Hoyas vs. Vandy Regional Semis Pre-Game Discussion

[lichoya68]

EAT THE BANNANNA ::)GO HOYAS BEAT VANDY ::)SEE YOU ALL IN JERSEY BOYS.....

[HooHoya]

bigdog said:

The omnipresent Seth Davis picks the Hoyas to win two in East Rutherford:

I knew there was a reason to like Seth Davis!

[HooHoya]

bigdog said:

Give Davis credit. He used the Gottleib line about having doubts about our guards early in the year, and he is now willing to change his mind. In fact, he admitted on the video being totally wrong about Ewing, Jr. There's always room on the Bandwagon for people who undergo a change of heart.

Speaking of the guards, forgive me if this has already been mentioned (I missed it, if so), but did anyone hear Rick Majerus on ESPN Radio yesterday?

Majerus said that Wallace was the best shooter still in the tournament. He quoted some goofy statistic, but he was very complimentary of Wallace.

I don't know if he's the best, but Wallace has certainly exceeded my expectations. I always had confidence in him as the PG, running the team and keeping everyone on the same page. His shooting has been a revelation, and as much a reason for this team's success as anything else.

[HooHoya]

Yeah, Vandy is better than they were last time. So is Georgetown. I'm confident in the Hoyas' ability to pull this one out.

That said, I love Derrick Byars. I loved him when he was at Virginia and Pete Gillen screwed around with him and ran him off. He's an excellent player -- and very smart. He'd actually fit in very well with this year's Georgetown team. A quintessential JTIII player.

[hoyasexy]

Majerus has been a Wallace fan throughout the year. I don't remember what game it was, but Majerus called one of our games and referred to JW as the best shooter in the Big East. The stat he relied on for that analysis was FG%+3pt%+FT%. A 180 puts you among the elite shooters, and JW is currently 185 (50+48+87). I won't look up anyone else's stats, but I would put those numbers up against anyone.

[hoyaesq]

Discuss this excerpt ripped from a foxsports.com article. The operative question is, are we that easy to gameplan? I've had a gnawing bad feeling all year about teams that zone us.

If you watched the Syracuse game, you know what I'm saying. It was pretty dreadful....like we'd never seen a zone before.:

Boston College was down 12-2 to Georgetown at the first TV timeout and on the verge of getting blown out when they switched to a zone defense. The Eagles promptly went on a 37-19 run that gave them an eight-point second half lead. Ultimately, the Hoyas overwhelmed B.C. — playing without suspended shot-blocker Sean Williams — on the inside, but you can bet Vanderbilt coach Kevin Stallings has taken note of Georgetown's lengthy struggle, going 4-for-16 from deep, against the B.C. zone.

[sweetness]

When we shoot like that we - as anyone - struggle against a zone. But when we shoot at our normal clip, I think we can exploit a zone -- we have done so quite a few times this year.

[TrueHoyaBlue]

Teams have been zoning us all year, though. I feel much better about our ability to take on just about any zone other than the Syracuse 2-3 (or WVU's version of the 1-3-1, which was the one that BC attempted on us in the first half). Vandy plays some zone, but it's not their bread-and-butter, and I think this team has demonstrated the ability to shred some of the zones put up by man-to-man teams over the last two months.

[YB]

Vandy is a talented team and Stallings a good coach. This will be much closer than last time, at the least. Vandy has developed well, and we'll see if III can adjust there.

[FOTP]

Wallace at 185 is purely stunning and the "180" phenomenon is one that a lot of coaches point to.

To shoot 50%/48%/87% is truly amazing for a top 10 team.

Say what you want about Majerus, but he's a good coach and recognizes things that others miss.

Now Wallace does have the advantage of an excellent low post game so he gets some good looks, but he drives the ball in the lane a fair amount and takes a bunch of end of the shot clock 3's.

The 185 is probably one of the best shooting lines of anyone left in the tourney. Can someone check that? I doubt anyone shoots at that level.

[GUJook97]

"Ultimately, the Hoyas overwhelmed B.C. — playing without suspended shot-blocker Sean Williams — on the inside..."

See, I think this is exactly the point. If you are going to play zone against us then we are going to out-rebound you significantly on the offensive boards. Plus, I sure didnt see a problem with Roy getting inside penetration againt the vaunted BC zone.

sweetness is right - BC's best defense against us in that game was our failure to make open shots. If any team misses its open shots all night, they are going to lose.

[Boz]

Playing without suspended shot blocker Sean Williams?

Sorry if this has been discussed, I didn't read that until now.

1. I might be wrong, but I thought he was dismissed from the team, not suspended.

2. It's not like this happened last week, they've been playing without him since January.

3. Excuses are like ---holes.

Keep in mind, we were playing without sixth man Marc Egerson and without suspended point guard Kenny Brunner.

EDIT: My bad, this is the Vandy discussion. I thought I was in a different thread. (I've got to get past this BC thing.)

[philipvu94]

Greetings from a Vanderbilt fan. Going way back in the thread (sorry, I'm still working my way forward):

highsmith said:

I didn't see the first game against them, but I can't believe they have improved as much as we have since that point in the season.

That's interesting, because I would say about the same thing about Georgetown, with a small caveat. Big East championship teams just don't fly under the radar in this country, ever, but SEC 2nd-place teams do.

I haven't watched a ton of your team this year, but my impression is that they were a marginal top 25 team in November that stumbled out of the gate, found their form in January, and have become one of the top 5-6 teams in the nation.

On our side, we started absolutely lost at sea, came together in Februrary, and became a top 30 team that on its day is capable of playing with anyone and beating them if they let up.

Maybe this is a theoretical discussion on just how hard it is to move farther into the tail of the bell curve. But it seems to me that, say, improvement from 125th to 25th is more substantial than improvement from 20th to 5th. Or to put it another way: in November, you could have played us ten times and won nine or ten. You're still the substantial favorites, but this time we have a legitimate shot and win two or three of ten.

OK, back to reading up....

[Dhall]

We've won 17 of 18 games against varying degrees of competition and all of them have played some or mostly zone against us. People somehow forget that we were winning the Syracuse game 44-43 with under 12 minutes left, but we just died on both ends of the floor after that and I'd say it related to their 3-point shooting and more than anything. When we play poorly, it's because we turn the ball over and I still can't figure out why some games Jessie and Jeff and DaJuan seem to be giving the ball to the other team repeatedly while other games they don't do it. If we don't commit "unforced errors", we win every time. The one exception this year was at Pitt where we played well the whole game and still lost because of their penetration and shooting percentage.

[doublehoya]

yb said:

Vandy is a talented team and Stallings a good coach. This will be much closer than last time, at the least. Vandy has developed well, and we'll see if III can adjust there.

Hmmmm . . . insightful. Really made me think. Way to go out on a ledge!

/post-padding is fun
//making fun of post-padders is fun, too

[Cambridge]

hoyamonkey said:

Majerus has been a Wallace fan throughout the year. I don't remember what game it was, but Majerus called one of our games and referred to JW as the best shooter in the Big East. The stat he relied on for that analysis was FG%+3pt%+FT%. A 180 puts you among the elite shooters, and JW is currently 185 (50+48+87). I won't look up anyone else's stats, but I would put those numbers up against anyone.

I emailed Ken Pomeroy about this stat. He was flabbergasted that Majerus had come up with a stat he hadn't thought about.

EDIT: Alright, I ran some numbers. My requirements: 20+ mpg & 50+ 3PA this year.

Name School (FG% + FT% + 3P%) = Rating
1. Pete Campbell BU (.518 + .871 + .513) = 1.902
2. Jon Wallace GU (.502 + .868 + .481) = 1.851
3. Josh Carter TXAM (.496 + .786 + .503) = 1.785
4. Ronald Ramon PITT (.463 + .868 + .446) = 1.777
5. Bryce Taylor OR (.518 + .829 + .424) = 1.771
6. Tajuan Porter OR (.414 + .920 + .435) = 1.769
7. Nick Young USC (.527 + .783 + .453) = 1.763
8. Dan Cage VANDY (.448 + .865 + .443) = 1.756
9. Acie Law IV TXAM (.506 + .778 + .463) = 1.747
10. Darren Collison UCLA (.488 + .788 + .457) = 1.733

[hoyas83]

About Jonathan Wallace: I was at the Gu / BC game and have been a longtime Hoya fan (1979 and counting) My fellow alum TM from Dix Hills who if he wasn't in his current position would make a tremendous men's college BB analyst stated that he thought JW would make a fine Asst. coach and eventually a head coach. I took that in when TM said that. Then.....during the BC game Jesse Sapp got into a "discussion" with Dudley and who is the first person to step and calm down Jesse........? Wallace. I had Bi-nocs and saw Jonathan's expression. He looked like a coach...like JT3. The guys a winner.

[hoyas83]

Pardon me if this has been stated before but for those of us who are concerned about the vandy game take comfort in this. Go to vandy's website and click on the men's BB tab. There you can click on the GU / Vandy game and read the post game comments. There they state that they don't have anyone that matches up to Jeff Green!!! They STILL DON'T!

[FewFAC]

hoyaesq said:

Discuss this excerpt ripped from a foxsports.com article. The operative question is, are we that easy to gameplan? I've had a gnawing bad feeling all year about teams that zone us.

If you watched the Syracuse game, you know what I'm saying. It was pretty dreadful....like we'd never seen a zone before.:

Boston College was down 12-2 to Georgetown at the first TV timeout and on the verge of getting blown out when they switched to a zone defense. The Eagles promptly went on a 37-19 run that gave them an eight-point second half lead. Ultimately, the Hoyas overwhelmed B.C. — playing without suspended shot-blocker Sean Williams — on the inside, but you can bet Vanderbilt coach Kevin Stallings has taken note of Georgetown's lengthy struggle, going 4-for-16 from deep, against the B.C. zone.

Yeah, but even more relevant was the fact that Roy had early foul trouble, which eliminated our main inside offensive and defensive threat as well as negating our major matchup advantage versus BC.

Playing smart to avoid foul trouble will remain our toughest challenge. I continue to suggest defensively we begin the game with a more interior-focused defensive gameplan, encouraging Vandy to shoot outside to protect against early foul trouble.

[Nevada Hoya]

dhall said:

We've won 17 of 18 games against varying degrees of competition and all of them have played some or mostly zone against us. People somehow forget that we were winning the Syracuse game 44-43 with under 12 minutes left, but we just died on both ends of the floor after that and I'd say it related to their 3-point shooting and more than anything. When we play poorly, it's because we turn the ball over and I still can't figure out why some games Jessie and Jeff and DaJuan seem to be giving the ball to the other team repeatedly while other games they don't do it. If we don't commit "unforced errors", we win every time. The one exception this year was at Pitt where we played well the whole game and still lost because of their penetration and shooting percentage.

I am afraid that is when I first started to watch the game, which at that point was my first live GU game of the year. I was completely to blame.