mdtd
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Post by mdtd on Jan 9, 2020 19:43:02 GMT -5
Nova will expose the hard hedge and will run a lot of five out. Yurt is going to have to be on his game mobility wise. Nova runs Robinson-Earl a lot more than Cosby-Roundtree this year and he can stretch the floor and is not a bad rebounder or interior defender. They don't really have shot blocker or they really don't steal the ball too well, so driving lanes should open up. That's the key to this team. Open driving lanes and ball movement are hand in hand. I will probably say this for the rest of the season, as it's vital this season. Also, in this 9 game stretch, excluding the three low/mid-major opponents, the three-point shooting has been very different in wins and losses. It's around an average of 28% in losses and I remember it being in the 40's in wins (too lazy to do the calculation myself). Driving lanes should be open and the guys will need to be aggressive. This isn't the Jalen Brunson Nova teams, but it's still a really good basketball team. Their pace is 231st in the country which contrasts very much with our 29th. So the pace of play will be key.
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mdtd
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Post by mdtd on Jan 9, 2020 0:11:48 GMT -5
St Johns beat #17 West Virginia Beat #24 Arizona Lost by one to #6 Butler And lost by 8 to Xavier This is a quality team we beat Really? You watched the game and can say that with a straight face? Don’t think that SJU team will win more than 2 more games this season. They have no post presence whatsoever, are transitioning to Anderson’s defensive system without defensive-minded players, don’t shoot the ball, handle the ball or get to the rim well. Otherwise, yeah, they’re great. Honestly, I’d put them right there was some of DePaul’s worst groups as one of the most hapless Big East teams I’ve ever seen. They are horrific, maybe not quite as bad as they looked tonight, but a VERY poor team. I don't think they are this top 25 team by any means, but I will very confidently take them to win more than 2 more games. Very confident in that. Their NET is similar to ours and they had some good wins. They just didn't look great today and were outmatched. Very confident in that.
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mdtd
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Post by mdtd on Jan 8, 2020 23:49:23 GMT -5
Good game. The spacing was much better as Allen and Mosely were able to break the press pretty comfortably for most of the game. Because they were able to do this, the spacing was much better and these guards got St. John's into scramble mode. It worked very well and the ball movement clearly helped. Them being able to penetrate created thee opportunities for better ball movement. The second half to me felt too focused on slowing the game down and not really running any offense, at least the first about 8 minutes did. I still think 5 out sets would work much better with this team, but they really weren't needed in this one. Especially with the Yurtseven mismatch, it really worked out. This was a complete get right game. Hopefully, it continues but it's a tough opponent right ahead. St. John's just missing jump shots helped, and I'm not going to act like the defense was perfect by any means, but it clearly was on the scouting report to leave their shooters open. Good game plan and it worked really well. Also, Rasheem Dunn is very fast.
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mdtd
Golden Hoya (over 1000 posts)
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Post by mdtd on Jan 8, 2020 17:27:47 GMT -5
90-78 Hoyas
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mdtd
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Post by mdtd on Jan 8, 2020 14:18:04 GMT -5
So I also thought about the impact Galen and Myron leaving had but had a different theory. Yes I’m sure the things Dave said are true as well but the one thing that I think has changed the most was the lack of ball movement/selfishness on offense. The defense has been pretty steadily bad, it’s the offense that has gotten worse. I am wondering if having no fear of ever getting benched outside of foul trouble has guys doing whatever they want. It’s not just one guy. Ewing essentially can’t bench anyone for more than a couple minutes now unless he wants to put a walk on in. Either that or everyone thinks they have to do more with less guys when in theory all they needed to do was stay the course. I also think that the team had 0 expectations after JA and JL left. Everyone had written them off. They were big underdogs with nothing to lose so just go out there and have fun. Then the 3 wins over what people thought were good teams but really weren’t had to bring some level of expectations back. It will be interesting to see what happens now that expectations have been lowered. I think the main problem has been a lack of spacing on offense, leading to less ball movement, as I think the team shot better from deep in that run than they are capable of consistently maintaining. I think they can hit that number, but it's just not going to happen every game. The Hoyas shot 40.9% against Oklahoma State, 51.9% against SMU and 44% against Syracuse. This opened up more spacing on offense and allowed for Allen to operate better, and even create better looks from deep. Comparing this to 36.8% against Providence and 17.6% against Seton Hall, these guys just need more space. I think the lack of ball movement falls under the lack of spacing, because these guys can't really operate and Allen can't penetrate through the lane and create looks. Teams, like Seton Hall, were able to hug the lane and protect the paint, with minimal issues on getting out on shooters as the Hoyas just haven't hit them. Tired legs play a role in long range shots and if you aren't getting them going early teams can guard the paint more heavily and control the game. Now, I think the press from St. John's could play into our hands. If broken effectively, this team can get better looks and have better spacing with more open looks. This is also why I would like to see more five out since I think teams realize they'd have to at least respect Omer from out there and could create more angles for penetration from Allen and Mosely who could help to create shots. I think Omer always being down in the paint with the big man right next to him hurts our potential ball movement, especially if those bigs can defend like Watson, Holt, Obiagu and Gill can. And I 100% agree with the playing confident and with no expectation take. Mac was taking risky shots, Allen brought out his running hook, Mosely isn't super hesitant from deep now, Allen isn't afraid to shoot, etc. They played basketball freely and with nothing to lose, not thinking about every action, but just playing. They were able to play with confidence and the extra spark that they have to play and coach can't sub them out after one small mistake. I think that really helps as if guys feel they can make a smaller mistake, they are less likely to overthink plays and now they feel the expectation of being almost perfect and not making this mistake, when in reality they still can and it's better for this team to play riskier than really safe. Granted, I think Oklahoma State is a better team than the board here is giving them credit for (Likekele and Dziagwa missed most of the last few games and they played a really difficult schedule) but, they weren't this 7-0 top 25 team that they were at the time. I still think they are a tournament team, and their next few games are get right games and those guys should be back.
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mdtd
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Post by mdtd on Jan 7, 2020 21:43:23 GMT -5
Providence with a 3-0 BE start after a OT road win at Marquette. Totally saw that one coming. Just makes sense, doesn't it.
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mdtd
Golden Hoya (over 1000 posts)
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Post by mdtd on Jan 7, 2020 13:07:04 GMT -5
Shows how good every team in the conference is. The bottom of the big 10 really hurts it. Also, shows how much of a must-win tomorrow is. Also also, Hoyas are now 61 in the NET. This is a day old.
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mdtd
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Post by mdtd on Jan 7, 2020 12:25:10 GMT -5
This would seem to be the perfect team to experiment against. Why not play both Yurt and Wahab/Igohfe at the same time. Clog the lane and make them shoot threes. The two big lineups have not worked well in limited time. On offense, we lose a ton of spacing. On defense, we tried playing zone unsuccessfully w them vs. Providence. If we try to play man, the offense dictates where the bigs will be and it wont be in the lane, Wahab will have to chase outside or concede uncontested 3s. The reason bad 3 pt shooting teams magically shoot better against us is the quality of the shots they're getting. Given lack of depth we need to find a way to make this work for some amount of time, it just hasn't looked good yet and we have no luxury to experiment. We might see it but it will be out of necessity due to foul trouble i'd guess. Agreed. The offense needs much more spacing, not less. Mac and Allen need space to operate and get this offense going.
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mdtd
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Post by mdtd on Jan 6, 2020 16:50:37 GMT -5
He committed to TCU. We need some good news from somewhere, sigh.... Yep. Hopefully one of the Ivy League guys decides to come here. At least. I still think former Ivy League POY Seth Towns is someone the staff needs to look at. I think he could really help. These guys will help. Hopefully some good news comes soon.
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mdtd
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Post by mdtd on Jan 5, 2020 18:03:30 GMT -5
St. John's is not great offensively but does force TO's very well in their defense. They will press all game and make our ball handlers tired. Allen, Mosely, Blair, and Mac will have to be very strong with the ball and very smart. The aggressive style isn't only in the press however, as that style is constant in the half-court. Slashers will be doubled always with a hand swiping for the ball. Hence how Naji Marshall has 5 TO's just after half. He's their best offensive option and is scoring efficiently, but at the cost of the swiping hand in the half-court. They double and reach a ton. Playing at our pace and limiting TO's will be huge. St. Johns does make defensive mistakes, but you will have to avoid TO's to capitalize on that. If you play passively against St. John's, they will capitalize. Pat will also have to use TO's well. He can't let his guys get too tired and will need to save their energy in a full-court press, aggressive 40 minutes style.
TLDR: Be aggressive, limit TO's, play smart, and play at your pace. That's the way to beat St. John's.
EDIT: I also want to see more 5 out sets. I think it could really help this team. More open inside, more driving lanes and more lanes for open shooters. While Omer has not been great from three this year, none of his shots have been really bad. All looked solid off of his hand and he's shot it well before, at NC State. I think it could really help with this team.
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mdtd
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Post by mdtd on Jan 4, 2020 13:41:31 GMT -5
Another Ivy League player who'll be a grad transfer is Jordan Bruner from Yale. 6'9" averaging 12 points, 9 boards this season. Good call, I did not know he missed his sophomore season. Bruner looked really good inside against UNC and is someone who can play. He's also developing an outside shot and is more of a 4 at the BE level in my eyes. He can play inside like a small ball 5, which could work too. These Ivy League guys are going to be very good in other places. Hope Ewing can get at least one of them.
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mdtd
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Post by mdtd on Jan 4, 2020 13:37:57 GMT -5
The high screen can work as Yurt is a good enough shooter to make it work. The problem is we have a coach that wants his big to operate from the low block like it’s still the era of when he played. Look I have been as down on Yurt as many here but he’s clearly a skilled great college basketball player. He just isn’t the type of player Pat wants him to be. The same can be said for Govan who was terribly misused in this regard as well. The good thing about him though is he didn’t seem to listen to Ewing. As I said last year if you can’t figure out how to use a 41% 3Pt shooting 6’11 guy the problem isn’t the guy it’s the system. Yurtseven isn't a good enough shooter in my view... I agree about Govan though, he should have averaged 5 or 6 threes per game last season... I think he's good enough to where he could hit it open enough to where teams will have to step out on him. You could use that to your advantage in so many ways. I'd like to see the staff make that adjustment ASAP. That and the elimination of the hard hedge are the two most important for next week.
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mdtd
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Post by mdtd on Jan 4, 2020 13:06:49 GMT -5
I guess Pat didn’t want another Jessie. That said, he should definitely be taking threes if open in the flow of the offense. Or being able to stretch slower centers onto the perimeter opening driving lanes for the guards. Just being able to be in the high post or out on the three point line and having to be respected is enough to help significantly for this team. It opens lanes for Pickett, Mosely, Mac and Allen who need to drive to free up the offense. That's why I mentioned the smaller Pickett lineup earlier. Pickett was very good on the glass today. Defenses have to respect the 5 from deep and Pickett would take advantage of Gill or Obiagu from the outside. Only worry is defense, but Gill didn't have a move he went to.
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mdtd
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Post by mdtd on Jan 4, 2020 13:02:09 GMT -5
Few thoughts: Defense....lots of talk on here about the "hard hedge." When you play a team with a player like Powell and he gets a ball-screen, you have no choice but to hedge fairly hard, unless you can get over the screen consistently, which is hard to do. Otherwise he will be wide open for three after three. We plainly were trying to take him away from deep. Not a crazy plan! The key, of course, is that when you aren't playing a Powell, you can simply show quickly or even stay under it. We don't seem to grasp those sorts of nuances, though, because our fives hedge hard nearly all the time. And we need to. (We did adjust in the 2H last night...but it was too late.) Offense....lots of talk on here about selfish play and ball movement, but ball movement requires someone to force help before swinging the ball. Just passing to covered players doesn't accomplish much....particularly when 60% of our perimeter rotation (Blair, Mosely, Pickett) can't create his own shot basically ever. So unless Mac or Allen can beat his man and dish...or Yurt can draw a double and pass, there ain't gonna be any effective ball movement. I don't care what you run or scheme. Well, SH didn't need to double Yurt. So that left Mac and Allen....but teams have figured out that you just don't help onto Allen. Basically, we need Yurt to dominate and/or Mac to attack efficiently and score or dish to have a reasonable chance against a good team. Sure, the other guys can surprise with a great game, but it's unlikely. Their contributions mainly will come because Yurt and Mac have dominated and forced help. Yurt struggles with length and size....but his fadeaway jumper is a good tonic against that. I disagree with Elmore (and some on the board) on that. It's not particularly defensible, even by size. We just need it to go in. Look, SH is a very good team. Second best team we have played (Duke). I think each of the next three are better matchups for us. Need to win two of them....and really need to beat StJ. The hard hedge has been a defensive principle since Ewing got here, and it was mainly used when the ball handler, McKnight was playing. It's not Powell specific. Even so, Yurt shouldn't hard hedge, as you can get around that and hit a three, since Powell is faster. Or, he could split and since the screen is high enough on the floor, he could still get a three. Rather than him staying roughly where Powell wants to get to in a soft hedge, it would work better. If Powell hits threes from 30ft out, so what. But Cale being open on the wing, is a problem. Cale is the guy you can't leave. You can leave basically everyone else, but not Cale or Powell. Also, I think Pickett can create enough of his own shot (like his post fadeaway over smaller, not as long defenders, or rise over players for jumpers, just not a great ball handler) to be sustainable. The players just weren't great and both forced and missed shots. They could've hit some of the shots they missed, but others were forced, 5% shots. Mosely can slash enough to where the set could work, he just didn't. I'd rather Mosely take it to the lane and force a bad layup once or twice to let people know that he can do that. He's not scared. But in general, they just haven't created anything for themselves, aside from Pickett's fade. And Yurt has done nothing against good defense. His fade works sometimes, when he gets in the right position. When bigger guys get him out of position, it doesn't go in.
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mdtd
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Post by mdtd on Jan 4, 2020 0:18:07 GMT -5
I think the effort was there but he was just freaked out playing against a bigger guy. Every time he touched the ball he hesitated or resorted to making himself small by falling away. Far and away his worst game as a Hoya. His defensive effort after early first ha;f says otherwise to me. I saw so many plays with him walking and not focused. I hate the hard hedge as much as, if not more than the next guy, but he didn't do the system any favors. Plus, he took shots as if it was a shoot around at points. He wasn't moving the ball and wasn't focused. He was just jogging up to the free throw line and not moving on both sides of the ball. I was really upset with his performance tonight. I think people have been too harsh on him at times but tonight, it's incredibly hard not to be. He was atrocious.
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mdtd
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Post by mdtd on Jan 4, 2020 0:12:34 GMT -5
40 Minutes of Hell. The last thing this team needs. Allen needs to be smart and able to break that press. Press, press, press and run and gun. We will have to be conditioned and really ready for this one. St. John's attacks the paint relentlessly and does not stop pressing. Roberts plays about 1/2 the game and is the real guy of size St. John's has. After today's performance, dare I say Yurt should have a good game. If Allen can play as he did against Oklahoma State, SMU and Syracuse, this is a very good matchup for the Hoyas. It's at a similar pace that the Hoyas want to run and the size matchups are not bad at any position.
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mdtd
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Post by mdtd on Jan 4, 2020 0:06:16 GMT -5
To emphasize how horrible Yurtseven was tonight, the last offensive possession the Hoyas had was attempting to give him the ball. However, he was outmuscled by 6'2" Shavar Reynolds. He was lazy on defense and horrible on offense. I understood the matchup was bad, but he was nothing short of terrible. This is by far his worst game and he needs to step up. He was soft, walking multiple times on defense leading to easy layups, not actually executing the hard hedge well (which if done well is bad enough against a good coach with good shooters), not getting good position inside, not allowing for driving lanes and spreading out, not rebounding well, only fading away, forcing multiple bad shots, not moving the ball well at all and just generally out of place against a quality defender. He was awful. Not the reason we lost but was easily the most frustrating piece in my eyes. I've accepted the hard hedge (which actually was sort of abandoned in the second half, to solid results, but too little too late). It's just bad. Nobody was really good tonight. Mac, Mosely, and Pickett were fine, but nobody played well. Horrible game and with an upstart St. John's team up next, it's hard to be optimistic. I totally agree and I think part of this has to be the minutes Yurt must play right now. Unfortunately, the minutes have increased while the physical competition has gone way up. He needs to adjust, and Wahab is probably going to have to step up as well and share the pain. Tim may have to shoulder the burden a bit too. I just do not see Yurt getting through a full BE season of 30 min games defending and taking on the biggest guys in the BE. This is may be more game specific for the next one, but with how fast and relatively small St. John's is, but a lineup with Pickett running the 5 in a 5 out set may not be the worst idea for roughly 3 minutes a game. Could've worked here and exposed how slow Gill is on his feet. In a game like this, some experimentation may not be the worst thing to come out of it.
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mdtd
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Post by mdtd on Jan 4, 2020 0:03:07 GMT -5
You can see the physicality of the BE is giving him problems.. He needs to realize he’s not in the ACC any more. One of the problems I heard about Yurt was his tendency to become soft against guys like that. The one example that was brought up to me was the NCAA tournament game vs.coincidentally Seton Hall and Angel Delgado. Now, I thought that Delgado makes everybody look soft so I shrugged it off more than I should've.
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mdtd
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Post by mdtd on Jan 4, 2020 0:00:16 GMT -5
It looks like a lot of people need to rewatch the game. To say it wasn't Moseley Mosely shutting down Powell most of the game is ridiculous. It wasn't Allen as he was busy overhelping and getting torched by Cale in the 1st half. He only switched on to Powell when Moseley Mosely was out of the game. The one move that I seriously questioned was pulling Pickett when we got the lead down to 11. We were getting hot in offense but we were really disruptive on defense. I believe they hit their next 5 shots including Powell's run when he went to the bench. The over helping is apart of the hard hedge. It's not his fault the scheme is set up that way and the centers weren't active in getting back on there man. Granted, Cale and Powell are the two you don't leave, but I don't blame Allen. Allen guarded Powell for I'd say about 4 minutes and was solid. But, I agree that Mosely did most of the work. I also slightly questioned pulling Pickett, though I thought Seton Hall had a smaller lineup out there, so he could've wanted to rest him for a minute or so. They missed one shot, from what I recall, and Yurt missed the bunny. And I remember this play way too well. When Seton Hall is in transition, you find #13. Powell immediately gets the ball and gets to the hole. I think the reason hat Blair was in over Pickett was to try to get Blair a quick look to give the team a jolt and push it to 8. Plus, Blair being faster enabled more transition opportunities in hope for a quick basket. What confuses me is if this is the case, why did Yurt get the ball in the post? I think Blair was the one who threw it to him too. Blair usually makes the entry pass from the right wing when he's in and it seems the play was designed for Yurt because that's what I remember happening.
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mdtd
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Post by mdtd on Jan 3, 2020 23:47:32 GMT -5
To emphasize how horrible Yurtseven was tonight, the last offensive possession the Hoyas had was attempting to give him the ball. However, he was outmuscled by 6'2" Shavar Reynolds. He was lazy on defense and horrible on offense. I understood the matchup was bad, but he was nothing short of terrible. This is by far his worst game and he needs to step up. He was soft, walking multiple times on defense leading to easy layups, not actually executing the hard hedge well (which if done well is bad enough against a good coach with good shooters), not getting good position inside, not allowing for driving lanes and spreading out, not rebounding well, only fading away, forcing multiple bad shots, not moving the ball well at all and just generally out of place against a quality defender. He was awful. Not the reason we lost but was easily the most frustrating piece in my eyes. I've accepted the hard hedge (which actually was sort of abandoned in the second half, to solid results, but too little too late). It's just bad. Nobody was really good tonight. Mac, Mosely, and Pickett were fine, but nobody played well. Horrible game and with an upstart St. John's team up next, it's hard to be optimistic.
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