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Post by FrazierFanatic on Jan 2, 2015 17:35:57 GMT -5
Copeland for Hopkins on defense?? Good Lord, no no no. Hopkins made 3 or 4 defensive mistakes in 30 minutes. Copeland made at least 4 in 7 minutes. And it wss Copeland's man who had the putback dunk; he did not even attempt to box out, the guy flew past him, and Hopkins was closest to him when he got to the ball. You are reaching badly trying to pin that one on Hopkins. And he did give us some defensive presence, had a couple of blocks and altered shots. No way Copeland is doing any of that. On offense, no one could look worse than Hop did last night. But Copeland looked lost on offense as well, he has started to disappear at times. I grant that dealing with Hopkins on the offensive end is making it harder to value the defense, but he is still our best defensive big by a longshot. That may be an indictment of our bigs, but it is still the case. Hopkins wasn't on the court for this play.. To be fair on the other side though, Farr wasn't Copeland's man on that put back dunk either because G'town was in it's "zone" on all out of bounds defense.. Farr actually came from Bowen's side of the court to establish position and for some reason Josh who was manning the middle of the zone left the circle area to cover Stainbrook who didn't even have the ball.. When Macura takes the jumper, Farr has already established a box out position alone under the basket.. He didn't fly by Copeland on the play.. Here are Hopkins numbers versus the 6 HM teams G'town has faced this season.. MPG - 25.5 RPG - 5.3 BPG - 2.1 APG - 1.1 TPG - 1.5 PPG - 3.6 Fouls per game = 4.6 No doubt that Hopkins is the teams best defensive big but is that fact enough to live with these numbers? I think he'd get very similar #'s in 17 or so minutes.. I have no idea if Copeland will come around this year but I'm all for getting him 15+ minutes consistently to find out.. I thought I saw the Xavier player soaring past Copeland, who was on the left side watching, on the replay, but I trust your analysis better than mine. As for Hop - I think the drop off with Copeland on D right now would be significant. He has the athleticism to change that, but it looks like it will take some work over time.
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Post by professorhoya on Jan 2, 2015 19:15:09 GMT -5
Hopkins wasn't on the court for this play.. To be fair on the other side though, Farr wasn't Copeland's man on that put back dunk either because G'town was in it's "zone" on all out of bounds defense.. Farr actually came from Bowen's side of the court to establish position and for some reason Josh who was manning the middle of the zone left the circle area to cover Stainbrook who didn't even have the ball.. When Macura takes the jumper, Farr has already established a box out position alone under the basket.. He didn't fly by Copeland on the play.. Here are Hopkins numbers versus the 6 HM teams G'town has faced this season.. MPG - 25.5 RPG - 5.3 BPG - 2.1 APG - 1.1 TPG - 1.5 PPG - 3.6 Fouls per game = 4.6 No doubt that Hopkins is the teams best defensive big but is that fact enough to live with these numbers? I think he'd get very similar #'s in 17 or so minutes.. I have no idea if Copeland will come around this year but I'm all for getting him 15+ minutes consistently to find out.. I thought I saw the Xavier player soaring past Copeland, who was on the left side watching, on the replay, but I trust your analysis better than mine. As for Hop - I think the drop off with Copeland on D right now would be significant. He has the athleticism to change that, but it looks like it will take some work over time. The problem is Copeland's best position right now is small forward. He just isn't physically strong enough to play power forward right now especially against high major bigs and doesn't have the plus rebounding instincts that Otto had from his high school days. At small forward there's a log jam with Trawick, Bowen, LJ Peak, Reggie Cameron. The freshman already have problems boxing out and rebounding and that's just exacerbated when you play Copeland out of position as a big and take away our best rebounder and low post defender in Hopkins.
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Post by michaelgrahmstylie on Jan 2, 2015 20:52:13 GMT -5
I don't see much to disagree with. The gist of the article is that our offense at times is dependent on getting out on the break and getting easy baskets or, if we're in the half-court, having Josh or DSR scoring. I suppose I would say that there have been plenty of games this year when others (LJ, AB, Jabril) have given us a viable third option, but certainly not this game. This game, for a variety of reasons, our primary weapons didn't work. We weren't really able to get out and run this past game, like we were against an Indiana, though I don't think that's a failure in strategy (that is, I think Coach would like us to run). I don't think trying to utilize Josh heavily at the outset was a strategic mistake either. He easily could have gotten their big into foul trouble, or it could have turned out that their big couldn't really guard him one on one, and that would have opened up a lot of things for us (as it does against virtually every other opponent). Neither happened, of course, and that took away a primary weapon of ours. But it still seemed to be the best initial plan. As the article notes, in addition to shutting down Josh (somewhat) they did a nice job of trying to focus on DSR and of course, DSR's foul issues made that job easier for them by limiting his playing time. Given what happened, we needed someone else to come up with a big offensive game. That it didn't happen isn't an indictment of our plan of attack, but more just a failure of those guys to contribute offensively. Virtually any non-elite team is going to struggle when its top guys struggle. The difference between good and great often is having viable third and fourth and fifth options. So, I don't think I'm disagreeing with you that we would be best off having more options available to us, but I think Coach would agree! For example, I think he wants Peak to be assertive and aggressive. The best evidence for that I can find is that he has given Peak a ton of rope to take a lot of shots. At times in the past, or with other players, he's had a fairly quick hook for a "bad" or a "quick" shot, but not really so with LJ, as far as I can tell. I think III realizes that LJ's development into a consistent offensive weapon is vital for us to succeed. Maybe I'm wrong and he has dialed LJ back, but I don't think there's any evidence for that. With this game in particular, Coach said as much in his post-game comments by referring to our need to use our third and fourth options in a half-court set. I think, without saying so directly and throwing anyone under the bus, that means (for example) "hey, LJ, when you're out there, and they're keying on others, you need to do your thing, and we need others to put you in position to do your thing." Offensively, we're going to be perfectly fine many games because nearly every team we play can't guard Josh with one man, and that by definition creates options elsewhere (like Peak or Jabril or Bowen using their best skills to cut to the basket hard off of doubles). When Josh is guardable, or if he's in foul trouble, our best bet is to either use our defense to get easy baskets or have DSR (as with Indiana) go off and carry us. That's going to happen sometimes too. But neither really happened here, and because no one filled the void, we lost. Again, that's not a failure in strategy. To be a very good team this year, we're going to need someone else to consistently step up. That may mean Jabril decides he can take and shoot threes, which open up his straight line drives, or it may mean that Jabril learns to pull up on his drives or dish consistently. Or it may mean that LJ shoots threes consistently, which also open up his drives. Both Jabril and LJ (not surprisingly) have had success driving against athletically overmatched teams, but the sledding is more difficult against guys that can competently defend (particularly if they know you won't shoot it). Or, it may mean that Paul or Ike steps up and consistently performs offensively without giving up too much on the defensive end. We don't really need that third option if Josh is on the court and able to overwhelm the defense (and, again, that will happen most nights). But to be really good, we will need it. This was a tough matchup for us: a solid team, on the road, with a big that can guard Josh straight up. I don't think there's another game like it on the schedule (although we'll be challenged in similar ways other games when Josh is out with fouls). "having viable third and fourth and fifth options." Agree! Also agree with you that this was a very tough matchup. Butler comes to the closest, I think, with their style of play.
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