Georgetown - Mount St. Marys 11/15/17 Discussion

[GUJook97]

Nov 15, 2017 23:22:05 GMT -5 SFHoya99 said:

Grumpy Old Man Thoughts here. Fun game to watch, but I'm not nearly as positive as most of you about this team. I do like some things:

1. I'm still very much liking the offense that we are running. A lot less screening/picking this time around, as we spent much less time in the halfcourt, but there's good spacing, decent movement, and still every once in a while we create a bucket out of good interior passing.
2. If this is a real step forward for Jagan, and not just the result of playing a short, unathletic team, then the prospects going forward are much better. I love his IQ, but he hasn't been able to finish at the rim, well, ever, before this game.
   
3. Sodom looks like he could really be something at some point. Pat Ewing + Sodom could be a heckuva player at some point.
4. We got an absurd amount of our points on the break, especially to a trailing big man for a three. That's great that we recognize this opportunity, but fast break points are something that good teams and well coached teams can often take away. This is grumpy me talking -- people on here seemed to always think that when we'd run against cupcakes and then not much against Villanova that III was holding people back. The defense plays a role. Forcing turnovers and strong rebounding can help that, but I'm not sure we're actually going to be strong there.
5. People were worried about shooting, but that's probably the strongest part of our offense so far -- Govan, Doc, Blair, Pickett make for some pretty decent shooting.
6. I just don't think this offense can keep up. I don't trust MD's or Govan's post game or offensive rebounding against bigger, stronger teams. I don't trust anyone to create off the dribble. I suspect we won't be a great breaking team against good teams. We'll run the offense and shoot a crapload of threes. Don't believe me -- we've played two creampuffs and we are shooting 3s on 38.4% of our FGA -- 5% more than last year! On one hand, we are shooting 44%, so okay, but on the other, these are teams we should be able to get to the line against, get to the hole, post up. And we're still resorting to 3s on 40% of our shots. What's going to happen against a good defense?
7. Our pick and roll defense was really, really bad. We got away with it a ton. On small/big pnrs, we went over the top and the big hedged back to stop the drive. We stopped the drive ... but game up a ton of wide open threes (they missed). More worryingly, we also gave up a ton of easy passes to the roll man -- our help rotation from the weak side was late at least four times that I saw, usually fouling.
8. We're also giving up a ton of threes (40% of FGA), but not giving up a high %. Good 3pt defenses usually limit the shots while limiting % tends to be a bit more random. I think this is a bit fluky given this may have been scouting report driven, but it's something to watch.
9. Part of my skepticism is that we've dominated the boards, but I can't see Jessie Govan doing that against any size. Perhaps he will prove me wrong.
10. I will harp on this again: we are taking a ton of threes, not getting to the line at all, not forcing turnovers, and our good offense has been driven by hot 3pt shooting. Ewing runs a different offense, and yes, we're breaking a lot though some of that may be opponent. But this team has a lot in common with prior years, mostly that pesky personnel.

Count me as someone who was optimistic about the offense only. I sort of thought the defense was just as bad as last year. Robinson drove and found open players many times. As you said, they missed. The one thing to keep an eye on, as we've all noted, is the rebounding. Was it just a fluke that we rebounded so well, or is that something we've improved on?

[SSHoya]

Nov 16, 2017 10:02:30 GMT -5 GUJook97 said:

Nov 15, 2017 23:22:05 GMT -5 SFHoya99 said:

Grumpy Old Man Thoughts here. Fun game to watch, but I'm not nearly as positive as most of you about this team. I do like some things:

1. I'm still very much liking the offense that we are running. A lot less screening/picking this time around, as we spent much less time in the halfcourt, but there's good spacing, decent movement, and still every once in a while we create a bucket out of good interior passing.
2. If this is a real step forward for Jagan, and not just the result of playing a short, unathletic team, then the prospects going forward are much better. I love his IQ, but he hasn't been able to finish at the rim, well, ever, before this game.
   
3. Sodom looks like he could really be something at some point. Pat Ewing + Sodom could be a heckuva player at some point.
4. We got an absurd amount of our points on the break, especially to a trailing big man for a three. That's great that we recognize this opportunity, but fast break points are something that good teams and well coached teams can often take away. This is grumpy me talking -- people on here seemed to always think that when we'd run against cupcakes and then not much against Villanova that III was holding people back. The defense plays a role. Forcing turnovers and strong rebounding can help that, but I'm not sure we're actually going to be strong there.
5. People were worried about shooting, but that's probably the strongest part of our offense so far -- Govan, Doc, Blair, Pickett make for some pretty decent shooting.
6. I just don't think this offense can keep up. I don't trust MD's or Govan's post game or offensive rebounding against bigger, stronger teams. I don't trust anyone to create off the dribble. I suspect we won't be a great breaking team against good teams. We'll run the offense and shoot a crapload of threes. Don't believe me -- we've played two creampuffs and we are shooting 3s on 38.4% of our FGA -- 5% more than last year! On one hand, we are shooting 44%, so okay, but on the other, these are teams we should be able to get to the line against, get to the hole, post up. And we're still resorting to 3s on 40% of our shots. What's going to happen against a good defense?
7. Our pick and roll defense was really, really bad. We got away with it a ton. On small/big pnrs, we went over the top and the big hedged back to stop the drive. We stopped the drive ... but game up a ton of wide open threes (they missed). More worryingly, we also gave up a ton of easy passes to the roll man -- our help rotation from the weak side was late at least four times that I saw, usually fouling.
8. We're also giving up a ton of threes (40% of FGA), but not giving up a high %. Good 3pt defenses usually limit the shots while limiting % tends to be a bit more random. I think this is a bit fluky given this may have been scouting report driven, but it's something to watch.
9. Part of my skepticism is that we've dominated the boards, but I can't see Jessie Govan doing that against any size. Perhaps he will prove me wrong.
10. I will harp on this again: we are taking a ton of threes, not getting to the line at all, not forcing turnovers, and our good offense has been driven by hot 3pt shooting. Ewing runs a different offense, and yes, we're breaking a lot though some of that may be opponent. But this team has a lot in common with prior years, mostly that pesky personnel.

Count me as someone who was optimistic about the offense only. I sort of thought the defense was just as bad as last year. Robinson drove and found open players many times. As you said, they missed. The one thing to keep an eye on, as we've all noted, is the rebounding. Was it just a fluke that we rebounded so well, or is that something we've improved on?

I wouldn't infer too much from the rebounding v. MSM. Its best big man (6' 8" qualifies as a "big" for them) was out with a broken wrist. I wouldn't call it a fluke either because I perceived that we were more aggressive than in the past. Blocking out still needs work.

[GUJook97]

Well, even against smaller teams in past years, we've struggled with rebounding. And, we also destroyed them on the boards last night. But, yeah, it was 1 game.

[GUJook97]

Nov 15, 2017 22:13:44 GMT -5 SFHoya99 said:

Nov 15, 2017 21:21:37 GMT -5 professorhoya said:

Let's face it we would barely escape with the win or get upset against MSM the past couple years.

When was the last time we were up by 30 with 6 minutes left so that we can insert and develop the bench.

That was one of the problems. Every game was too close to but in the backups and freshman. So they never developed through the season.

Do you want actual answers? MSM is ranked 285th by Pomeroy, and given their experience, that's generous.

Just last year, we beat USC Upstate (244) by 45 and were up by 31 at halftime. So yeah, like opening night last year.
We also beat Coppin State (343) by 52 and were up by 38 at halftime and 52 by 10 minutes left.

We played a closer game against Howard -- more like our opening this year.

We're playing a lot of crap teams right now. People bitched about the Elon game or the Arkansas State loss last year and while we shouldn't be losing to those teams, they were good enough to be the bottom end of the Big East. The Mount is nowhere near that. And it's a fallacy that we didn't blow out teams under JTIII, didn't have garbage time, etc.

So much of this thread is bashing JTIII -- who, frankly, doesn't deserve it -- but if you are going to do it, at least don't make up. This took me about 12 seconds of googling to figure out you were wrong.

It's sort of interesting how you choose not to point out the Pomeroy ranking of Howard. They were one of the worst teams in CBB last year, and since we played only 3 of the worst teams in CBB last year, noting one of them is rather significant. And, we struggled in the game with them. I really dont think it's that absurd to suggest a MSM team would have given us issues last year. Robinson was a pretty quick guard, and as you yourself said, our defense didnt really do that well on PNR or his penetration. Last year, we almost certainly would have not have been shooting 5-10 seconds into the shot clock, so we would not have scored close to 100 points. You are right that it is an exaggeration to say we never were up by 30 in the past.

Personally, I dont think the Pomeroy ranking is the relevant issue in this context. Isnt MSM low in Pomeroy because their first 3 games were ND, Marquette and us? I could be wrong. Just from observation, they seemed liked a team that would bother us. No biggie.

[aleutianhoya]

The schedule is what it is. It's senseless to complain about it at this point. I guess I'd suggest that if we continue to annihilate truly horrific teams, then it was an unequivocal mistake (in hindsight) to not play at least a few marginally better teams since we almost surely would have beaten them too, we would have still achieved the assumed goal of building confidence and working out kinks, and playing them wouldn't have killed our chances for a tournament bid. And if we could have made the Tournament but failed to only because of not scheduling somewhat more aggressively? Well, count me as one that would view that as a horrifically missed opportunity. The opposite of success. But all that is a long way away. So, let's just continue to kill the teams we should kill. Okay? Onward....

What I most want to see over the next few weeks is whether we're trying to do different things offensively depending on who we're playing. My own personal beef with III was his seeming reluctance to make adjustments in that way and to just rely on his system and the reads it requires to make those adjustments for him. I know many didn't love the system; I had no issue with it overall. I just would have rather we had some individual adjustments game to game. So...that's what I want to see most of all. I think we've seen some of it so far, but we really haven't been in the half-court against a man enough to really know. And, of course, the fact that we've run so much is itself an adjustment, and one I'm happy with. Like SF, I reject the premise that III was "anti-running," but he clearly didn't emphasize it.

Defensively? It does seem like we're more attentive this year generally (last night less so). That's really all we can ask for at this stage. I don't know that Patrick is really able to get guys to move their feet faster or close out more effectively without fouling. The fouling was a huge problem for III, as we all know. But (unlike with his offense) he tried countless different schemes the last couple years -- presumably to address it and certainly to address our overall defense. Didn't work. Perhaps the new voice (combined with some new personnel and individual improvements) has and will continue to instill a bit more motivation and better communication.

[williambraskyiii]

Nov 16, 2017 10:02:30 GMT -5 GUJook97 said:

Nov 15, 2017 23:22:05 GMT -5 SFHoya99 said:

Grumpy Old Man Thoughts here. Fun game to watch, but I'm not nearly as positive as most of you about this team. I do like some things:

1. I'm still very much liking the offense that we are running. A lot less screening/picking this time around, as we spent much less time in the halfcourt, but there's good spacing, decent movement, and still every once in a while we create a bucket out of good interior passing.
2. If this is a real step forward for Jagan, and not just the result of playing a short, unathletic team, then the prospects going forward are much better. I love his IQ, but he hasn't been able to finish at the rim, well, ever, before this game.
   
3. Sodom looks like he could really be something at some point. Pat Ewing + Sodom could be a heckuva player at some point.
4. We got an absurd amount of our points on the break, especially to a trailing big man for a three. That's great that we recognize this opportunity, but fast break points are something that good teams and well coached teams can often take away. This is grumpy me talking -- people on here seemed to always think that when we'd run against cupcakes and then not much against Villanova that III was holding people back. The defense plays a role. Forcing turnovers and strong rebounding can help that, but I'm not sure we're actually going to be strong there.
5. People were worried about shooting, but that's probably the strongest part of our offense so far -- Govan, Doc, Blair, Pickett make for some pretty decent shooting.
6. I just don't think this offense can keep up. I don't trust MD's or Govan's post game or offensive rebounding against bigger, stronger teams. I don't trust anyone to create off the dribble. I suspect we won't be a great breaking team against good teams. We'll run the offense and shoot a crapload of threes. Don't believe me -- we've played two creampuffs and we are shooting 3s on 38.4% of our FGA -- 5% more than last year! On one hand, we are shooting 44%, so okay, but on the other, these are teams we should be able to get to the line against, get to the hole, post up. And we're still resorting to 3s on 40% of our shots. What's going to happen against a good defense?
7. Our pick and roll defense was really, really bad. We got away with it a ton. On small/big pnrs, we went over the top and the big hedged back to stop the drive. We stopped the drive ... but game up a ton of wide open threes (they missed). More worryingly, we also gave up a ton of easy passes to the roll man -- our help rotation from the weak side was late at least four times that I saw, usually fouling.
8. We're also giving up a ton of threes (40% of FGA), but not giving up a high %. Good 3pt defenses usually limit the shots while limiting % tends to be a bit more random. I think this is a bit fluky given this may have been scouting report driven, but it's something to watch.
9. Part of my skepticism is that we've dominated the boards, but I can't see Jessie Govan doing that against any size. Perhaps he will prove me wrong.
10. I will harp on this again: we are taking a ton of threes, not getting to the line at all, not forcing turnovers, and our good offense has been driven by hot 3pt shooting. Ewing runs a different offense, and yes, we're breaking a lot though some of that may be opponent. But this team has a lot in common with prior years, mostly that pesky personnel.

I don't think this is especially grumpy. All legitimate observations and questions. I think how Govan will do against a skilled Top 50 big is a huge question, from an interior scoring, rebounding and defense perspective. Given our schedule we have some weeks to wait until we see this team against legitimate competition.

[HometownHoya]

Nov 15, 2017 22:53:21 GMT -5 blueandgray said:

Wow....just wow!!! Love coach Ewing’s style of play. Whoever said that MSM is the type of team that would have given us fits in the past is right on. If guys like Blair, Mosley and Picket can stay aggressive all year....we have a chance at making the tourney.

Mulmore looked out of sync the entire night. Not sure why Derrickson didn’t get more minutes.

More than once I found myself wondering how last years team would have done with Ewing at the helm.

I think Doc's minutes were limited due to foul trouble. He could have easily played through it but it was a smart move by Pat to limit him and let the other guys get used to him not being on the court.

[Deleted]

Marquette had a 37 point lead on Mount St. Marys at one point during their game. The next game, the Golden Eagles lost by 15 points at home to a ranked Purdue team.

[FromTheBeginning]

Count me as somewhat optimistic too - I realize it's poor comp out there but I have never seen Jesse move that fluidly and the hesitation in his outside shooting form has completely vanished.

Biggest thing is the kids really look like they are having fun.

Richmond away game will be a much better measuring stick.

[ColumbiaHeightsHoya]

Nov 16, 2017 10:28:47 GMT -5 aleutianhoya said:

The schedule is what it is. It's senseless to complain about it at this point. I guess I'd suggest that if we continue to annihilate truly horrific teams, then it was an unequivocal mistake (in hindsight) to not play at least a few marginally better teams since we almost surely would have beaten them too, we would have still achieved the assumed goal of building confidence and working out kinks, and playing them wouldn't have killed our chances for a tournament bid. And if we could have made the Tournament but failed to only because of not scheduling somewhat more aggressively? Well, count me as one that would view that as a horrifically missed opportunity. The opposite of success. But all that is a long way away. So, let's just continue to kill the teams we should kill. Okay? Onward....

What I most want to see over the next few weeks is whether we're trying to do different things offensively depending on who we're playing. My own personal beef with III was his seeming reluctance to make adjustments in that way and to just rely on his system and the reads it requires to make those adjustments for him. I know many didn't love the system; I had no issue with it overall. I just would have rather we had some individual adjustments game to game. So...that's what I want to see most of all. I think we've seen some of it so far, but we really haven't been in the half-court against a man enough to really know. And, of course, the fact that we've run so much is itself an adjustment, and one I'm happy with. Like SF, I reject the premise that III was "anti-running," but he clearly didn't emphasize it.

Defensively? It does seem like we're more attentive this year generally (last night less so). That's really all we can ask for at this stage. I don't know that Patrick is really able to get guys to move their feet faster or close out more effectively without fouling. The fouling was a huge problem for III, as we all know. But (unlike with his offense) he tried countless different schemes the last couple years -- presumably to address it and certainly to address our overall defense. Didn't work. Perhaps the new voice (combined with some new personnel and individual improvements) has and will continue to instill a bit more motivation and better communication.

To your point on O, I think the insertion of Blair into the starting line-up was to add ball handling and foot speed to D up Robinson and address any pressure they brought. We handled the pressure great despite a few sloppy passes which we did in the first game too. A lot of our early boards were simply due to a height advantage. The refs called it pretty tight I thought to the detriment of MSM as they couldn't bump guys at all. I still don't think we are great, but think the Depaul's, Marquette's, Butler's, St. John's games are all winnable. Seton Hall, Xavier, Creighton & Provy will be really interesting and I still think we are a few rungs below playing competitively with Nova.

[SDHoya]

Jeez people. On both sides, let's all take a deep breath. The point of scheduling a weaker OOC slate was to give the Hoyas essentially an extended pre-season. Clearly, Ewing is in the process of implementing a new offense and new principles on defense. He's also giving himself some time to get used to the differences of the college game versus the NBA. Would most of us prefer to have seen at least a few top 25ish teams before the new year? Absolutely. But if a few extra low pressure games helps develop a team which will be cohesive (if not necessarily excellent) come February/March, and then puts us in good position to compete at a high level the following season, then all will be forgiven.

For now, maybe just some cautious optimism?

[hoyasaxa2003]

Like SFHoya99, I am not as optimistic about this team as others, though there were definitely some good things last night. Here are a few thoughts:

(1) Three Point Shooting: This team has shot a lot better than I expected so far, but it's hard to tell what it means given the small sample size and the opposition. So far, we are shooting 21-48 on threes, or 43.8%. That's really high, and completely unsustainable for the rest of the year, especially once we play better teams.

Thus, while it's great to see our guys making these shots, it's important to not get overly exuberant about it. For historical perspective, the best three point shooting team Georgetown has ever had was in 2010 (Freeman, Wright, Clark, Hollis), and that team shot 38.7%. Still, how will our guys shoot? The last several years, our three point percentage ranged from 33.1 to 35.3%. If we can improve on that, or even stick at the higher range near 35%, we will be a better offensive team than I expected.

(2) Offensive Efficiency: In the first game, we only scored 1.01 points per possession. Against Mount Saint Mary's we scored 1.34 points per possession. This is a drastic improvement over our first game. Basically, everyone was at least decently efficient on offense, except for Mulmore and Walker.

(3) Govan & Derrickson: Both of these guys continued to show they are our best two players. And I think Govan could be on his way to taking his game to a new level. Again, it's unclear how he will fare against better opponents, but his three point shooting makes him a huge threat.

(4) Rebounding: Rebounding was obviously much improved. They got 7 offensive rebounds off 40 missed shots. Again, much better than the first game. Again, this could be Mount Saint Mary's size, but it's an improvement nonetheless.

(5) Defense: I've recently said I think this team will be a better defensive team than offensive team. I am beginning to question that assessment after last night. While Mount Saint Mary's did not score a lot, they had a LOT of wide open looks at the basket that simply didn't go in because they shot badly. In one instance, Junior Robinson basically torched 3 of our defenders and went right around them. We also had a bunch of lapses that let them get easy baskets.

I mention this because this is one of the things a better quality team will punish us on. Mount Saint Mary's could not. While I do think our guys are moving our feet a bit better, there are still way too many many lapses where we totally miss guys.

I realize that the defense is a work in progress. I also think defense was a huge weakness of JT3 in the last several years, and one of the areas where we can see the most improvement.

(6) Turnovers & Fouls: We had 16 turnovers, and 17 fouls. This is way too much on both. Mulmore's three fouls in 12 minutes are just unacceptable. I am not convinced he's our best option at PG anyway, but if he keeps fouling at that rate it'll be a moot point because he'll be on the bench anyway.

(7) Mosely and Blair: Great games by both. Can they keep it up? I hope so!

(8) Biggest Weaknesses: I will preface this by saying that talking about overall stats two games in is silly because it's such a small sample size. That said, statistically, there are two areas where we are hugely deficient:

- We currently rank 280 of 351 in turnovers on offense. Last year, we were 282. Given that we have much of the same personnel, it should not come as a surprise. Still, I am hopeful we can clean this up, especially the bad turnovers on the break where our guys just throw it away or lose it out of bounds.

- We are currently 297 of 351 in FTA/FGA, meaning we are not getting to the line at all. For all the criticism of JT3 and not getting to the line, last year's team was actually JT3's best on that score (22 of 351). Obviously, Peak and Pryor helped us a lot. While I don't expect to draw as many fouls as last year, it would be nice to improve this number to at least middle of the road.

(9) Schedule: Lastly, to deal with the schedule and quality issue. JT3's worst loss ever was to 222 ranked Radford. And, despite our horrible losses in the NCAA tournament, the worst ranked teams we lost to were FGCU (105), and Ohio (94). The other "flameouts" were teams that were quite good.

This is why it's silly to say that teams like Mount Saint Mary's and their 5'5 point guards are the types of teams/players that have given us trouble in the past. No, they really haven't. And while the FGCU and Ohio losses were bad, FGCU and Ohio were significantly better than Mount Saint Marys or anybody we will play in the OOC aside from Richmond and Syracuse.

Mount Saint Marys was a tournament team last year, but as a 16 seed. Let's not overstate their quality. The fact is we are going to go into the Big East season not knowing what we have.

[smokeyjack]

That “5’5 guard” you are denigrating would make us an NCAA tournament lock in my opinion. That kid is a player.

Now, MSM has virtually no post players, so I concur we should totally disregard last night’s rebounding numbers. But the vast majority of their open looks were created by two things: 1. Robinson slashing - and very few teams are going to be able to stay in front of that kid in his league or ours. 2. Derrickson has a long way to go as a defender. His rotations and close outs are weak, slow or indifferent far too often.

Absolutely no comparison between the offensive flow last year and this year. We didn’t look that comfortable against Air last year.

[hoyasaxa2003]

Nov 16, 2017 12:15:33 GMT -5 smokeyjack said:

That “5’5 guard” you are denigrating would make us an NCAA tournament lock in my opinion. That kid is a player.

Now, MSM has virtually no post players, so I concur we should totally disregard last night’s rebounding numbers. But the vast majority of their open looks were created by two things: 1. Robinson slashing - and very few teams are going to be able to stay in front of that kid in his league or ours. 2. Derrickson has a long way to go as a defender. His rotations and close outs are weak, slow or indifferent far too often.

Absolutely no comparison between the offensive flow last year and this year. We didn’t look that comfortable against Air last year.

To clarify, I am not denigrating Robinson. He's obviously got some talent, though he's never been particularly efficient offensively. I don't think we'd be a tournament lock with him, but maybe a better team. My bigger point was that we have never lost to a team like Mount St. Marys in the past, so they are not a good comparison to the types of teams we had trouble with in the past, especially in the tournament.

[njhoya78]

Nov 15, 2017 23:40:47 GMT -5 MCIGuy said:

Nov 15, 2017 23:34:42 GMT -5 EtomicB said:

Unfortunately we're gonna be wondering about this until mid-December..

After two very nice wins, I'd love to see the team taking on tougher comp out in Portland a week from Friday.. I'd put a chunk of change many posters would like to see how they'd do now as well..

The schedule is a joke. I somewhat understand why Ewing went that route and I'm somewhat sympathetic. But it is not only gonna bite us in terms of prep and being able to gauge, it will also make getting to the NCAA tourney almost impossible even if the team turns out better than expected.

Question: Is getting to the NCAA Tournament this season as a #12 or #13 seed and getting blown out in the first round all that much better than not making the NCAA Tournament at all? I'm fine with tempering expectations this season, and not worrying about whether the Hoyas are playing after the Big East Tournament championship game has been played.

[SSHoya]

Nov 16, 2017 12:25:15 GMT -5 njhoya78 said:

Nov 15, 2017 23:40:47 GMT -5 MCIGuy said:

The schedule is a joke. I somewhat understand why Ewing went that route and I'm somewhat sympathetic. But it is not only gonna bite us in terms of prep and being able to gauge, it will also make getting to the NCAA tourney almost impossible even if the team turns out better than expected.

Question: Is getting to the NCAA Tournament this season as a #12 or #13 seed and getting blown out in the first round all that much better than not making the NCAA Tournament at all? I'm fine with tempering expectations this season, and not worrying about whether the Hoyas are playing after the Big East Tournament championship game has been played.

Yes, because you make money for the school/Big East when you receive an NCAAT bid?

[HoyaSinceBirth]

Nov 16, 2017 12:25:15 GMT -5 njhoya78 said:

Nov 15, 2017 23:40:47 GMT -5 MCIGuy said:

The schedule is a joke. I somewhat understand why Ewing went that route and I'm somewhat sympathetic. But it is not only gonna bite us in terms of prep and being able to gauge, it will also make getting to the NCAA tourney almost impossible even if the team turns out better than expected.

Question: Is getting to the NCAA Tournament this season as a #12 or #13 seed and getting blown out in the first round all that much better than not making the NCAA Tournament at all? I'm fine with tempering expectations this season, and not worrying about whether the Hoyas are playing after the Big East Tournament championship game has been played.

Um absolutely it is. It would be huge for recruiting and national perception for Pat to take us to the tournament in his first year.

[EtomicB]

Nov 16, 2017 12:30:32 GMT -5 HoyaSinceBirth said:

Nov 16, 2017 12:25:15 GMT -5 njhoya78 said:

Question: Is getting to the NCAA Tournament this season as a #12 or #13 seed and getting blown out in the first round all that much better than not making the NCAA Tournament at all? I'm fine with tempering expectations this season, and not worrying about whether the Hoyas are playing after the Big East Tournament championship game has been played.

Um absolutely it is. It would be huge for recruiting and national perception for Pat to take us to the tournament in his first year.

Excellent Post!!

[smokeyjack]

Nov 16, 2017 12:20:35 GMT -5 hoyasaxa2003 said:

Nov 16, 2017 12:15:33 GMT -5 smokeyjack said:

That “5’5 guard” you are denigrating would make us an NCAA tournament lock in my opinion. That kid is a player.

Now, MSM has virtually no post players, so I concur we should totally disregard last night’s rebounding numbers. But the vast majority of their open looks were created by two things: 1. Robinson slashing - and very few teams are going to be able to stay in front of that kid in his league or ours. 2. Derrickson has a long way to go as a defender. His rotations and close outs are weak, slow or indifferent far too often.

Absolutely no comparison between the offensive flow last year and this year. We didn’t look that comfortable against Air last year.

To clarify, I am not denigrating Robinson. He's obviously got some talent, though he's never been particularly efficient offensively. I don't think we'd be a tournament lock with him, but maybe a better team. My bigger point was that we have never lost to a team like Mount St. Marys in the past, so they are not a good comparison to the types of teams we had trouble with in the past, especially in the tournament.

I certainly don’t think Robinson is going to finish the year shooting 100% on 3-pt teardrops (did he invent that shot last night), but I do think you undervalue him.

And yes, MSM is a cupcake, particularly inside.

But I guess I just see many more reasons for optimism than concern at this point. I arrived at the game expecting to see a mess - a flotsam of mismatched personnel floundering through the transition period of a first-year coach. What I saw instead was a pretty fluid group executing better with less talent than any JT3 group since OP left the Hilltop.

[professorhoya]

Nov 16, 2017 12:54:08 GMT -5 smokeyjack said:

Nov 16, 2017 12:20:35 GMT -5 hoyasaxa2003 said:

To clarify, I am not denigrating Robinson. He's obviously got some talent, though he's never been particularly efficient offensively. I don't think we'd be a tournament lock with him, but maybe a better team. My bigger point was that we have never lost to a team like Mount St. Marys in the past, so they are not a good comparison to the types of teams we had trouble with in the past, especially in the tournament.

I certainly don’t think Robinson is going to finish the year shooting 100% on 3-pt teardrops (did he invent that shot last night), but I do think you undervalue him.

And yes, MSM is a cupcake, particularly inside.

But I guess I just see many more reasons for optimism than concern at this point. I arrived at the game expecting to see a mess - a flotsam of mismatched personnel floundering through the transition period of a first-year coach. What I saw instead was a pretty fluid group executing better with less talent than any JT3 group since OP left the Hilltop.

I don't think anyone is concerned about the post season. The games are fun to watch and the players are giving 100% effort. Last year you could tell there was a couple guys who had checked out and stopped giving effort and stopped listening to coach and that was frustrating to see. Fortunately those guys are no longer here. (Except Akoy, he was giving 100% and on here his friend was saying Akoy was complaining about the guys who checked out. It was too bad he left but I figure he felt his PT was going to go down with a healthy mourning and derricspn.)