chris wright.....

[hoyaboy1]

Austin wasn't hitting 3s over the summer either. I never thought we'd have to worry about his shot.

[FewFAC]

I'm with sleepy. Decision-making isn't the issue. A lack of confidence because the rewards haven't been there is more likely. It's tough to keep going to the hoop when buckets don't fall and you don't get the foul call. It's tough to push the ball in transition when you are second-guessing whether a turnover will occur, or when the buckets aren't falling and you aren't getting the foul calls. All of that will come.

[NCHoya]

I agree it is the shooting plain and simple. If we make shots the offense looks amazing, when we don't . . . all of a sudden it is rebounding and hustle that makes us lose. These guys play hard, right now the confidence on offense is not there for ANY of the guards, Chris included.

[sleepy]

Jan 5, 2009 21:30:11 GMT -5 FewFAC said:

I'm with sleepy. Decision-making isn't the issue. A lack of confidence because the rewards haven't been there is more likely. It's tough to keep going to the hoop when buckets don't fall and you don't get the foul call. It's tough to push the ball in transition when you are second-guessing whether a turnover will occur, or when the buckets aren't falling and you aren't getting the foul calls. All of that will come.

Thats why I am feel much better about this game than about the Pitt game, because Sapp and Wright seemed to gain a bit more confidence near the end. Sure, we lost, which is always tough, but I think we might have started to turn a corner, confidence wise, come the end of the game.

[fsohoya]

I'm not the only one to point out the late decision making -- announcers have, too. And this has happened on several occasions, including at least a couple tonight. He often gets caught under the basket before he decides whether to pass or shoot. And tonight's line -- four assists and three turnovers -- isn't exactly a sign of flawless court-generaling. But again, I did not say that this is even close to why we lost tonight, but is germane to a thread about Wright.

[fsohoya]

By the way, I absolutely agree with everyone that our biggest problem over the last two games has been shooting (and rebounding against Pitt). Hopefully a game against less-daunting Providence will help renew some confidence.

[HoyasAreHungry]

i agree that decision making has been a bit of an issue but i feel like this is a complete team issue at this point and one that has become an issue in our losses. We are second guessing ourselves and trying to force things when we are down and this just personifies bad decisions that we would not normally make. This team needs to try and attain the same execution we have when we are winning. A great trademark of JTIII teams has been our stoicism and execution. In past years when we are down we methodically play good defense run our offense and come back. We show flashes of it this year but in the end when we get REALLY close we get out of control and make bad decisions. If we can figure this out like in past we will be fine. i will continue to say this with this young team: a work in progress. I get as down as anyone after a loss but we will get there. Comparing players to past players is a useless exercise. Our team is who we have. bottom line

[sleepy]

Jan 5, 2009 21:35:33 GMT -5 fsohoya said:

I'm not the only one to point out the late decision making -- announcers have, too. And this has happened on several occasions, including at least a couple tonight. He often gets caught under the basket before he decides whether to pass or shoot. And tonight's line -- four assists and three turnovers -- isn't exactly a sign of flawless court-generaling. But again, I did not say that this is even close to why we lost tonight, but is germane to a thread about Wright.

I don't remember him even getting out in transition, one of his turnovers was stepping out in bounds on after a ND make, another was a misscomunitcation between him and Monroe where, had Monroe kept cutting would have been wide open, and I don't remember the third, but the other two weren't caused by poor decision making(lack of focus and misscommunication,sure), so again, bad game to bring that up. And the only time the announcers have brought that up was against Uconn after his Robinson steal, which didn't even result in a turnover.
There seems to be a very pro-Wallace crowd that seem to look for opportunities to bring up his superiority over Wright. So while yes, it may have been incorrect to say that he is the first decent pointguard since Iverson, is it really a big enough deal that you have to end up tearing down a current hoya for a former one? Besides, Wallace wasn't even our pointguard, Sapp took over those responsebilities since January 2007, so not a fair comparison either way.

[fsohoya]

Fair enough -- Wright is not the only one to make some bad decisions and they don't always happen in transition. Anyway, I only brought this up so that we get neither too enraptured with young players when they do well (as after UConn) or too down on them when they don't do as well. Let's try to keep things even keel.

[GIGAFAN99]

And let's keep in mind, even with all this, we held serve this week as we were favored in 1 game and road dogs in 2.

So these guys can get well in a hurry by defending their home court over the next two games and getting back above water.

I can't believe they're going to be off rhythm forever.

[FewFAC]

Jan 5, 2009 21:35:31 GMT -5 sleepy said:

Jan 5, 2009 21:30:11 GMT -5 FewFAC said:

I'm with sleepy. Decision-making isn't the issue. A lack of confidence because the rewards haven't been there is more likely. It's tough to keep going to the hoop when buckets don't fall and you don't get the foul call. It's tough to push the ball in transition when you are second-guessing whether a turnover will occur, or when the buckets aren't falling and you aren't getting the foul calls. All of that will come.

Thats why I am feel much better about this game than about the Pitt game, because Sapp and Wright seemed to gain a bit more confidence near the end. Sure, we lost, which is always tough, but I think we might have started to turn a corner, confidence wise, come the end of the game.

Exactly. Seeing Jessie and Austin and Chris attack the rim in the second half was extremely encouraging, and at some point those guys are gonna realize if they do that from the tip they'll be blowing teams out at the end because they'll be living at the FT line.

[JWallsTreBalls]

wright slams the ball down the lane, sometimes creating good openings, but usually ending up in a missed shot. Someone needs to pull him aside after the season and make him go to the rim over and over while a defender just pounds on him. if he is going to choke it to the rim he darn well better start making some. this isn't the catholic league anymore.

[RockawayHoya]

Jan 5, 2009 21:30:11 GMT -5 FewFAC said:

I'm with sleepy. Decision-making isn't the issue. A lack of confidence because the rewards haven't been there is more likely. It's tough to keep going to the hoop when buckets don't fall and you don't get the foul call. It's tough to push the ball in transition when you are second-guessing whether a turnover will occur, or when the buckets aren't falling and you aren't getting the foul calls. All of that will come.

I agree with all of this except the decision-making part. Still a few too many ill-advised threes, and I remember there being one instance late in the game when he got caught in the air and Monroe bailed him out by catching a pass in heavy traffic. Also tried to block Harangody one time (he should know better) than just simply trying to draw a charge. Definitely need some smarter play out of Chris. He has all-world talent and has played well for most of the season. But the last 2 games have been extremely poor from his part.

[FewFAC]

Jan 5, 2009 22:07:45 GMT -5 RockawayHoya said:

Jan 5, 2009 21:30:11 GMT -5 FewFAC said:

I'm with sleepy. Decision-making isn't the issue. A lack of confidence because the rewards haven't been there is more likely. It's tough to keep going to the hoop when buckets don't fall and you don't get the foul call. It's tough to push the ball in transition when you are second-guessing whether a turnover will occur, or when the buckets aren't falling and you aren't getting the foul calls. All of that will come.

I agree with all of this except the decision-making part. Still a few too many ill-advised threes, and I remember there being one instance late in the game when he got caught in the air and Monroe bailed him out by catching a pass in heavy traffic. Also tried to block Harangody one time (he should know better) than just simply trying to draw a charge. Definitely need some smarter play out of Chris. He has all-world talent and has played well for most of the season. But the last 2 games have been extremely poor from his part.

I completely agree. An ideal number of 3fgas from Chris in my book would be zero. He might not make every layup attempt, but he'll at least get FTAs.

ETA: He'll also start to see defenses collapsing and find Jessie or Jason or Omar or DaJuan for open jumpers (though I'd prefer they'd attack the rim also on a collapsing defense likely to be out of position rather than jacking up perimeter jumpers).

[sleepy]

Jan 5, 2009 22:07:45 GMT -5 RockawayHoya said:

Jan 5, 2009 21:30:11 GMT -5 FewFAC said:

I'm with sleepy. Decision-making isn't the issue. A lack of confidence because the rewards haven't been there is more likely. It's tough to keep going to the hoop when buckets don't fall and you don't get the foul call. It's tough to push the ball in transition when you are second-guessing whether a turnover will occur, or when the buckets aren't falling and you aren't getting the foul calls. All of that will come.

I agree with all of this except the decision-making part. Still a few too many ill-advised threes, and I remember there being one instance late in the game when he got caught in the air and Monroe bailed him out by catching a pass in heavy traffic. Also tried to block Harangody one time (he should know better) than just simply trying to draw a charge. Definitely need some smarter play out of Chris. He has all-world talent and has played well for most of the season. But the last 2 games have been extremely poor from his part.

I remember that play with Harangody, he didn't have a prayer of drawing a charge because Harangody was going up with it when he was on the opposite block. He should have turned and looked for a man to box though, because he would have gotten the rebound, but thats an error everyone on this team makes and is the reason for our rebounding issues.

[schiavoed]

completely agree with sleepy and others - the decision making claim often seems a misdirected claim when things simply aren't going well. he can be a bit unconventional (and awkward at times) on transition but often creates something you wouldn't expect that works...like his little dribble into the middle, stop, turn, hand off to a charging summers for a layup/dunk that has happened a time or two.

he definitely didn't shoot well today -- but 4 or so of those shots were shot-clock buzzer beaters caused by no one moving on offense and his lack of creation. we need wright to be more aggressive if anything. his ability to drive and create really makes our offense go - something that was obviously sorely lacking last year during our stagnant passing around the perimeter...somethign we fell back into at points during these last two games only to have summers/monroe keep us close. we can't afford that to happen when we simply can't hit perimeter shots.

[RockawayHoya]

Jan 5, 2009 22:20:54 GMT -5 sleepy said:

Jan 5, 2009 22:07:45 GMT -5 RockawayHoya said:

I agree with all of this except the decision-making part. Still a few too many ill-advised threes, and I remember there being one instance late in the game when he got caught in the air and Monroe bailed him out by catching a pass in heavy traffic. Also tried to block Harangody one time (he should know better) than just simply trying to draw a charge. Definitely need some smarter play out of Chris. He has all-world talent and has played well for most of the season. But the last 2 games have been extremely poor from his part.

I remember that play with Harangody, he didn't have a prayer of drawing a charge because Harangody was going up with it when he was on the opposite block. He should have turned and looked for a man to box though, because he would have gotten the rebound, but thats an error everyone on this team makes and is the reason for our rebounding issues.

Not the same play. Harangody had caught an entry pass and Monroe overplayed it and took himself out of the play doing it. Harangody pump faked and Chris bit on it, and Harangody just ducked under him for an easy layup. This was around the 15 minute mark in the first half.

[sleepy]

Jan 5, 2009 22:39:27 GMT -5 RockawayHoya said:

Jan 5, 2009 22:20:54 GMT -5 sleepy said:

I remember that play with Harangody, he didn't have a prayer of drawing a charge because Harangody was going up with it when he was on the opposite block. He should have turned and looked for a man to box though, because he would have gotten the rebound, but thats an error everyone on this team makes and is the reason for our rebounding issues.

Not the same play. Harangody had caught an entry pass and Monroe overplayed it and took himself out of the play doing it. Harangody pump faked and Chris bit on it, and Harangody just ducked under him for an easy layup. This was around the 15 minute mark in the first half.

Ahh, I see, either way, he should have turned and boxed out for the rebound on my play. We just get away from that too much, I know we know we should do it because we start off most games doing it, but then we forget. It shouldn't be something we have to think about it, we should just do it. So frustrating and it is what cost us the Pitt game.

[hoya137]

well put schiavoed, was about to say the same thing. After reading some of these posts regarding Wright's poor decision making (and disagreeing), i went and re-watched the game. Really don't think Wright's decision making in this game was bad. As you mention, he got the ball atleast 3 times right at the end of shot clock, and those accounted for misses. He also had atleast 2 layups where he was fouled but it wasn't called.

No one can deny that he needs to shoot better (everyone does), but I think calling out his decision making in this game is unfounded.

[RockawayHoya]

Totally agree, Sleepy. I thought the rebounding effort was a lot better today, and for the most part we kept second shot opportunities to a minimum. But there's still a long ways to go in terms of improvement. If a team like SJU can drastically outrebound this team, there's no reason why we can't do better than they can with the personnel we have compared to theirs. Forget the system being a hindrance. Boxing out is boxing out no matter what.