JTIII's excuses

[Dhall]

Coach is repeatedly claiming we are a "young team" and still learning. Tell me, how many other teams can boast 3 players who have basically started every game for three years? I don't buy this lame excuse of his. What he should be doing is calling out Jeff Green in particular or benching him until he gets his act together. He has played horribly this season and he is the most important player on the team. If Coach isn't at least privately getting on Green's case big time, then he is fooling himself with these lame excuses.

[YB]

What's the upside of calling Green out in the media? Jeff looks like his confidence is shaken right now as is. I'm sure he's working on Jeff behind the scenes, he knows how important Jeff is.

[Dhall]

He doesn't have to get personal with Green publicly, I agree, but it is frustrating to hear him explain poor play with the "young team" stuff when it's not true. Makes me question whether he actually believes it or not. I'm pretty sure that every year we will have a bunch of new players who didn't play the year before, so are we to believe that only his teams that are filled with juniors and seniors are going to be good?

[the_way]

dhall said:

Coach is repeatedly claiming we are a "young team" and still learning. Tell me, how many other teams can boast 3 players who have basically started every game for three years? I don't buy this lame excuse of his. What he should be doing is calling out Jeff Green in particular or benching him until he gets his act together. He has played horribly this season and he is the most important player on the team. If Coach isn't at least privately getting on Green's case big time, then he is fooling himself with these lame excuses.

Its not an excuse its the truth.

If you are upset, be upset for your unreasonable expectations of this team this year.

We are a young team and with young players, no matter how talented, you are going to have growing pains. Last night was a perfect example.

Again, you can't just look at box scores and make conclusions. You got to watch the game too. Jeff was running the PG position at times during the game. Actually bringing the ball up. You can't measure a player like Jeff Green by his box score. Jeff can have a great game and only score 6 points rebounds. But he does other things that you can't put on a score card, like initiate the offense, setting screens, coaching out on the floor, etc., etc.

I know its early,but throwing this team under the bus after 2 losses? Teams that are actually better than us. lol.

[YB]

Well, I think part of the problem is we have no seniors. But that said, it puts more pressure on Roy, Jeff and Jon. We have basically 10 players who run around with no clue what they are doing. But those 3 have to step up and lead. If they don't, it exposes the inexperience of the rest.

[Deleted]

C'mon, Dhall. What's the point of this post? Are you 10 years old?

I'm rather certain you're not, and I'm guessing you're a relatively well-informed sports fan. I'm also assuming you've seen/heard more than a few interviews with III over the past few years. By now you should know the man is a fountain of sports cliches. What else do you expect?

Oh, and advocating III call Jeff out in the media?! Worst. Idea. Ever. This isn't the pros... and even THEN its cowardly to call someone out in the media. If you want to see how well calling players and coaches out in the media works, take a peek at the New York Giants implosion.

I trust III to act like a MAN, and confront Green personally.

[Deleted]

theway said:

Its not an excuse its the truth.

If you are upset, be upset for your unreasonable expectations of this team this year.

We are a young team and with young players, no matter how talented, you are going to have growing pains. Last night was a perfect example.

Again, you can't just look at box scores and make conclusions. You got to watch the game too. Jeff was running the PG position at times during the game. Actually bringing the ball up. You can't measure a player like Jeff Green by his box score. Jeff can have a great game and only score 6 points rebounds. But he does other things that you can't put on a score card, like initiate the offense, setting screens, coaching out on the floor, etc., etc.

I know its early,but throwing this team under the bus after 2 losses? Teams that are actually better than us. lol.

I agree with most of what you're saying, _way. But not having seen last night's game and going on what others have posted, Jeff has YET to play one of those games you reference.

From what I've seen/heard, they guy has played poorly overall this season. Borderline awful at times.

[the_way]

yb said:

Well, I think part of the problem is we have no seniors. But that said, it puts more pressure on Roy, Jeff and Jon. We have basically 10 players who run around with no clue what they are doing. But those 3 have to step up and lead. If they don't, it exposes the inexperience of the rest.

How do you know they aren't leading already? lol.

Leadership fosters development, but it does not eradicate inexperience instantly.

You got to go through it, to get to it. And rightn now our players are going through the storm. We are in a developmental stage right now as a team. We are a work in progress, and it seems folks expect this to be a finished product right now. Its not.

[YB]

_way, at least to me the barometer has been the progress of the more experienced guys- who seem to have regressed in large part. The rest, I expect growing pains.

[tal1286]

We'll see if the young guys get it at the end of the season. I hope they do but keep this in mind: UNC gives 4 freshman major minutes and they are destroying teams. Our system takes a while to learn and right now I think our team is struggling to find an identity. I think we are kind of forcing the princeton thing right now as is evidenced by countless forced passes into bad back cuts.

[FOTP]

It is stupid to call anyone out in the media. Behind closed doors is the way to do it.

In all seriousness though I know Green does a TON of the little things as the_way says that may not show up in the box score...but NO WAY can your star player play 38 minutes and shoot 3 times. That's seriously insane. Even JTII called him out for that on the radio recently in another game.

I don't care how much of the offense has to run through him he needs to find a way to be an offensive player. That's ridiculous.

I watched the game last night and we NEED Jeff to step up offensively. I know he's not a 20 point a game scorer, but we have no chance when he shoots 3 times in 38 minutes.

In fact, any player that plays 38 minutes is incumbent to shoot more than that...I don't care if it's Ben Wallace or some other stiff.

Oh and we're not that young of a team...let's just stop with that lame excuse. I watched a couple of REALLY young teams last night in Ohio St. and UNC who would beat us by 25 at this point. Talent wins in basketball and we have 4 guys who got serious minutes (including Sapp) last year on a Sweet 16 team (two of which are first team Big East pre-season players) plus two Top 25 all-Americans coming into the program.

Every team is "young" nowadays so let's just stop with that excuse. We have plenty of talent and we're just not playing well right now.

I still love the team and we'll be much better as the season goes along, but it's time to light a fire...

[the_way]

buffalohoya said:

theway said:

Its not an excuse its the truth.

If you are upset, be upset for your unreasonable expectations of this team this year.

We are a young team and with young players, no matter how talented, you are going to have growing pains. Last night was a perfect example.

Again, you can't just look at box scores and make conclusions. You got to watch the game too. Jeff was running the PG position at times during the game. Actually bringing the ball up. You can't measure a player like Jeff Green by his box score. Jeff can have a great game and only score 6 points rebounds. But he does other things that you can't put on a score card, like initiate the offense, setting screens, coaching out on the floor, etc., etc.

I know its early,but throwing this team under the bus after 2 losses? Teams that are actually better than us. lol.

I agree with most of what you're saying, _way. But not having seen last night's game and going on what others have posted, Jeff has YET to play one of those games you reference.

From what I've seen/heard, they guy has played poorly overall this season. Borderline awful at times.

Buff, I saw the game last night.

And what stood out to me within the 1st 5 minutes of the game was this: Oregon is the better team. They have better athletes. And this game may get ugly.

Georgetown flat out got beat. And I think folks are in denial about this team.

From a talent standponit, Oregon looked like the better team.

Add to the fact, we don't have any consistent play from the perimeter. We don't have any outside shooters. Wallace is good for the occasional 3, but is he a go-to-guy? No. We don't have any guys who can create their own shot off the dribble? None. Oregon had all of that.

So, if you don't have that, that is going to affect your guys in the frontcourt.

I think the gripe, if anything should be with personnel. Our personnel will have a hard time with a team as quick as Oregon last night. We saw that last year with the Illinois game. There were times that G-town had good defense on the guy, and the Oregon player just still created off the dribble and made a great shot. There were other times when Oregon just simply left G-town players flat-footed beat them off the dribble easily.

So, I think after watching the game, I'm not surprised by the outcome really. I would only be shocked if I had unrealistic expectations for our team.

[ichirohoya]

Do things like Jeff taking more than 4 shots and Roy making point blank stuff in the lane and grabbing rebounds count as "unrealistic expectations?"

[the_way]

Its funny how folks mention Ohio State and UNC freshman and then think our freshman should get more playing time. lol

Did anybody watch that Ohio State-UNC game?

I know I did. I watched the Ohio State-UNC game right after I watched the G-town game.

And here is what I concluded: G-town, right now, would get blown out by 30 points by both Ohio State and UNC.

Did anyone stop to think that maybe, just maybe, UNC and Ohio State's freshman are, I don't know, 10 times better than the freshman we have and thats why they get playing time and our freshman don't get as much. lol

Just a thought.

You saw how much playing time Jeff Green got as a freshman didn't you?

If you are good you will play, if you aren't you will have earn your playing time.

There is nobody on G-town's roster that has been consistent enough to be even mentioned in the same sentence as UNC and Ohio States freshman.

Again, its November. We aren't there yet. Give it time. We need more games to get experience. Guys are getting that now. 2 months from now, hopefully we won't be having these "the sky is falling" type debates. If its February and we are playing like this then I would be worried.

[hoyaboy1]

I think that was sorta the point, way. Our problem isn't youth, it's that we just aren't that good right now. Rivers plays D but can't score, Summers plays no D and turns it over too much, and Macklin has been solid but doesn't get minutes because of Jeff and Roy. And there isn't enough talent to make up for it if our stars play like garbage.

Unless people think that UNC's roster coached by JTIII would be bad too, blaming "youth" is very disingenuous.

[Dhall]

Buffalo and _way, I have watched every minute of every game the team has played this year and watched every home game plus the Fairfield game from seats withing 50 feet of the court. It's just my opinion, fine, but Jeff Green has played horribly this year with the exception of 2 or 3 brief spurts.

I know JTIII is full of cliche as every coach, but at least use the right cliches! If you believe that Oregon and ODU are better than us, then that's your view and I can accept that. But I don't understand how anybody can claim that the loss of 2 starters and a sixth man who were all very inconsistent themselves (other than Cook who played very well the second part of the year) makes us worse than we were last year given that we now have 3 of the most experienced players in college basketball starting for our team, 2 of which performed at All Big East levels last year.

[the_way]

hoyaboy1 said:

I think that was sorta the point, way. Our problem isn't youth, it's that we just aren't that good.

Unless people think that UNC's roster coached by JTIII would be bad too.

Right, but at the same time Jeff, Wallace, and Hibbert have to adjust to the new personnel as well.

We not only lost talented players and experienced players. We lost guys who were in a system for 2 years straight.

Remember the growing pains of JTIII's first year?

I just think, as a unit, we don't have the cohesion yet.

Is that a problem? Yes. Would I rather not have this problem? Yes. But at the same time, its understandable given what personnel we have.

And I think folks are seeing Maryland's success and don't understand why we aren't having that same success. Well, Maryland is at a different stage of development than we are.

I just think our pieces aren't there yet. Our backcourt is always going to be a problem for us I think. I think the 3 position will be okay with Summers and Egerson. Our big guys can't get the ball if we dont' have consistent play on the perimeter. And when they do get the ball teams will collapse on us and gives us the oustide shot because we can't shoot. And, unlike Pops teams of old, we aren't quick enough to defend the perimeter or recover fast enough defensively from defensive breakdowns.

So, its going to be struggle early on, and maybe even later on in the season.

[williambraskyiii]

fotp said:

Oh and we're not that young of a team...let's just stop with that lame excuse. I watched a couple of REALLY young teams last night in Ohio St. and UNC who would beat us by 25 at this point. Talent wins in basketball and we have 4 guys who got serious minutes (including Sapp) last year on a Sweet 16 team (two of which are first team Big East pre-season players) plus two Top 25 all-Americans coming into the program.

Every team is "young" nowadays so let's just stop with that excuse. We have plenty of talent and we're just not playing well right now.

I still love the team and we'll be much better as the season goes along, but it's time to light a fire...

Hello, Exactly! couldn't agree more with everything in this post FOTP. Every team in young these days in college basketball...and while our recruiting class this year and next don't match up to tOSU and UNC this year, it is pretty darn close in that we have two Top 25 caliber players each year...the "its a young team" is totally a lame excuse and we go back to the issue that, if this offense takes a FULL year for our athletes to learn, we will lose out on major prospects...who wants that?

i know i am starting to sound like an NC State Fan in the Sendek era and I am sad about it.

[RaleighHoya]

Oregon has better athletes? You are being ridiculous. We lost because we were outplayed, outhustled, and outcoached.

We had 7 assists to 17 turnovers. WE shot 1-9 from three and we continue to let teams force us to play their game instead of the other way around. Our guard play is horrendous and JTIII and Esh should be ashamed that neither could get any guards worth a damn to come here and be on this team. Sure, we have good ones for next year, but I will have to hear about how young we are then.

NEWSFLASH>>>ALMOST EVERY COLLEGE BASKETBALL TEAM IS YOUNG AS HAS NO SENIORS!!!!!

[TrueHoyaBlue]

williambraskyiii said:

if this offense takes a FULL year for our athletes to learn, we will lose out on major prospects...who wants that?

i know i am starting to sound like an NC State Fan in the Sendek era and I am sad about it.

Right now, we know it takes at least more than six weeks.