Post by HoyaSpirit on Mar 1, 2008 17:35:47 GMT -5
We have a 7’2” All-American center who is very strong offensively (who shoots 60% to 65%) who is basically ignored by teammates for large parts of most games and only is given an average of 8 shots a game. Simple as that.
We won the game today mostly because of luck (J Wallace gets fouled twice on 3 pointers in the final minutes, they have a horrible time from the stripe, we get some bounces our way, etc.) and we underplay to our team ability most games. We generally do fairly poorly against top 20 teams, and against teams in the top 20-60 we also do poorly compared to what we ought to. We should beat most teams who are 20-60 by a decent margin yet most times it comes down to the final minute and is within a few points. If Hibbert is used, we have the talent to be a top 5 team. A very small percentage of games has that been the case. The result is that we probably deserve to be ranked around #12. If it weren’t for a couple of close call wins that could have gone either way depending on luck, we could easily be ranked down around 20.
My Dad pointed out that our guards most of the time ignore Roy. And when they do bother to look, they think about passing in on their terms - when they feel ready to look for a pass. A guard needs to be looking for when the center makes the move to pass, they need to be ready to pass it, not just glance every now and then.
I am really not optimistic the Hoyas are going to change their ways. Reasons:
a) We’ve done it like this all season with Roy
b) We did it like that last season with him
c) JT3 I’m starting to think will not adapt his game to have Roy get shots. He’s been trained in the Princeton offense which has guys take outside shots and do backdoor cuts. Perhaps he doesn’t know how to have Roy get 25 points per game or just refuses to. This last one is a mystery because it’s not that hard to learn to pass.
d) just about every announcer has pointed out the problem we have with this, so it must have been passed onto the team and coaches by family members, friends or random fans (?). I figured for sure it would be fixed by now.
We have a mismatch almost every game and fail to utilize it. A high quality team will win a game on a mismatch (in the NBA they’ll win 4 games in a row in the playoffs if you don’t figure out how to stop them on it). We don’t even do it for 20 minutes of 1 game.
This game serves classic examples - 1 minute into the 2nd half they get their 3rd foul on their center, who sits and their other center has 2 fouls. The announcer states - “Georgetown I think will get the ball to Roy Hibbert intentionally to take advantage of this situation - to draw more fouls on Mbake and get points.”
But no. We heave a 3 the first time down. The next time a guard drives in traffic and turns it over. They get a fast break and Roy has to foul Mbake to prevent a shot. The opposite of what we want. Crazy. For the next 3 minutes - Roy doesn’t get a single shot. When he does next, it’s a 3 point play with a foul on Mbake to tie the game.
So at this point you now realize the mismatch and work it to go up by 5-10 points? No, we stop going to him again for six minutes and we go down by 9. Summers heaves a 3. Wallace drives wide left and heaves an off balance shot. Crazy. Crazy.
We call a time out and you figure out of the time out we will get the highest percentage shot through Roy. He posts up. A guard has it 8 feet from him and ignores him and decides to heave a cross court pass over the defense to a guy whos barely open on the other side, he catches it out of bounds and we turn the ball over. Triple crazy.
I would rather watch a Hoya squad with #20 level talent play as if they were 20, than a team with top 5 talent underperform at the level of #1 - especially when the fix would be easy enough. I would take a lower ranking than to see us waste talent so aimlessly.
Another example: how many fouls did we end up drawing on their center Barros in the remainder of the 2nd half through getting it to Roy? Zero. He fouled out through an offensive on PE jr and a foul on a PE jr drive. If we had gotten the ball to Roy more he should have fouled out with 7 minutes left instead of 3.
Roy should have scored 30 points in regulation in a game like this and put 1-2 of their guys out of the game. Either that or gotten us really open 3s. Not J Wallace (who I like) luckily banking a 3 with time running out.
Roy works very hard establishing position in the post - harder than probably 90% of centers and gets little reward - a paltry 8 shots per game. This is a coaching problem - Thompson needs to train the guards (both in practice and in games, including sitting guys if needed) to get him the ball consistently until he has 12-16 shots per game. As long as he is not first or second in total shots (currently four other guys take more shots than him - meaning he's 5th), we have a very small chance of a championship and are not a top 10 squad.
Besides the fact we lose extra points each game by not having a 60-65% shooter get more shots, it means other guys get fewer open looks b/c when Roy gets the pass and the double, we get open looks. It also means fewer boards as Roy ends up out at the 3 line because he's ignored and can only get it out there.
It also means that instead of having an open guy (i.e. 4 on 3) when they double Roy, that when he comes out to 3, we're not even 5 on 5 at that point, it becomes 4 on 5 because Roy's guy is way off him ready to help others.
We won the game today mostly because of luck (J Wallace gets fouled twice on 3 pointers in the final minutes, they have a horrible time from the stripe, we get some bounces our way, etc.) and we underplay to our team ability most games. We generally do fairly poorly against top 20 teams, and against teams in the top 20-60 we also do poorly compared to what we ought to. We should beat most teams who are 20-60 by a decent margin yet most times it comes down to the final minute and is within a few points. If Hibbert is used, we have the talent to be a top 5 team. A very small percentage of games has that been the case. The result is that we probably deserve to be ranked around #12. If it weren’t for a couple of close call wins that could have gone either way depending on luck, we could easily be ranked down around 20.
My Dad pointed out that our guards most of the time ignore Roy. And when they do bother to look, they think about passing in on their terms - when they feel ready to look for a pass. A guard needs to be looking for when the center makes the move to pass, they need to be ready to pass it, not just glance every now and then.
I am really not optimistic the Hoyas are going to change their ways. Reasons:
a) We’ve done it like this all season with Roy
b) We did it like that last season with him
c) JT3 I’m starting to think will not adapt his game to have Roy get shots. He’s been trained in the Princeton offense which has guys take outside shots and do backdoor cuts. Perhaps he doesn’t know how to have Roy get 25 points per game or just refuses to. This last one is a mystery because it’s not that hard to learn to pass.
d) just about every announcer has pointed out the problem we have with this, so it must have been passed onto the team and coaches by family members, friends or random fans (?). I figured for sure it would be fixed by now.
We have a mismatch almost every game and fail to utilize it. A high quality team will win a game on a mismatch (in the NBA they’ll win 4 games in a row in the playoffs if you don’t figure out how to stop them on it). We don’t even do it for 20 minutes of 1 game.
This game serves classic examples - 1 minute into the 2nd half they get their 3rd foul on their center, who sits and their other center has 2 fouls. The announcer states - “Georgetown I think will get the ball to Roy Hibbert intentionally to take advantage of this situation - to draw more fouls on Mbake and get points.”
But no. We heave a 3 the first time down. The next time a guard drives in traffic and turns it over. They get a fast break and Roy has to foul Mbake to prevent a shot. The opposite of what we want. Crazy. For the next 3 minutes - Roy doesn’t get a single shot. When he does next, it’s a 3 point play with a foul on Mbake to tie the game.
So at this point you now realize the mismatch and work it to go up by 5-10 points? No, we stop going to him again for six minutes and we go down by 9. Summers heaves a 3. Wallace drives wide left and heaves an off balance shot. Crazy. Crazy.
We call a time out and you figure out of the time out we will get the highest percentage shot through Roy. He posts up. A guard has it 8 feet from him and ignores him and decides to heave a cross court pass over the defense to a guy whos barely open on the other side, he catches it out of bounds and we turn the ball over. Triple crazy.
I would rather watch a Hoya squad with #20 level talent play as if they were 20, than a team with top 5 talent underperform at the level of #1 - especially when the fix would be easy enough. I would take a lower ranking than to see us waste talent so aimlessly.
Another example: how many fouls did we end up drawing on their center Barros in the remainder of the 2nd half through getting it to Roy? Zero. He fouled out through an offensive on PE jr and a foul on a PE jr drive. If we had gotten the ball to Roy more he should have fouled out with 7 minutes left instead of 3.
Roy should have scored 30 points in regulation in a game like this and put 1-2 of their guys out of the game. Either that or gotten us really open 3s. Not J Wallace (who I like) luckily banking a 3 with time running out.
Roy works very hard establishing position in the post - harder than probably 90% of centers and gets little reward - a paltry 8 shots per game. This is a coaching problem - Thompson needs to train the guards (both in practice and in games, including sitting guys if needed) to get him the ball consistently until he has 12-16 shots per game. As long as he is not first or second in total shots (currently four other guys take more shots than him - meaning he's 5th), we have a very small chance of a championship and are not a top 10 squad.
Besides the fact we lose extra points each game by not having a 60-65% shooter get more shots, it means other guys get fewer open looks b/c when Roy gets the pass and the double, we get open looks. It also means fewer boards as Roy ends up out at the 3 line because he's ignored and can only get it out there.
It also means that instead of having an open guy (i.e. 4 on 3) when they double Roy, that when he comes out to 3, we're not even 5 on 5 at that point, it becomes 4 on 5 because Roy's guy is way off him ready to help others.
