fact of empty seats in the areas to which you refer, in addition to the matter of their occupants. It's my impression the the University "controls" a good number of the seats behind the bench and along the baseline, but I could be wrong.
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iowa80
Golden Hoya (over 1000 posts)
Posts: 2,398
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Post by iowa80 on Jan 10, 2024 16:03:19 GMT -5
One stat I did not include in my previous post is how do we do when Massoud/Cook are on the floor versus off? Before people jump on me, I realize on/off stats have their weaknesses (notably, performance depends on who you are playing with and who you are playing against), but I still think they can be instructive, particularly when you see trends after a while: The stats following are: (1) Plus/Minus, (2) O Rating, (3) D rating, (4) Net Between O and D Rating: Massoud/Cook On The Floor (192 minutes played): -30, 101.7, 115.5, -9.8 Massoud/Cook Both Off The Floor (92 minutes played): +27, 109.7, 93.2, +16.6 Massoud On/Cook Off (108 minutes played): -15, 95.6, 104.1, -8.5 Massoud Off/Cook Con: (257 minutes played)*: +18, 117.0, 112.8, +4.2 The stats and eye test are clear--we are a better team (sometimes significantly so) with Massoud on the bench. Our best lineups tend to be when both Cook and Massoud are off, but even the Cook lineups with Massoud are a net positive. * Part of the reason there are so many minutes played with Cook but not Massoud is Massoud's injury. So, I wouldn't read much into that going forward. In fact, in conference games, this is the minutes breakdown: Massoud/Cook On The Floor (80 minutes played) Massoud/Cook Both Off The Floor (17 minutes played) Massoud On/Cook Off (54 minutes played) Massoud Off/Cook Con: (49 minutes played) Bottom line: Cooley is playing Massoud way too much. Sorry if I missed the source. Is this KenPom stuff?
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iowa80
Golden Hoya (over 1000 posts)
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Post by iowa80 on Jan 10, 2024 2:20:16 GMT -5
Jerry Carino, the Seton hall beat reporter for the Asbury Park Press, said that there were 2,000 in the building. Either way, Capital One Arena is the loneliest Big East arena this side of Chicago. DePaul reported 3,061 for its home game tonight with Creighton, which by prior DePaul counting standards was probably 1,000. Yeah, I'm calling BS on this misinformation. I've been to a large number of sparsely attended Hoyas games over the last few years and this one was better than average by a pretty big margin. It was a late arriving crowd sure, but by halftime the numbers were decent and far above 2000. And for those of you constantly harpring about the crowds, why don't you come and join us instead of uselessly whining about it. Truth. If you aren’t there, you don’t know.
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iowa80
Golden Hoya (over 1000 posts)
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Post by iowa80 on Jan 9, 2024 23:20:13 GMT -5
Seton Hall: 5,577, 6:30 PM, January 9, 2024 - Tuesday I didn't brave the wind and rain tonight so I can't comment on the arena's vibe. From TV it looked like the crowd got into once the Hoyas made it a close game. It looked like there was a good student section turnout. They have to stop scheduling these Tuesday games. It's a nonstarter for a team that doesn't play on campus. What would that attendance number look like if they didn't give away free tickets to students tonight? I thought the arena would be abandoned due to the bad weather, but it wasn't too ooo bad. And the fans and students that showed up were great. Good crowd vibe, especially considering this team played one of the roughest games I've experienced as a fan just a few days ago. All who attended and were a big part of some significant noise throughout the game have my congrats. I do not know how many were there, obviously, but it was loud in the right places.
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iowa80
Golden Hoya (over 1000 posts)
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Post by iowa80 on Jan 9, 2024 22:24:52 GMT -5
I understand we have a lot of deficiencies in certain areas, but Cooley had a horrific final 3 minutes there. Didn't look like we had a plan on offense at all instead of dribbling 20 seconds off the clock with 0 movement and being unable to even make a simple first pass to start a play. Subbing in a cold and ineffective Massoud and putting him in a position where has to put the ball on the floor had disaster written all over it. Not denying the inbounds twice to a 93% FT shooter or at the very least trapping him to force him to give it up tells me either it wasn't in the scouting report or that we weren't prepared to execute it. Neither is good. Can't keep giving away games like this. Not asking for the world at the snap of a finger here but you gotta show some tangible results and evidence of progress at some point. Completely agree - we had a 3 point lead with under 3 minutes to play, and a series of ghastly turnovers and one-man-show offensive sets then handed the game to Seton Hall. Cooley is being paid to win games like this - an undermanned team (that did not come out ready to play in any way shape or form) battled back to take the lead against a good team, and then completely collapsed in the final 2 minutes. That's on the coach. Disappointing. I guess Cooley gets no credit for the fact that they "battled back" after an awful start. The fact of the matter is that his decision to go with Bristol, especially on D, helped to turn the game around. And I'm unclear how boneheaded turnovers and a foolish charge are on the coach. I understand that whining about the refs is the loser's cry, but the foul call on Dawes in the lane with our three point lead (clearly all ball) may well have decided the game.
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iowa80
Golden Hoya (over 1000 posts)
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Post by iowa80 on Jan 9, 2024 15:05:01 GMT -5
Hoyas 82 Pirated 80
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iowa80
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Posts: 2,398
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Post by iowa80 on Jan 6, 2024 20:55:37 GMT -5
Our best all purpose five:
Cook Fielder Massoud Styles Epps
A bit of a 6th man tossup B/W Massoud & Brumbaugh depending on matchup.
There's ball handling issues there, but it's our best "in the paint" lineup. Coach appears to not want much of Fielder/Cook together for depth purposes.
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iowa80
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Post by iowa80 on Jan 5, 2024 21:00:50 GMT -5
reprinting this from Hilltop Hoops in the hopes that it may allow any non-myopic obsessives to relax and enjoy this season: Mostly agree on much of what these comments say about where we are as a team and program. What always makes me laugh is that we all acknowledge what led up to where we are, but the harshest critics expect much better much sooner. Either you buy into the Build and Cooley's solid history of resurrecting programs -- and understand that it will require real patience because it will not be this year or next year but probably in his third year that we are a kick ass Hoya team and program again -- or you go believe your own invented, impractical narrative and beat your head against the wall in frustration and petty bitterness. It ain't happening this year. Cooley has said it all along. Be o.k. with it. Enjoy knowing a few years from now when we are winning more than losing that you were supporting the team back when they were crawling out of the ruins. We are not good this year. Most of us accept that Cooley adopted a program smoldering in the ashes and had real disadvantages in recruiting. He patched together a roster -- and, yes, we can nitpick that he tried for players who were not going to come here (thinking Spencer and Dickinson) and that every move wasn't optimal -- but no one could have realistically expected him to stack the team with 3 & 4 stars this year. This is who we are. Something to build on? Yes. Something to add a very strong recruiting bunch next year? Absolutely. I'm excited about the 24-25 possibilities and even more about 25-26. But I am getting to as many games now and enjoying a solid bunch of young men who are not everything we hoped for but who are putting on the Hoya jersey and playing hard every game (o.k., with a few lapses here & there -- it's to be expected, right?). We'll be crying for easy, cheap seats soon enough -- get to COA and enjoy yourself. GO HOYAS! What's to enjoy? I support Cooley, but the early indications are that this team will not even be competitive in the vast majority of its Big East games. I certainly had hoped for better than that. This is a beginning, not the long drawn-out end that we were subjected to in the last couple of years. It's the nature of fandom to hope for better, and I did as well. But, coming from the depths of college basketball, I'm good with signs for hope at this point. And that can be in the eye of the beholder.
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iowa80
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Post by iowa80 on Jan 3, 2024 20:09:21 GMT -5
Sorry for being overly literal, but I took "looks worse" to mean " looks worse," and was not considering justification by "advanced metrics" 14 games into season one of the Cooley era with an almost entirely new team when Pat had five years to put a team together. We'll agree to disagree. Ok, here’s a simple one for the eye test then. The rebounding, particularly the amount of offensive rebounds this team gives up, whether the opponent is American or Creighton, somehow looks worse than the end of the Ewing era. I won't argue with that--to an extent because I've blocked out most of my visuals from the Ewing era with the assistance of psychotherapy and hypnosis. There's no doubt we are very challenged anywhere near the paint.
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iowa80
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Post by iowa80 on Jan 3, 2024 19:30:04 GMT -5
I was one of those who was rooting for the Hoyas to hire Pitino, in large part because I was VERY worried only a quick turnaround could save the program from permanent irrelevance and a little because I thought Cooley would never leave PC and the administration would end up taking a flyer on an unproven coach. But after Cooley was indeed hired, he gave an all-world introductory press conference and he then persuaded Sidwell's Caleb Williams to come here (forsaking Michigan, where several DMV stars have gone recently, and Villanova, where two Sidwell alums went, both of whom then graduated to The League), Drew McKenna (quasi-local), and Thomas Sorber (just down I-95), I decided the hire was a good one and we hadn't so destroyed the name that we could rebuild over a slightly longer time. Between us, several of my seatmates and I have more than 175 years as season ticket holders, and ALL of us were gonna bail if what we perceived as a huge step forward and out of the past on the bench wasn't made. And we are all back this year, and knowing better days are ahead, in which Cooley mines the locals all the more (his main asst. Ivan Thomas was head coach for several years at the high school formerly known as TC Williams and coached a high-level AAU program too) and takes his share of blame for losses -- unlike the former regime, which seemed incapable not only of winning but seeing there was an issue and/or how to fix it. So I grin and bear it this year as the current staff builds a roster, a culture and a program. That's where I am. In addition to being pretty baffled by the degree of impatience somewhat in evidence here.
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iowa80
Golden Hoya (over 1000 posts)
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Post by iowa80 on Jan 3, 2024 18:20:59 GMT -5
Not that we don't have enough issues regardless, but this team just can't catch a break. And the multi-million $ coach with the multi-million $ program chose to go into the season with 9 scholarship players (should have seen Akok leaving when the rumors were going around and planned for it). Negligible. I don't care if the top transfer players didn't want to come here because GU has been mismanaged for the last decade. There were hundreds of players in the portal. We just needed three grads/seniors with big cojones who wanted to come to this unique place with a great educational reputation. As for the "fit" excuse, we only had three returning players and it was always going to be an issue. Serious question: do you think that you have enough knowledge of the inner workings of the program to put this on Cooley (that's my reading anyway)? What does "chose" mean anyway? If I may reinterpret, it appears to me that you're saying Cooley was essentially negligent in compiling this roster from the absolute depths of the college basketball world.. Correct?
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iowa80
Golden Hoya (over 1000 posts)
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Post by iowa80 on Jan 3, 2024 17:21:44 GMT -5
Yes. Seriously. By advanced metrics, this team is currently worse than all of Pat’s teams besides last year’s and will get that final rating confirmed once BE play is over: barttorvik.com/team-history.php?team=GeorgetownHoly Cross (currently 353 in KenPom!) is a worse loss than anything Pat put up.
This is unquestionably true. Ed Cooley's home defeat to Holy Cross will probably go down as the worst loss in modern Georgetown basketball history. I'd challenge anybody to come up with a worse one since 1980. And just think how long you can dine out on that loss. I think you owe Cooley one since it's undoubtedly on him.
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iowa80
Golden Hoya (over 1000 posts)
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Post by iowa80 on Jan 3, 2024 17:19:57 GMT -5
Yes. Seriously. By advanced metrics, this team is currently worse than all of Pat’s teams besides last year’s and will get that final rating confirmed once BE play is over: barttorvik.com/team-history.php?team=GeorgetownHoly Cross (currently 353 in KenPom!) is a worse loss than anything Pat put up. Sorry for being overly literal, but I took "looks worse" to mean " looks worse," and was not considering justification by "advanced metrics" 14 games into season one of the Cooley era with an almost entirely new team when Pat had five years to put a team together. We'll agree to disagree.
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iowa80
Golden Hoya (over 1000 posts)
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Post by iowa80 on Jan 3, 2024 15:45:22 GMT -5
Hoyas 77 Demons 72
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iowa80
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Post by iowa80 on Jan 3, 2024 15:23:54 GMT -5
Thanks for the bromides Casual. Basketball is just that simple, right?
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iowa80
Golden Hoya (over 1000 posts)
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Post by iowa80 on Jan 3, 2024 15:22:38 GMT -5
This team looks worse than any of the teams in the Pat era. Seriously?
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iowa80
Golden Hoya (over 1000 posts)
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Post by iowa80 on Jan 3, 2024 14:49:46 GMT -5
We did not look good. At all. Excuse time— the team is not talented enough to lose someone like Epps and not feel it big time. He has some issues but making shots isn’t usually one of them. It’s games like this that tell us who we can build around, and tonight that was clearly Rowan and, to a lesser extent, Fielder. We need better talent than Rowan and Fielder in the future. I would hesitate to make that judgement. They are hardly a semester into their playing careers.
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iowa80
Golden Hoya (over 1000 posts)
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Post by iowa80 on Jan 3, 2024 11:14:31 GMT -5
In the press conference, Cooley mentioned that everyone needs to be patient and the transition won't happen overnight. I think this is Cooley's way of acknowledging (without saying it) that our team has severe talent deficiencies and that we aren't going to very good this year. Someone did ask him about the fact that he never had a team at Providence this bad defensively, and Cooley said that was one of the most frustrating things he's been dealing with and that it needs to get better. I question whether we have the personnel to play a consistently good man-to-man, and perhaps that’s where the Coach was going. The perimeter defense was slow to react last night in the second half, and, unfortunately, we’ve seen this movie before.
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iowa80
Golden Hoya (over 1000 posts)
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Post by iowa80 on Jan 3, 2024 0:00:51 GMT -5
1.58 points per possession in 2nd half for Creighton. Ouch.
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iowa80
Golden Hoya (over 1000 posts)
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Post by iowa80 on Jan 2, 2024 22:14:54 GMT -5
I thought we looked awful tonight. Perhaps good shooting would give us a chance in some games, but it’s pretty clear from the games I have watched that we are not a good shooting team. We had a drought of almost 7 minutes in the first half and followed it up with a drought of around 5 minutes in the second. This team doesn’t seem to have any identity that’s capable of winning games. That being said, it’ll be interesting to see what we do with teams like DePaul. As bad as things have been, if we start to look competent and better than the bottom of this league, that at least would be progress. We did not look good. At all. Excuse time— the team is not talented enough to lose someone like Epps and not feel it big time. He has some issues but making shots isn’t usually one of them. It’s games like this that tell us who we can build around, and tonight that was clearly Rowan and, to a lesser extent, Fielder.
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