SFHoya99
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Post by SFHoya99 on Nov 29, 2018 13:20:02 GMT -5
Having a hard time accepting more of a wait until next year attitude about this team. Definitely see improvement on offense and was particularly happy with the way McClung plays when not paired with Akinjo. Two kids that need to play on the ball to be at their best and one ball--not necessarily a good recipe. Love the improvement in Mosley in terms of helping to run the offense, but his limitations as a shooter will always make it hard to have him on the floor when points are needed. Likewise really impressed by the savvy and effort of Malinowski. Ewing's comments about selfishness actually were the highlight of my night and gave me some hope that this team can be what I expected this year. Still I worry that Blair and Pickett are going to get discouraged by their lack of use and involvement and while I won't speculate as to why Blair was benched, I do find it hard to understand why Pickett is not in the offense more. His defense is much improved over last year and better than most on this team--a low bar, I know. But I watch him out on the wing, often with no defender within 5 feet and the ball movement-- or what passes for ball movement in this offense-- is entirely focused on going inside or quick shots by the freshmen guards. Gotta fix this because every team we play seems to be better at rotating the ball to the open man for the 3. This team cannot be good with a talent like Pickett on the bench or otherwise not involved in the game. I see no evidence that tis is an effort issue either and I have watched as closely as the television broadcast allows. Finally for those who say this is all to be expected from the young guards, my response,borne out of my frustration, is that this team has several highly recruited kids, all of whom have spent years playing the game in very competitive programs, particularly at the AAU level. They are not playing Top 25 teams. Their coach is not a rookie but as we have heard many times is an experienced assistant long overdue for this opportunity, aided by another experienced former head coach and NBA player and yet the results do not reflect the level of talent that I believe is on this team. We're seven games in. I don't think much of what you are saying, if anything, is wrong. But you continue to play Mac and Akinjo together because you want to give them time to figure it out. You give Pickett more time, and you work with Akinjo to get him more involved. But the team is improving and evolving. The defensive failures yesterday were mostly about effort, IMO. This is not ever going to be a great defensive team, but Govan and Pickett, in particular, did not put in effort they had in previous games. The offense is looking better, but yes, has more to incorporate. This is a weird game to pick on the offense.
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Post by hoyasaxa2003 on Nov 29, 2018 13:42:01 GMT -5
The coach is well-regarded by other successful coaches and received glowing reviews from those for whom he worked for 15 years. He added an experienced bench coach in Louis Orr. Collectively this group should be much better than a mediocre Richmond team missing 2 of its 3 best players or an average USF team or even an Illinois team that missed one of its best players. They should have been able to play with Loyola, a team that is decent but nothing special. For whatever, reason--and I do not pretend to know why--the final product on the floor is not what it should be at this point. I am as loyal as anyone on this site and I was anticipating a finish this year of top half of the BE. While all that is still possible it is going to have to take some major improvement at this point in time because having watched every other BE team now at least twice, I think the Hoyas are lagging. My biggest concern is that both last season, and this season, I have seen virtually no improvement in team defense. Yes, I get the fact that Govan is a poor defender, and that a lot of our other players are fairly weak too. Clearly, athleticism and individual skills matter a lot, too, but team defense relies a lot on communication between the players, and acting as one unit. As others have noted, the defense is beyond putrid, and I really haven't seen any steps toward improvement over the 7 games we have played thus far. How many times last night did Richmond get wide-open three point shots because they passed well, and our rotations got out of wack? At one point, Richmond had a guy WIDE open on the perimeter, meanwhile we were essentially double-teaming the Richmond big who was furthest from the ball (obviously, not intentional, but someone missed a rotation big time - in this instance, it was Mourning/Malinowski, but others similar did the same). This is really something that must be taught because our guys (aside maybe from LeBlanc) do not have good natural instincts. Put bluntly, the defensive effort the team has been putting out there will be lucky to get us more than a handful of Big East wins, regardless of our offense. Five of the Big East teams we will play (i.e., 10 games) feature team offenses in the top 31 offenses. To put it in perspective, the best offense we've played thus far is ranked 69th (Illinois), and a bunch of pretty bad team offenses have scored a ton of points on us. If we don't improve by January, the Big East is going to be very long. Lastly, our defense is so bad, that I think it is getting close to coaching malpractice for Josh LeBlanc (clearly our best defender) to have played 15 minutes against Campbell, and 16 minutes last night, especially considering how bad Mourning is on defense (not to mention LeBlanc is better on offense, too).
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Post by hoyasaxa2003 on Nov 29, 2018 13:49:55 GMT -5
I think Liberty concerns you because they are probably not that much worse than we are. I dont think this has been an issue of playing to the level of competition. I just think we are not that much better than these teams. As others said, I think we are all misinterpreting the Illinois game. They were pretty bad. Yes, this. We are ranked 97 on KenPom, Liberty is 117. Aside from Illinois, they are the arguably the best team we have played thus far, and they're even ranked higher than Loyola Marymount. The next three games are tough, with Liberty (117), Syracuse (17), and SMU (91). KenPom puts us at 62% against Liberty, 12% against Syracuse, and 67% against SMU.
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sleepy
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Post by sleepy on Nov 29, 2018 14:07:44 GMT -5
I see exactly what you guys see. I also see that he’s a good facilitator and probably our best interior passer. Trey is a scary -poor athlete given his gene pool. He was blocked twice last night by a set-shooting guard. He just isn't a D1 starter, and he is going to be absolutely shattered defensively by every decent frontcourt we see this season. We already give up a ton in the frontcourt with Jess defensively; as good as he is on the offensive end, Govan is just above dreadful defensively. Mourning is indescribable on that end of the floor; literally you could go to any Y and find 5 guys who could work him over on that end. I know he's a good kid who has paid his dues, but we have to find ways to give as many of his minutes as possible to LeBlanc, Kaleb and even Carter. That's not even going small, because Mourning plays like he's 6-4. On the positive end, Mourning does help on the offensive end, especially against the zones which are going to be standard fare for us this season because he passes well and understands the game and how to attack a zone (along with only Govan it seems). Once again, the fact that our coach hasn't focused on attacking a zone in three decades wouldn't terrify me nearly as much if his team played with urgency and fire. They don't. Period. Mistakes and youth are forgivable; this lackluster effort really is not. You can love messy and hungry. Not much to love about this group collectively right now. When I think of them, I think of Pickett slouch-pouting beneath the scorer's table. That's who we are right now. Unless that changes, this team is going to get crushed even by a severely depressed Big East this season. Red flags. Lots of red flags. Our zone offense last night was pretty great.
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Post by hoyasaxa2003 on Nov 29, 2018 14:30:00 GMT -5
Trey is a scary -poor athlete given his gene pool. He was blocked twice last night by a set-shooting guard. He just isn't a D1 starter, and he is going to be absolutely shattered defensively by every decent frontcourt we see this season. We already give up a ton in the frontcourt with Jess defensively; as good as he is on the offensive end, Govan is just above dreadful defensively. Mourning is indescribable on that end of the floor; literally you could go to any Y and find 5 guys who could work him over on that end. I know he's a good kid who has paid his dues, but we have to find ways to give as many of his minutes as possible to LeBlanc, Kaleb and even Carter. That's not even going small, because Mourning plays like he's 6-4. On the positive end, Mourning does help on the offensive end, especially against the zones which are going to be standard fare for us this season because he passes well and understands the game and how to attack a zone (along with only Govan it seems). Once again, the fact that our coach hasn't focused on attacking a zone in three decades wouldn't terrify me nearly as much if his team played with urgency and fire. They don't. Period. Mistakes and youth are forgivable; this lackluster effort really is not. You can love messy and hungry. Not much to love about this group collectively right now. When I think of them, I think of Pickett slouch-pouting beneath the scorer's table. That's who we are right now. Unless that changes, this team is going to get crushed even by a severely depressed Big East this season. Red flags. Lots of red flags. Our zone offense last night was pretty great. Our offense was good last night, though for all our own defensive woes, Richmond's defense is really bad and worse than ours. They defend both the three and two really poorly (269th nationally defending the three, 315 defending the two). So, I wouldn't read that much into scoring 90 points on a defense that's about 25th percentile in Division 1.
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EtomicB
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Post by EtomicB on Nov 29, 2018 15:24:56 GMT -5
Having a hard time accepting more of a wait until next year attitude about this team. Definitely see improvement on offense and was particularly happy with the way McClung plays when not paired with Akinjo. Two kids that need to play on the ball to be at their best and one ball--not necessarily a good recipe. Love the improvement in Mosley in terms of helping to run the offense, but his limitations as a shooter will always make it hard to have him on the floor when points are needed. Likewise really impressed by the savvy and effort of Malinowski. Ewing's comments about selfishness actually were the highlight of my night and gave me some hope that this team can be what I expected this year. Still I worry that Blair and Pickett are going to get discouraged by their lack of use and involvement and while I won't speculate as to why Blair was benched, I do find it hard to understand why Pickett is not in the offense more. His defense is much improved over last year and better than most on this team--a low bar, I know. But I watch him out on the wing, often with no defender within 5 feet and the ball movement-- or what passes for ball movement in this offense-- is entirely focused on going inside or quick shots by the freshmen guards. Gotta fix this because every team we play seems to be better at rotating the ball to the open man for the 3. This team cannot be good with a talent like Pickett on the bench or otherwise not involved in the game. I see no evidence that tis is an effort issue either and I have watched as closely as the television broadcast allows. Finally for those who say this is all to be expected from the young guards, my response,borne out of my frustration, is that this team has several highly recruited kids, all of whom have spent years playing the game in very competitive programs, particularly at the AAU level. They are not playing Top 25 teams. Their coach is not a rookie but as we have heard many times is an experienced assistant long overdue for this opportunity, aided by another experienced former head coach and NBA player and yet the results do not reflect the level of talent that I believe is on this team. We're seven games in. I don't think much of what you are saying, if anything, is wrong. But you continue to play Mac and Akinjo together because you want to give them time to figure it out. You give Pickett more time, and you work with Akinjo to get him more involved. But the team is improving and evolving. The defensive failures yesterday were mostly about effort, IMO. This is not ever going to be a great defensive team, but Govan and Pickett, in particular, did not put in effort they had in previous games. The offense is looking better, but yes, has more to incorporate. This is a weird game to pick on the offense. To me this is part of the issue, it's shouldn't be on Akinjo to get Pickett involved, it should be on the whole team... Last season I griped about the guard play like most Hoya fans but I didn't have issue with the offense that the staff ran, I figured with better back-court play the offense would look even better but now the offense seems to have an over reliance on the frosh guards to "create" something which to me plays into the opposing coaches plans... Alleninxis has a few good posts over on Casual breaking down the offensive sets from last year, when I watch those clips I see a lot more player/ball movement... It also kind of shows in the numbers, last season Gtown had 5 players who avergaed more than 2 apg, going into last nights game this year's team had 1... To me that shows the lack of ball movement & the over reliance on Akinjo... Imo, it's not a weird game to talk offense because Richmond was terrible defensively too..
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SirSaxa
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Post by SirSaxa on Nov 29, 2018 15:36:37 GMT -5
but now the offense seems to have an over reliance on the frosh guards to "create" something which to me plays into the opposing coaches plans...
I don't believe what you are seeing represents a game plan, drawn up by our coaching staff to intentionally "Over rely on Frosh guards to create". In my view, we have two frosh guards who were gigantic standouts on their HS teams. Now they are in the midst of learning the team comes first, the team works better when not relying so much on the two guards, and their current teammates are far better than the kids on their HS teams.
It is taking time for them to acclimate to that, to make the adjustments. Once they do, we will see the offense look more like what I believe the coaches intend.
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Post by HoyaRejuveNation85 on Nov 29, 2018 15:54:01 GMT -5
I was scratching my head last night as to why we didn't pressure Richmond when they were not only shorthanded, but shorthanded at guard. While they were lights out for much of the game, their best outside shooter (Wojcik) cooled off at the end because he was EXHAUSTED from playing the entire game. We could have accelerated this by making him and his teammates work harder to make the front court and to find shots. My only conclusion is that we aren't good enough at it for it to beneficial in league play -- even if it might have helped in this one. I agree on the defense being bad. Jessie is not awful, but he's not good. Gives up baseline way too much. As others have stated, Mourning isn't a great athlete. He will be exploited defensively in Big East play and shouldn't start. Although he seems to be a great kid and has good offensive instincts, I think he's a situational 5 at best when league play starts. LeBlanc needs more time now AND I would throw Jamorko in at the 4 to try and jump-start him. Last year, he watched a lot on the perimeter, but came alive in the homestretch by getting his hands dirty. He upped his rebounding considerably as I recall and that seemed to energize him. Even if he's not inside more, run some plays for the guy. I also saw and didn't like his body language while he was waiting at the scorer's table to enter the game. The biggest impediment to the kid's success is himself, but he has the skills to be a strong player. I don't think Akinjo plays great defense off the ball, but he's young and capable. If his off game includes much-needed 3 point shooting (last night he was efficient) and the ability to drive the hole and score a contested bucket, I will take it. He should improve with experience. Mac had an awful first half and was pulled. He does however have a lot of energy out there and is trying to spark the team. His second half was much better (a relief seeing the 3s go down), and he took care of the ball. In general, he gets into the paint at will. He's figuring it out, but has made things happen in his 7 games. He is a willing passer, he finds outside shooters. His defense is a work in progress but he has the tools to be more than adequate. Play him too. Greg M. played a great game last night. Made the most of his minutes and really contributed. I'm not sure he can impact a league game like that, but I'm hopeful. Same with Jiggy. This game was begging for Juggy, but I don't blame the Coach if he wants to make a lesson of someone who isn't meeting expectations in practice. He will bounce back.
Lots of work ahead for the staff. I couldn't help but daydream if we still had Marcus D. this year, but that's the story of Georgetown bball for a long stretch -- really hampered by losing players prematurely (draft or injury). But, on reflection, that's no excuse. Our defense is what ails us. We need to find a sense of urgency, fire and resolve. If we don't, this year is just like last. Wait til next year.
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Post by michaelgrahmstylie on Nov 29, 2018 17:22:23 GMT -5
As others have stated, I liked our offensive game. I am disappointed right now in our ability to defend against the 3 point shot. It seems to me like we are slow to react, not moving enough, and not having enough of a killer instinct. Going forward, I would love to se much better foot work.
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calhoya
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Post by calhoya on Nov 29, 2018 17:26:09 GMT -5
I wonder if some of you who have more time than I do have actually gone back and looked at how the Hoyas perform coming out of the half in each game. Obviously against LMU, USF and Richmond, the opening 4-5 minutes of the second half were poor. I am trying to recall if these are the exceptions or if the team has performed poorly at the outset of the second half as a general rule this season.
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EtomicB
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Post by EtomicB on Nov 29, 2018 17:32:24 GMT -5
but now the offense seems to have an over reliance on the frosh guards to "create" something which to me plays into the opposing coaches plans...I don't believe what you are seeing represents a game plan, drawn up by our coaching staff to intentionally "Over rely on Frosh guards to create". In my view, we have two frosh guards who were gigantic standouts on their HS teams. Now they are in the midst of learning the team comes first, the team works better when not relying so much on the two guards, and their current teammates are far better than the kids on their HS teams. It is taking time for them to acclimate to that, to make the adjustments. Once they do, we will see the offense look more like what I believe the coaches intend. It doesn't look like they're running same type sets to me and again the fact that only Akinjo was averaging more than 2 assists per game after 6 games is not a good sign in my view... Both of these players played on high-level AAU teams, they should know what it's like to play with other talented players imo... That adjustment shouldn't be that hard...
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SFHoya99
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Post by SFHoya99 on Nov 29, 2018 17:54:17 GMT -5
To me this is part of the issue, it's shouldn't be on Akinjo to get Pickett involved, it should be on the whole team... It's tough to disagree with that point. But my counterpoint is this: Akinjo is the point guard, and he's fairly ball dominant right now, not in the sense that he is playing selfishly offensively at all, but in the sense that the ball is in his hands a significant % of the possession. I'm not blaming the dude, but I also think a couple of drive and dishes for threes might also jumpstart Pickett.
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calhoya
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Post by calhoya on Nov 29, 2018 18:02:07 GMT -5
To me this is part of the issue, it's shouldn't be on Akinjo to get Pickett involved, it should be on the whole team... It's tough to disagree with that point. But my counterpoint is this: Akinjo is the point guard, and he's fairly ball dominant right now, not in the sense that he is playing selfishly offensively at all, but in the sense that the ball is in his hands a significant % of the possession. I'm not blaming the dude, but I also think a couple of drive and dishes for threes might also jumpstart Pickett. I agree with this completely. The role of PG has evolved, particularly in the NBA where the PG can be as much a scorer as distributor. I think that Akinjo is cut from this mold and his youthful fearlessness needs to be retained, but he also needs to add judgment to his game. That will come in time and in the interim it is critical that in patiently fostering the growth of Akinjo (and McClung) the coach not sacrifice the talents and development of Pickett.
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hoyainla
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Post by hoyainla on Nov 29, 2018 19:31:30 GMT -5
I wonder if some of you who have more time than I do have actually gone back and looked at how the Hoyas perform coming out of the half in each game. Obviously against LMU, USF and Richmond, the opening 4-5 minutes of the second half were poor. I am trying to recall if these are the exceptions or if the team has performed poorly at the outset of the second half as a general rule this season. i had already done in for 1st half and 2nd half until L-M until the TV timeout so I just updated it with both. (opponent on left) UMES 4 - 6 6 - 8 CC 8 - 9 11 - 7 Ill 12 - 6 10 - 10 L-M 3 - 6 15 - 2 USF 7 - 6 14 - 4 (Pat took the starters out at 16:15 so I used that here) Campbell 5 - 12 12 - 12 Richmond 7 - 8 11 - 12 total 125 - 108 Let's see if the starting lineup stays the same and if he keeps starting it in the 2nd half.
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EtomicB
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Post by EtomicB on Nov 29, 2018 19:47:01 GMT -5
To me this is part of the issue, it's shouldn't be on Akinjo to get Pickett involved, it should be on the whole team... It's tough to disagree with that point. But my counterpoint is this: Akinjo is the point guard, and he's fairly ball dominant right now, not in the sense that he is playing selfishly offensively at all, but in the sense that the ball is in his hands a significant % of the possession. I'm not blaming the dude, but I also think a couple of drive and dishes for threes might also jumpstart Pickett. This needs to end imo... Let him give up the ball, have the team run thru some progressions if nothing appears they can always go back to him to try to make a play... Just driving & kicking is a lot harder than it sounds, especially if you're trying to kick to a player known as a good shooter.
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Hoyas4Ever
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A Wise Man Once Told Me Don't Argue With Fools....
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Post by Hoyas4Ever on Nov 29, 2018 19:55:13 GMT -5
It's tough to disagree with that point. But my counterpoint is this: Akinjo is the point guard, and he's fairly ball dominant right now, not in the sense that he is playing selfishly offensively at all, but in the sense that the ball is in his hands a significant % of the possession. I'm not blaming the dude, but I also think a couple of drive and dishes for threes might also jumpstart Pickett. This needs to end imo... Let him give up the ball, have the team run thru some progressions if nothing appears they can always go back to him to try to make a play...
Just driving & kicking is a lot harder than it sounds, especially if you're trying to kick to a player known as a good shooter. BINGO!!!
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kbones17
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Post by kbones17 on Nov 29, 2018 22:05:42 GMT -5
I wonder if some of you who have more time than I do have actually gone back and looked at how the Hoyas perform coming out of the half in each game. Obviously against LMU, USF and Richmond, the opening 4-5 minutes of the second half were poor. I am trying to recall if these are the exceptions or if the team has performed poorly at the outset of the second half as a general rule this season. i had already done in for 1st half and 2nd half until L-M until the TV timeout so I just updated it with both. (opponent on left) UMES 4 - 6 6 - 8 CC 8 - 9 11 - 7 Ill 12 - 6 10 - 10 L-M 3 - 6 15 - 2 USF 7 - 6 14 - 4 (Pat took the starters out at 16:15 so I used that here) Campbell 5 - 12 12 - 12 Richmond 7 - 8 11 - 12 total 125 - 108 Let's see if the starting lineup stays the same and if he keeps starting it in the 2nd half. The concerning part for me on these numbers is not so much the differential, it’s that other than UMES all off our opponents have scored 10-15 points in the first 4 minutes of the second half, and we are regularly giving up 40-50 points in entire second halves. This team is only going to go as far as the defense will take it. It’s clear our opponents game plan for their exact offensive approach coming out of halftime and it’s working for them because we don’t really offer any wrinkles.. I would like to see us start in a 3/4 press, or trap or do something different to start second halves because it really can’t be any worse than why we’ve been doing.
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kbones17
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Post by kbones17 on Nov 29, 2018 22:10:05 GMT -5
i had already done in for 1st half and 2nd half until L-M until the TV timeout so I just updated it with both. (opponent on left) UMES 4 - 6 6 - 8 CC 8 - 9 11 - 7 Ill 12 - 6 10 - 10 L-M 3 - 6 15 - 2 USF 7 - 6 14 - 4 (Pat took the starters out at 16:15 so I used that here) Campbell 5 - 12 12 - 12 Richmond 7 - 8 11 - 12 total 125 - 108 Let's see if the starting lineup stays the same and if he keeps starting it in the 2nd half. The concerning part for me on these numbers is not so much the differential, it’s that other than UMES all off our opponents have scored 10-15 points in the first 4 minutes of the second half, and we are regularly giving up 40-50 points in entire second halves. This team is only going to go as far as the defense will take it. It’s clear our opponents game plan for their exact offensive approach coming out of halftime and it’s working for them because we don’t really offer any wrinkles.. I would like to see us start in a 3/4 press, or trap or do something different to start second halves because it really can’t be any worse than why we’ve been doing. Or could be as simple as a lineup change to start the second half. Start mosely and Leblanc coming out of halftime and focus on getting some stops.
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Nov 30, 2018 10:06:48 GMT -5
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OldHoyafan
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Post by OldHoyafan on Nov 30, 2018 10:17:13 GMT -5
The last game was a very low energy game for the Hoyas. Kind of a head scratcher as to why. Patrick’s lineups throughout the game were also head scratchers also. To put a positive spin on it, I have concluded that Patrick and he team knew that the game was never in any danger of being lost so he toyed with different combinations in order to see how they would respond playing together. The next game may see the same type of experimental lineup combinations on the court. Again putting a positive spin on it, both teams play mostly zone defense as of course does Syracuse, the next opponent, so Patrick and Orr will have some new ways to attack the zone that they did not want o showcase during the games before Syracuse. I remember JT2 adding a new wrinkle or two on attacking Syracuse zone defense before a big Syracuse game. Let’s hope I am right and we see some great new zone offense wrinkles when they play Syracuse😊
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