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Post by jld54 on Mar 14, 2011 11:18:12 GMT -5
Sheer speculation, but here goes: I would be surprised if Porter would want to come here with the current number of forwards and big men lined up, especially if Ochefu commits to GU.
I thought that with Mike Anderson being mentioned as the leading candidiate for Arkansas, this would increase our chances with Porter. Arkansas is loaded in the frontline with three top players for next year, and he may not like the new staff at Missouri. So it is surprising that the Whittington commitment came on the same day as the Arkansas announcement. But it seems like the whole Missouri-Arkansas potential situation would take time to play out and we appropriately pulled the trigger on Whittington.
Now if by some chance Porter would want to come even now, of course we should take him, but I still think the Porter ship may have sailed.
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Post by jld54 on Mar 6, 2011 16:31:54 GMT -5
Successful, given the depths to which the program had sunk by 2004, and given facilities which are on an entirely different level that the highest level teams.
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Post by jld54 on Feb 17, 2011 8:25:05 GMT -5
To call this team soft is simply silly. A soft team would not play the toughest OOC schedule in the country, have a swoon against what is in retrospect three excellent teams, with 2 on the road, and then turn it around to win 8 in a row , including road wins at VU and SU, and holding off Louisville at home.
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Post by jld54 on Feb 16, 2011 13:43:08 GMT -5
He is a one and done and likely headed toward a program with value$ different from GU. Just look at the list of his "strongest" schools: “...Connecticut, Kentucky, West Virginia, Pitt". (Maybe not Pitt, but the others...). We should focus on Ochefu and/or Ware for our 2012 big men.
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Post by jld54 on Feb 10, 2011 13:34:45 GMT -5
Jackson's 4th was a dumb play by him. After 2 prior offensive fouls he needlessly wrapped his arm around HT. yes, it was away from the ball but it was clearly a foul. They also missed his shove in the back against JV in the first half -- he should have had that foul.
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Post by jld54 on Feb 9, 2011 20:08:11 GMT -5
Disagree on the announcers. Frascilla is objective but the other guy is openly rooting for SU. "Kris Joseph looks like Carmelo Anthony"??!?
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Post by jld54 on Feb 8, 2011 21:15:33 GMT -5
Just looking at the videos, he is way too thin to compete in Big East for at least a year, has possible grade issues, and dominates in a weak league. We can/should do better.
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Post by jld54 on Feb 2, 2011 11:50:38 GMT -5
Putting aside any past issues, we are in on a number of top front court players for 2012, and even possibly for Porter this year. It also may look like recruiting over/around our 2011 commits in the front court. I think that taking a transfer mid-year would impact our plans, and having a guy like Judge for 2 years or so is not worth it. This does not even take into account the academic and "fit" issues surrounding any transfer.
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Post by jld54 on Feb 1, 2011 14:12:59 GMT -5
This is crazy. This team has been thin in quality backcourt depth since JT3 came aboard. Even in the FF year Rivers was the third guard! Now we have solid depth; the byproduct of this is a pecking order, and Vee comes in behind 3 experienced and talented upperclassmen.
While I cannot pretend to know or judge Vee, if he has his head on straight he should know that we have not recruited over him next year -- Trawick is a swing man and will need time to develop -- , and 60+ minutes of CW and AF's time is available. He has learned behind very good college guards every day, has chipped in well in limited minutes, and is getting a free GU education to boot. Barring an unforeseen problem, he is in line from a starting role or sixth man type role for the next 2 years.
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Post by jld54 on Feb 1, 2011 6:36:04 GMT -5
I disagree completely re: Jason's defense on Siva on the last shot. If you watch the replay from the end zone camera, Siva was falling to his left while shooting a 25 footer on the run. It would have been near-miraculous if that shot went in. We played that last possession very well. Plus, the real dangerous Cardinal in that situation was Knowles, and I suspect that CW was on him. Either way, he did not take the shot.
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Post by jld54 on Jan 26, 2011 20:46:11 GMT -5
The key is Lubick -- more size to help JV inside. Even when he does not get the board or stop he is making it harder for SJU. Hollis is also a good change-up when he then comes in. Excellent change by JT3.
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Post by jld54 on Jan 22, 2011 6:02:43 GMT -5
He should be a 3 next year with bigger players coming in and more PT for Nate and Moses. He will have to be much more of the focus given the loss of Freeman and even Vaughan, who when on does contribute. He has played admirably at the 4 this year and has scrapped the best he can despite playing completely out of position. He has sacrificed minutes more than anyone has we often have to get Lubick in simply to counter extreme size mismatches, but he definitely is a talented player.
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Post by jld54 on Jan 18, 2011 21:45:20 GMT -5
All you can say is that a game is 40 minutes and we got a W. A loss would have been a major problem for may reasons discussed here. A win lets us live another day, and keeps hope alive.
This team is too small to be a top tier team in the BE, and we cannot get away with offense like we do OOC because we are fully scouted by the BE opponents. The team fought back so they are still buying in.
The jury is still out as to whether we can eke out an NCAA bid but a loss tonight would have made it doubtful. A week off may help -- it has already been a long season with the tough OOC schedule. Hopefully the week at home will allow the team to get some rest and regroup.
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Post by jld54 on Jan 9, 2011 10:37:27 GMT -5
In a mood to torture myself, I watched my DVR of the second half. This included the following plays:
1. CW barreling into the lane which was already guarded by the WVU center and another man. TO and fast break basket basket for WVU.
2. Vaughan lazy pass to AF on perimeter - 2 points on break for Flowers
3. Sims picking up his dribble in no man's land, passing directly to WVU guard at mid court - out a a timeout -- 2 points for WVU on break
4. Benimon lazy pass to AF, again out of a time out -- leads to Mitchell 3 pt play - fouled by falling down CW
In a game in the 50s-60s, we gave away 9 points in one half on horrible TOs, or TO equivalents as Doris Burke pointed out on CW wild drive. This does not count potential additional points for GU if we scored on any of these empty possessions.
This does not include the 4 TOs in a row at the end of the game when the margin was 1-4 points.
This was not the result of extraordinary plays by WVU. It was a lack of execution and attention to detail.
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Post by jld54 on Jan 8, 2011 13:33:21 GMT -5
There are so many things to say and all are negative: 1. WVU is not a good team this year. They have 2 scorers, yet we let them score 2/3 of their points. Did we have a plan to stop Mitchell and Jones? This game was an absolute gift to a mediocre team with a very good coach.
2. We gave away at least 8 points on horrible turnovers and lost more points on the same empty possessions. You would think that a very limited guy like Benimon would at least try not to give the ball away for a 3 pt play the other way with lazy passes. WVU played solid D on those plays but we should be experienced and smart enough not to throw lazy passes on the perimeter with WVU going the other way.
3. There is something radically wrong with Freeman. 0 points in 25 minutes for a senior scoring leader is horrific, and it was not WVU strategy or defense. He is either physically not well or has an attititude/confidence problem.
4. CW has learned nothing in 4 years. His out of control spin moves into the heart of the defense in this game and SJU under 2 minutes were fatal. Also, WVU has at last 4-6 fast break points and maybe more because he was out of position offensively and was not balancing the floor defensively, something they teach you in 4th grade rec or CYO basketball.
5. JV simply did not have it today and his 5 TOs killed us. He has 2 bad games for every decent/good one. This is a killer.
6. The horrific plays out of timeouts is dreadful. When we cut it to 1 with Markel's 5 points and the block on the other end, JT3 calls TO to put Freeman and Wright back in -- and we throw the ball away.
7. JT3 has zero control of this team in the sense that his upperclass backcourt does what they want to do and fails to execute any semblence of an offense, all going 1 on 1 in a panic at crunch time. If it was Starks or Vee making those plays at least you could chalk it up to inexperience.
8. Hollis is completely misused and I would be very frustrated if I were him. He hustles and is a great athlete but winds up somehow with only points and fouling out, and I seem to recall that at least 1 or 2 were fouls he committed while helping out.
9. Any hope for progress from Sims and Vee shown in the OOC schedule, and experience gained by the 2 frosh, has completely been lost.
10. Another poster the other day may have it right. We blamed Sapp, DeJuan, and even Greg for the past 2 years -- but maybe it was this core all along. This may the third completely lost season out of the past 3, and there is one common denominator, this core.
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Post by jld54 on Jan 3, 2011 21:49:56 GMT -5
You have to feel sorry for Clark. His jumper and defense have abandoned him -- if he ever had any defense, but he still fought hard at the end on offense. Just a frustrating game on the road in BE against the now #5 RPI team which was on a nice win streak. Our losses have all been on the road against top 15 RPI teams. I am beginning to wonder if playing so tough a OOC schedule took something out of this team. The Memphis game was totally unnecessary and to go on the rad after exams 2 days before Christmas, to then have to go out to South Bend, is a miserable way to go into the BE schedule.
The key now is beating WVU and Pitt at home, then RU and SHUn on the road. These should be wins IF we are a good team. If we are just another version of the past 2 years' teams, these games will disappoint.
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Post by jld54 on Jan 2, 2011 12:30:30 GMT -5
The issue with this team is that it does not have the size and bulk which is necessary to win consistently at the highest level. Syracuse does not have highly skilled players this year but just outsized and outmuscled ND yesterday. They wore ND down over minutes with their size/zone on defense, and size on offense. This is this group's major limitation and I believe that JT3 has recognized it with recruitment of Lubick/Moses this year, Adams/Hopkins/Trawick (reportedly a tough kid) for next year, and Bolden and focus on Echefu for 2012. This group is perimeter-oreiented and is skilled offensively, but has limits athletically and size-wise, and this is the weakness which may be exposed in BE that was not evident in OOC play.
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Post by jld54 on Dec 10, 2010 7:48:27 GMT -5
There is no reason to blame Wright. He passed to Hollis who was in the middle of the floor with 8-9 seconds left. There was plenty of time for Hollis to swing the ball to the left side where Freeman and Clark were, and Chris had no reason to expect that Hollis would drive blindly to the basket with 7-8 seconds left, and then not expect the Temple C to help when he did beat his man off the dribble. The flaw in the play was Hollis not having his head up/having court sense to look for Vaughan. I do not buy that Vaughan would have fumbled the pass -- if he did then it would have been on him.
As annoying as this loss was, there can be a lot of positives if we learn from this. I would rather play a tough defensive team like Temple -- 3 time in a row A10 champ -- than Delaware State, etc. and learn nothing about the team. This game shows that we need to work on perimeter defense, execute better in the end game, and try to control the game better. If we had kept Temple offense in half court game we would have on, since more times than not we got stops in the half court game. It was with points off turnovers/sloppy transition defense that Temple got the points to win.
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Post by jld54 on Dec 7, 2010 8:41:46 GMT -5
Interesting that he came for a visit. I did not know that this had occurred. A positive sign that he would come to DC for visit despite the comment of him being close with family and possibly wanting to stay home at Missouri. If he projects as a SF rather than a PF, as suggested above, then there may be room for him. Also, he seems to be a fundamentally sound player who could blossom in our system, as opposed to Missouri's run and gun. Also, this seems to an under the radar recruitment, so while a long shot, it is not impossible.
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Post by jld54 on Dec 5, 2010 10:52:55 GMT -5
As good as he is, do we realistically have room for him with Sims, Lubick, Moses, Benimon, Adams, and Hopkins next year, and Bolden in 2012?
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