MCIGuy
Platinum Hoya (over 5000 posts)
Anyone here? What am I supposed to update?
Posts: 9,522
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Post by MCIGuy on Nov 28, 2008 16:55:54 GMT -5
If Summers is on the verge of being at least more consistent than the main problems that remain are:
1)Austin's missing jumpshot (only one good game on that end so far) 2)lack of rebounding 3)Jesse Sapp being that fifth scorer (fifth double figure scorer) 4)points from the bench 5)Lack of overall experience.
I expect at least two of those areas to be corrected midway through the season. But for the team to beat the expectations (or perhaps just match them) three to four of these concerns must be corrected.
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Post by tpk3 on Nov 28, 2008 17:08:51 GMT -5
Dan, thanks for that in-arena observation. I love 3s demeanor. I like how we never see 3 ripping/yelling at his players during timeouts. He's always just calmly instructing. You don't have to show intensity by yelling. Pearl on the other hand.......
1. I came away disappointed about giving up a game i thought we had in hand until Greg went out with his 3rd, but overall encouraged with how we played after the Wichita State Game. In just one game i thought we improved in areas we were deficient in yesterday. Great sign. This team is trying to listen and eventually will be more consistent. Rebounding was definitely better but far from perfect. We just have to be solid on the boards the entire game.....tennessee got after it more than we did towards the end.
2. Greg Monroe is special. Very good game and i loved how we saw him come out to the top of the key more and get the ball from the guards. Gives more room for himself and for the guards to make cuts. Very reminiscent of how we played with Jeff. We were just starting to click when Greg got that 3rd foul and had to come out. I love the defensive play by the way. How can anyone question the kid's heart? rivals/scout are lost. I also love Greg's IQ and patience. He does not take bad shots or shots out of his range. He was given wide open looks from the outside but he checked himself and always drove or passed off. He can probably make it but he knows the higher percentage play. I hope UT fans do not whine about Chism getting 5 fouls-- he got most of those fouls because he could not guard Greg Monroe man up.
2. Very encouraging game for Dajuan. I thought he had looked tentative the first 2 games but he is starting to play better with greg. I know everyone loves to compare Dajuan to Jeff but i want him to play more like Patrick for us. Patrick is the guy we miss and dajuan can play that athletic wing role.
3. Nice rebound game for C. Wright as i expected. against halfcourt teams he still looks tentative but today he made good decisions. i love the heart/fight he showed.
4. Austin has to clean it up. Didn't like the lazy passes. He has been one of the imbound passing culprits. But that is a problem that the staff will get to. I think they have the wrong guys inbounding but the staff will figure it out. I like how he showed his mid range game today. He can be/should be one of the best mid range offesive shooters/scorers in the country. I want less 3s from him and more of the driving shots off the glass and mid range pull ups.
5. Jessie played well but made some uncharacteristic bad decisions towards the end. I love how he is a leader on the floor-- caught an audio from tv where he was scolding/teaching Omar to get inside his guy on defense when omar got beat.
6. Hopefully people can lay off Omar a little now. He has a nice stroke and nice size for a guard. he will get significant minutes. He has good energy/bounce but he's not exceptionally quick on the defensive. Slide, slide, slide.
7. I see the promise in Sims. He is trying to pick up the offense and understand where he should be-- saw 3 coaching him on his positioning. He needs to get more comfortable playing down low. You could tell he was really nervous today but the kid has skills. I hope 3 can get him more minutes b/c you don't lose nervousness by sitting on the bench.
8. I think Clark is showing he can be a ball handler for this team. He is not a true point but he can handle it. I can see why staff would want another ball handler though for next year. without sapp we will be down one ball handler b/c austin does not have it and i am not sure if hollis has it yet.
9. Overall an encouraging game. Tennessee really shot the ball well. They are the Best team in the SEC so this is not a shameful/bad loss at all. That freshman class is very good-- negedu, hopson, tate, woolridge. If we can leave Orlando 2-1 then it will have been a great trip.
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nathanhm
Golden Hoya (over 1000 posts)
Posts: 1,041
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Post by nathanhm on Nov 28, 2008 17:35:21 GMT -5
Sometimes a guy just gets hot and there is not a lot you can about it, that kid on Tenn (Tatum I think), he just was feeling it, if this was NBA jam, the ball would have been on fire.
This team is gonna to be scary good, but we will take our lumps until we get there.
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Post by HoyasAreHungry on Nov 28, 2008 17:48:52 GMT -5
we all see the potential but yes frustrating to lose....won't go into too much that was already covered ad nauseum. TN did shoot lights out....only once or twice did I feel like a defensive breakdown led to an open shot. Rebounding...I was much more encouraged on the whole with rebounding...yes a couple of times (which have been emphasized here more than looking at the entire body of work) we were outhustled but on the whole we did a MUCH better job. I don't like to blame losses on ref's and I won't start now, but we did get kinda jobbed by the ref's I thought they were terribly inconstant today. Phantom fouls and missed calls all over the place. In the end we were our own undoing with the one series near the end of the game and lazy passes. I was as upset as anyone. We will learn and we will get better. The talent and potential is there.
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Post by daytonahoya31 on Nov 28, 2008 17:58:35 GMT -5
Henry may improve, but right now the loss of Vern is crucial for us. We flat lost that game in the small sequence that III took Monroe out of the game. Julian's just not that good. He's not athletic, which would be cool if he had post moves or good footwork, but he doesn't. He doesn't box out, which is why they got that six point possession, and doesn't defend well. He's a 10-15 minute player at best.
Henry has talent. You can see that. But right now he's simply not strong enough and he's thinking the game too much. I saw a poster that criticized III for putting Austin at the four. He's simply putting his best players on the floor right now, regardless of position. This team is structurally flawed and will be that way all season. But we can still be great because we have great talent.
At this point, though, Vern's absence is really killing us. If we have vern for 20 minutes tonight, we win by double digits, I really believe that. So, in my opinion, this season is really going to hinge on Henry. If he gets better and is able to play as the season wears on, we'll be really really good. If not, we'll be a top 25 team with a ceiling on our potential.
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Dhall
Golden Hoya (over 1000 posts)
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Post by Dhall on Nov 28, 2008 18:10:49 GMT -5
If we win Sunday, this game will be a "solid effort in a loss". If we lose again, this will be the game that we totally choked away at the end (Sapp and Freeman in particular). Gotta win Sunday.
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Post by daytonahoya31 on Nov 28, 2008 18:14:15 GMT -5
I agree. Sunday's important. And I'd rather play Gonzaga because they have the top 10 ranking
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mapei
Golden Hoya (over 1000 posts)
Posts: 2,089
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Post by mapei on Nov 28, 2008 18:14:39 GMT -5
We have to give Tenn a lot of credit - they really pulled their focus together in the last several minutes of the game and beat us with superior athleticism, I thought, along with deadeye shooting. They are superb defensively. Based on the garbage I saw yesterday I feared we might get embarrassed, but I don't think that happened. Rebounding is a serious problem for this team, or maybe I should say a serious limitation on how good we can be. We really have no force inside other than Greg. When he goes out of the game - which is going to happen as teams go at him to draw fouls - our ability drops off a lot. I don't see Henry or Vaughan as being the answer this year (and who knows about next year, after Greg is likely gone), so I think that is just going to continue to plague us. But welcome back, DaJuan Summers. That was nice to see. And welcome to the team, Omar. I agree with the people who are saying those 3s were not his fault any more than they were Austin's or DaJuan's. He did appear to have the help role on those, not the main defending role, and did what he could chasing out to like 25 feet or whatever. If we draw UMCP Sunday, we MUST win. Expect to see the BB&T articles between now and then.
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SFHoya99
Blue & Gray (over 10,000 posts)
Posts: 17,899
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Post by SFHoya99 on Nov 28, 2008 18:30:04 GMT -5
Henry may improve, but right now the loss of Vern is crucial for us. We flat lost that game in the small sequence that III took Monroe out of the game. Julian's just not that good. He's not athletic, which would be cool if he had post moves or good footwork, but he doesn't. He doesn't box out, which is why they got that six point possession, and doesn't defend well. He's a 10-15 minute player at best. Henry has talent. You can see that. But right now he's simply not strong enough and he's thinking the game too much. I saw a poster that criticized III for putting Austin at the four. He's simply putting his best players on the floor right now, regardless of position. This team is structurally flawed and will be that way all season. But we can still be great because we have great talent. At this point, though, Vern's absence is really killing us. If we have vern for 20 minutes tonight, we win by double digits, I really believe that. So, in my opinion, this season is really going to hinge on Henry. If he gets better and is able to play as the season wears on, we'll be really really good. If not, we'll be a top 25 team with a ceiling on our potential. Macklin was an atrocious defensive rebounder. Just awful. Several guards on our team are better D rebounders. So I have no idea why you think he'd be any better than Julian (who was not a good D rebounder at FSU, either). Hopefully, Julian or Henry can improve. But Mack wasn't likely to be any better.
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Just Cos
Golden Hoya (over 1000 posts)
Eat 'em up Hoyas
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Post by Just Cos on Nov 28, 2008 18:32:00 GMT -5
Also I think it should be mentioned that I think we were really trying to improve our zone defense in this game. If JTIII had take us out of if we probably could have won this game, but if he had taken us out of it our zone defense might not get any stronger and could end up costing us a game in February and March. Today we weren't playing to win as much as we were playing to get better. Keep that in mind as well. We ran a lot of defense becuase we needed to keep GM out of foul trouble. We will continue to play a lot of zone defense. I also think we did not do enough with Chism out for most of the game. Lot's of positives from a game that will not mean much when it is all said and done.
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SFHoya99
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Post by SFHoya99 on Nov 28, 2008 18:32:19 GMT -5
We can improve the rebounding, but I think we can improve the turnovers faster. We'll be a much better team if we can get back 7-10 possessions a game.
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Just Cos
Golden Hoya (over 1000 posts)
Eat 'em up Hoyas
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Post by Just Cos on Nov 28, 2008 18:39:36 GMT -5
We MUST play Maryland. I don't want UMCP going "further" than us in this tournament and I really want to slap them around on Sunday.
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Nevada Hoya
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Post by Nevada Hoya on Nov 28, 2008 18:55:02 GMT -5
We MUST play Maryland. I don't want UMCP going "further" than us in this tournament and I really want to slap them around on Sunday. It looks as if we are going to get this wish, as UMD is down by 12 to the other GU. Let's have the Jesuit GU's beat them twice in this tourney. We owe them one defeat!
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Boz
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123 Fireballs!
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Post by Boz on Nov 28, 2008 18:55:37 GMT -5
We MUST play Maryland. I don't want UMCP going "further" than us in this tournament and I really want to slap them around on Sunday. We must play them and we must beat them. Stupid announcers, talking about how we "owe" them a home game. F that nonsense. I want that team and I want to kill them! Go 'zags! (Watching the Hoyas put the hurt on 'Cuse at the 1985 BET this afternoon made me feel a little better about blowing our lead today. I love MASN.)
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Nevada Hoya
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Post by Nevada Hoya on Nov 28, 2008 19:09:15 GMT -5
I'm going out tomorrow to buy some dark glasses to wear in case we play and lose to the Twerps. That would be hard to swallow. Ed, you have to think positively. We are going to beat the Twerps!!!
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blueandgray
Platinum Hoya (over 5000 posts)
Posts: 6,809
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Post by blueandgray on Nov 28, 2008 19:15:40 GMT -5
At the end of the day, I am far more inspired by this Hoya team than I was after the Wichita St. game. I thought we played great for 33 minutes... but found myself clock-watching wondering how long it would last.
Omar was great...but perhaps stayed in the game a little longer than I would have liked. Jessie really struggled in the 2nd half and Austin really looks uncomfortable with his 3 point shot. 11 turnovers between Freeman and Sapp. That said, we showed fire and played inspired ball. I loved seeing Dajuan step up and put three solid halves of basketball together. It was great to see Chris have a bounce back game.
I never thought I'd say this.... I think we miss Vmack. Sims and Vaughn are far from cutting it at the moment.
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Post by harwoodhoya on Nov 28, 2008 19:16:51 GMT -5
Better but a lot of careless turnovers! We will be ok. We played bad D today. I want MD.
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Just Cos
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Eat 'em up Hoyas
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Post by Just Cos on Nov 28, 2008 19:31:12 GMT -5
Enough with the Vernon talk. He was with us for two seasons and should be better than a freshman or transfer at this point. No one knows what Sims or Vaughn will be like later in the year. Vernon is gone so why are we even talking about him.
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blueandgray
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Post by blueandgray on Nov 28, 2008 19:34:42 GMT -5
I'm not sure whether anyone has mentioned this...but did anyone pick up on us failing to hit the trailor on at least a few fastbreaks. I counted at least 2 occasions where Monroe was trailing a play, running very hard, and the lead guy with the ball never looked around and had to settle for free throws. I know for sure both Freeman and Summers failed to make the extra pass which would have lead to the easy dunk.
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Just Cos
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Eat 'em up Hoyas
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Post by Just Cos on Nov 28, 2008 19:45:36 GMT -5
I'm not sure whether anyone has mentioned this...but did anyone pick up on us failing to hit the trailor on at least a few fastbreaks. I counted at least 2 occasions where Monroe was trailing a play, running very hard, and the lead guy with the ball never looked around and had to settle for free throws. I know for sure both Freeman and Summers failed to make the extra pass which would have lead to the easy dunk. I thought we did a pretty good job today on the fast breaks.
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