stats tell the story

[Eurostar]

so illinois made 28 shots... 20 assists and 21 layups or dunks.
this totally explained what happened tonight. one of their guards would blow by ashanti / wallace / dj or whoever on the perimeter, causing bowman or green to leave his man down low to pick up the penetrating guard. so his man would be wide open underneath, fed the ball, and lay it in. our biggest problem was stopping dribble penetration, and thats why reed got so many minutes because he IS fast. though he was getting burned just as much as the rest.

one thing i didnt like was green sitting for 12 minutes in the first half with 2 fouls. i posted this in another thread but got no response.. id like to hear what yall think about it. i think in a game like this when you have such a small chance of winning, you need to go all out. maybe if we are playing penn state or temple, you sit green down for 12 minutes to play conservatively. but against the #1 team in the country i think you basically need everything to go right in order to have a shot at winning. this means taking your chance with greens fouls. refs werent calling a ridiculous amount of fouls, so chances of him fouling out were small. he ended with 3 fouls. granted, we were ahead by 5 when he went out of the game, but i feel he should have come back in at about the 5 minute mark because you KNEW illinois was going to make a run at the end of the half. would the 14-2 run at the end of the half have happened if jeff was in there? i doubt it.

[EasyEd]

Hindsight is so great on whether or not Green should have been sitting with two fouls. In fact, until the very end of the first half it was working great as we had a 5 point lead with 5 or 6 minutes to play in the half.

[SFHoya99]

While I don't disagree with your assessments completely, I'm laying off questioning the coach. I criticized Esherick only after it was apparent he couldn't coach successfully at this level.

But everything I've seen from Thompson says he can. Though we were hindered by Illinois' talent, there was an offense last night. We had plays designed to get open shots and drives to the hoop.

There are a couple of things I'd normally question: Green's minutes, as you mentioned; and the defensive choice to pressure their guards out past the 3 pt line.

But for the first time in five years, I'm pretty sure our coach knows more than me, so I'm just happy to see us play well and improve over the course of the year.

[Joe Hoya]

SFHoya99 said:

Esherick

I guess CAHoya just applied for a gun permit. Alas, we knew him well.

[HoyaNyr320]

I also questioned why Ashanti and Wallce were sat down for fairly long stretches. I mean even if he was getting beat defensively, he made two fade-away jump shots and obviously had the shooting touch. It's hard to figure out whether some of the long stretches on the bench (other than Green's) were due to poor shot selection, not running the offense right or just trying to rotate the guards in order to keep everyone well rested enough to keep up w/ Illinois. Although I definitely trust JTIII's judgement, I'm wondering what everyone else thinks about his reasoning behind sitting Ashanti for 6-7 minutes in the second half and Wallace for about the same amount of time.

I also agree with the "less is more" mentality with Ray Reed. Don't really want to see him in Big East play unless its against Rutgers and we're up 20 or if he decides to play within the offense.

[MEGAFAN]

I'm not going to start second-guessing JT III at this point, and I understand that in a game that we have very little chance at winning, he may want to get some more PT for players such as Ray Ray, who is perhaps our quickest guard. However, I do agree with your observation, and I also didn't like seeing Cook (who played relatively well) sit for so long, especially when Wallace was also not in the game. For the most part, I think that Wallace should run the point, and if he's out, Cook (and possibly Owens) should be the other options. Quite frankly, while I'm not going to right off Ray Ray for the rest of his career, I don't feel very comfortable with him at the 1, let alone the 2 spot.

Furthermore, I am pretty sure that there was a decent amount of time with both no Hibbert and no Green - am I imagining this, or was this the case for a good 5 minutes of game time?

Of course, I know that there is a method to the madness, but I definitely feel that these are valid questions... Of course, that doesn't mean that the coach needs to explain himself to us - as he knows better what to do with the players he has than any of us!

GO HOYAS!!!

[HOYAPLAYA]

I think Green sitting the rest of the half was more about giving the team a chance to win than panicking and risking getting blown out of the gym. I don't know for sure but I think as long as we stayed in the game (being down by 7 at halftime is still in the game) that Green wasn't coming back in. The closer you get to the half, the dumber it is to try to sneak in minutes and risk the 3rd foul. There also is a big difference in your ability to play defense when you have someone who is in foul trouble early. I think JT III realized that the #1 team in the country would have gone right at Green had he reinserted him into the lineup. Green was able to play most, if not all, of the second half which was essential if we were to have a shot of winning this game. I'm not sure playing Green more in the first half wouldn't have increased the deficit at the end of the game. If we don't have him in the second half or if he has to play cautious, then we may have lost by 30.

[StPetersburgHoya (Inactive)]

I think the reason that Ahanti was pulled was because the shot selection was terrible. What happened to the Ashanti Cook that drove the ball to the basket under control in the BE tournament in 2004? JTIII sat him because the point of the offense is to be patient but still be aggressive and take advantage of the ball movement - Ashanti seemed to be more interested in running off 34 seconds and then taking a low percentage shot. I think that's why he got pulled. I agree with the above analysis that putting Green back in the game would have just let IU drive the ball at him.

I don't want to second guess JTIII, but was there a reason that Roy came out of the game in the 1st half in favor Diaw? Is Roy simply not that well conditioned to play a full 10 minutes?

[TrueHoyaBlue]

As far as PT, I noticed Wallace being shuttled in and out every couple minutes from early in the second half. My sense from watching his body language and that of Coach, was that Jon was getting pretty winded. It's somewhat tough to remember, especially with the poise that Wallace shows, that he was just playing in his fifth college game, and that this was most definitely the toughest (particularly) defensive challenge of his young career.

I really think that the only reason he sat for those stretches of the second have was because they were trying to make sure to conserve as much of the little gas that was left in his tank.

[Deleted]

Wallace was getting winded because he was chasing Dee Brown all over the court. That dude is fast....

[Eurostar]

im not really questioning jt3's decision, because you could make a case (as people have on this thread) that green needs to sit out the rest of the half. i guess my question goes more to the mentality of playing this type of game. apparently, 3 had the players convinced that we could win this game, as seen by bowmans comments about there being no moral victories. as a competitor you need this attitude or else you shouldnt even be playing, but realistically they win this matchup 90% of the time.

in this situation, you need almost everything to go right in order to pull out a victory. this means taking chances, high risk but high reward. i think you steal some minutes with jeff on the bench to calm him down a bit, but then you get him in there for the last 5 minutes of the half. its not really hindsight because my friends and i were saying it as it was happening. there was a timeout at around the 5 minute mark and i said jeff needed to get back in there because illinois was about to go on a run. look at the colts / tennessee game last week. tenn goes for 3 onside kicks in the first half because they knew they couldnt compete with the colts without going for it all and catching some breaks. it worked because they recovered 2/3 of them and scored 24 points in the first quarter.

also, ashanti had a tough night on D and thats why he was sitting. we could have layed off them a bit and played a more compact man or a zone, but when we did that they bombed 3's. theres really no answer to their guard play.. i mean they are the best and quickest backcourt in the country.