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Post by jld54 on Apr 24, 2008 16:51:04 GMT -5
A mixed bag -- I do not think that Macklin would ever be more that a role player, given his lack of rebounding and post defense. He is a good passer and would have prospered playing with Chris Wright, who can drive and dish off. But I suspect that he felt that he was recruited over -- with three 6'8" and above players coming in this year, all top 75.
This will hurt if Braswell does not qualify and we cannot find a suitable 2008 replacement, as Vern could have at minimum eaten minutes and helped with depth/foul trouble. But I doubt that a former AA would accept this role for 2 more years so it is reasonable for him to move on basketball wise. If Braswell does not come next year, I am hoping, perhaps unrealistically, that JT3 has something up his sleeve recruiting wise, perhaps swooping in on the African supposedly bound for UConn. He is supposedly awaiting word on what Thabeet will do. Perhaps JT has feelers out...
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Post by jld54 on Apr 6, 2008 11:31:54 GMT -5
Colud this spot be available because Braswell will not qualify?
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Post by jld54 on Apr 1, 2008 11:49:23 GMT -5
I am disappointed that our 2d team AA was limited to 16 minutes by two bogus foul calls, while theirs played the whole game.
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Post by jld54 on Mar 31, 2008 17:29:05 GMT -5
Excellent post. When he was able to play against good teams with good bigs, he did well, as Florida, UNC, Ohio State and amongst those teams listed above. I also recall that he has something like 20 pts, 7 rebs against UConn/Thabeet this year.
The sad thing is that he was not allowed to play in what turned out to be his last college game. I watched the first half of the Davidson game on MMOD last nite and the second foul was not a foul and was eve a no call because the pass was sailing out of bounds five feet from Roy. The 6'7" white stiff on Davidson was mauling him the few trips before the bogus call. Further the 4th foul was non-existent.
The Roy bashers will miss Roy when he is gone...
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Post by jld54 on Mar 24, 2008 16:04:11 GMT -5
I think that yesterday was eerily like Iowa -- I was there and watched a comfortable lead inexplicably and helplessly slip away. I think this can be a valuable learning experience for JT3.
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Post by jld54 on Mar 24, 2008 8:37:02 GMT -5
and don't forget Iowa in 1980...
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Post by jld54 on Mar 24, 2008 7:57:23 GMT -5
After overnight to digest this game, the key was the 10 or so turnovers in the first half of the second half. Per our friend Calhoun, you cannot allow a lower seed to believe that it can beat you. We came out in the first half heeding this, and played heads up ball on both ends. If we just hung onto the ball, at the 60% shooting rate all day, we would have stepped on their neck and been up 20+ by the 15 minute mark of the second half and never allowed them a chance.
Yes we were playing on their court, were playing a ranked 10 seed, against a player who can score at will if he gets hot, with crappy calls vs. Roy, etc., and with subpar FT%. But the TO differential -- 20 to 4-- killed us. It was an odd game to digest because we did take not poor shots, too early, or go cold -- we just did not take that many, and they took far more even tho we outrebounded them. Further, our D style is not to force turnovers -- that is fine but puts even more of a premium on not turning it over ourself.
Strangley, it did not feel that we folded on defense, as we knew that this team could get hot. It was more like the inevitable which we knew we had to avoid came becuase of the TOs. We gave them so many more shots, and so many more chances to get hot and get the crowd and refs into it.
This team did not value the ball the entire year, see, e.g., the VU regular season game, at SU, and at MU where we just threw the ball around. Unfortunately, Summers, Sapp, Freman and Rivers were the worst offenders all year, and this has to be fixed or it will be more of the same next year.
I am very concerned about Summers going forward, he just did not seem to have his head into it this year despite tremendous physical talent. In flashes, you could see even a player llike Macklin try to run our stuff -- good passing, cutting from a guy with average BB IQ at best --but Summers was totally out of sync all year.
It was sad to see our SRs go out this way, but we cost ourselves the game by not doing waht we needed to do, plain and simple.
Note: This is simply a game analysis. I am very grateful for all that our Srs and JT3 have done, and will continue my fanatical support going forward.
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Post by jld54 on Mar 17, 2008 18:38:15 GMT -5
georgetown can go far in the tourney if dejuan gets his head screwed on straight, we utilize roy's inner beast, and put up the solid D
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Post by jld54 on Mar 14, 2008 13:10:01 GMT -5
CW seemed 100% healthy, confident, aggressive, in shape, and he clearly knows the offense. You can tell by watching that he is a natural player. He will have to learn but is a key additonal weapon for this year. He does change the dynamic of the backcourt in terms of another quality guard, a different look, and shoring up our weak areas.
I was not buying into the CW as savior talk, but he changed my mind in terms of being a valuable contributor this year.
When he hit the 3 off of the PE kick ahed the ESN camera panned to Jay Wright, who had a sick look on his face, like "who was that'? Quite funny.
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Post by jld54 on Mar 14, 2008 10:48:03 GMT -5
The ESPN team which did our game yesterday is -- with the exception of Raftery -- horrible. Jay Bilas has turned into a sour old man/young Billy Packer this year. He is constantly demeaning players and refs, and provides little or no analysis. Sean McOrange is despicable and should not be permitted to do any games, no less a GU game. And Raf, who is otherwise good, gets caught up in one-uppping the other two clowns with drivel. They sound like Phil Rizzutto in his latter years with the Yankees, talking about everything except the action in front of them. On the other hand, it was refreshing to hear pros like Schulman and Elmore do the PM games. One reports the action objectively and the other analyzes, without the uneccessary third wheel. Len was a real player and constructively points out a poor play or poor decison without demeaning the player, like Bilas does. These are young guys playing in front of 20K and a national TV audience, and I do not think any of them on any team purposefully make a bad play or boneheaded decison, yet Bilas and Mc O would have you believe that. The "analysis" of our game was unreal. I watched the game last night and the commentary had nothing to do with what was going on on ther floor. No comments on the 20-0 FT advantage -- justifed or not, --, or the phemonenal team play on both O and D -- until the last few minutes, with the outcome no longer in doubt. Bilas was whining for fouls against us constantly, notably the time that Reynolds got hurt driving out of control against JW and Mack. He picked up his drivel outside the foul line, went in on the left side with the ball in his right hand, stumbled and got his shot blocked, and fell hard. Bilas was insisting there was a foul thru multiple replays which showed an out of control player losing his balance, and even Raf and Mc O diagreed with him. Unreal.
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Post by jld54 on Mar 13, 2008 16:24:53 GMT -5
the officials were terrible. but, not only did we systematically destroy them, but they shot over 20 free throws and we only went to the charity stripe a few times. and, both of our centers fouled out. Great game for Georgetown, i think they have Final Four potential.
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Post by jld54 on Mar 13, 2008 16:16:49 GMT -5
heres what the box score looks like:
Georgetown Hoyas STARTERS MIN FGM-A FTM-A OFF REB AST PF PTS D. Summers, F 25 6-9 4-7 1 4 2 3 19 R. Hibbert, C 14 0-2 0-0 2 4 0 5 0 J. Wallace, G 35 7-10 1-2 0 2 1 1 20 A. Freeman, G 32 3-8 0-0 1 3 5 1 7 J. Sapp, G 30 8-12 1-1 0 3 4 2 23 BENCH MIN FGM-A FTM-A OFF REB AST PF PTS V. Macklin, F 15 0-1 0-0 1 4 0 5 0 C. Wright, G 15 2-3 0-0 0 0 4 1 6 J. Rivers, G 10 0-2 0-0 0 2 2 2 0 P. Ewing Jr., F 24 2-4 3-3 1 9 7 4 7 TOTALS FGM-A FTM-A OFF REB AST PF PTS 28-51 9-13 6 31 25 24 82 54.9% 69.2% TEAM REBS: 1 TURNOVERS: 16 (P Ewing 2, J Sapp 1, R Hibbert 4, D Summers 4, V Macklin 3, J Wallace 1, J Rivers 1) BLOCKED SHOTS: 5 (J Sapp 1, D Summers 1, V Macklin 3) STEALS: 7 (P Ewing 2, J Sapp 1, R Hibbert 1, D Summers 3) 3-PT FGS: 17-28, .607 (P Ewing 0-1, C Wright 2-3, J Sapp 6-9, D Summers 3-5, A Freeman 1-3, J Wallace 5-6, J Rivers 0-1)
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Post by jld54 on Mar 13, 2008 16:12:36 GMT -5
Mack the knife has deeply cut Shootie Reynolds..... im glad we gave the scholarship to Chris Wright instead of that chucker.
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Post by jld54 on Oct 22, 2007 13:23:55 GMT -5
The bottom line is that GU already signed 3 PF?cs for the Class of 2008. I cannot even name one Md big man, so there is clearly more PT for him at Md. Also, we do not the details of his academic status, and the whole issue of coming here mid-year. Perhaps one cannot come in mid-year, or perhaps not even Md. would accept a mid-year transfer.
We have 3 good big guys next year, plus Macklin and Summers, and a good shot a Riley. So this is not the end of the world. A few years ago we would have been devastated by this loss -- now we can take comfort in having a commitment from the top big man and the likely No. 1 player in his class, so...
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Post by jld54 on Dec 6, 2007 9:23:25 GMT -5
We should remember that this is college BB. Most true college players have flaws in their game. If Roy did not he would be 100% NBA ready and would not be on the team this year. Roy has areas to work on and they have all been identified. Whats sets college BB apart from the pros is how a good coach/program can improve a player's weaker areas and integrate him into a scheme where strengths are stressed and weaknesses are covered. So yes RH has some flaws but he wouldn't be representing our schoool as an amateur studnt-athlete if he didn't.
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Post by jld54 on Oct 14, 2007 9:11:55 GMT -5
Now that we have Monroe I think that one or more commits will soon follow. I think that with Monroe on board Woolridge may be less likely to come. The only other 07/08 candidate appears to be Gilchrest. He seems to be a big body who can take up space and fouls this year and be ready to bang next year.
Beyond these two I think the focus shifts to early commits from 09 players. The ideal would be a commitment from Riley, as the big man to complement Monroe after 08. If we got Riley, then the focus would be on a top swingman from the Hollis Thompson, Vinson, Karron Johnson grouping.
I think that JT 3 has set things up perfectly and am confident that things will fall into place nicely.
The extension for JT3, the Midnight Madness recruits, and then Monroe coming are key because we are building on the Final Four momentum. There was some angst after the FF that we would miss out on the momentum but this is not the case, unlike our friend Gary at Maryland. Beating out the early 2000s powerhouses Duke and UConn, plus his home state $EC school is unreal.
I believe that we are on the way to establishing GU at the top of college BB along with FLA, UNC, UCLA and the like, while putting hated Duke and UConn in the rear view mirror. I hated during the late JT2/Esh eras when schools like Duke, etc. would simply pick off the cream of the crop, and we would lose out to them for top players and struggle with the second/third tier recruits.
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Post by jld54 on Jul 25, 2007 10:37:14 GMT -5
Jessie is a starting junior returnee from a Final Four team. Barring a catastrphe he will start. Ther may be times where he gets more or fewer minutes depending on matchups, etc. but I doubt very much that he will lose his starting job, or siginificant minutes, next year.
Towards the end of the year he played more of a point posiiton in the Princeton O, and no matter how talented the new guards are, Sapp's experience in this role is invaluable.
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Post by jld54 on Apr 19, 2007 12:47:35 GMT -5
I am not worried at all about the coaching situation. The president stated in public that this will br addressed and there is no reason to believe it won't be. This is an extension, not a situation like Florida where Donovan's contarct was up and he was pursued by Ky.
On the assistant front it is an honor to have two assistants picked up as HCs by other schools. I have enough faith in JT3 that he will handle this this well once we know for sure if we have to replace 1 vs. 2 assistants.
I will not suddenly question a coach who brought us from oblivion to the FF in three years. There is plenty of time to get a staff together to recruit; most of the current juniors have been recruited hard for the past year or so anyway.
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Post by jld54 on Mar 30, 2007 7:02:11 GMT -5
Totally unrelated to the Egerson piece--or is it?--my wife was reading the Times at breakfast today and pointed out the huge number of corrections on page A2. She ran through basic stuff the Times got wrong in run of the mill articles, and commented what a rag the paper has become, all without knowledge of the Egerson piece.
We have to accept, unfortunately, that low life media types will try to find, and exaggerate, the negatives about us, just as they do with any other successful persons or groups.
I guess that our "orange" NY Times friend simply forgot, or overlooked, the fact that our starting point guard was HS president and admitted to Princeton before coming to GU without a scholarship. That would be too boring and balanced a piece of information to include.
And if the last student quoted was student body president, he sounds like a dope, if nothing else.
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Wives
Mar 26, 2007 19:29:23 GMT -5
Post by jld54 on Mar 26, 2007 19:29:23 GMT -5
My wife of 18 years is not a spectator sports fan, and never understood my obsession with GU basketball. But we went to the Pitt game in February with my sons when visiting DC, and since then, she began to express an interest in the Hoyas, and watched the whole Villanova and ND Big East games. (We had prior dinner plans for the Pitt game), and the BC NCAA game. (She hated Dudley).
So I went to the Vandy game with my younger son Friday and she watched on TV, alone. Then I went to the UNC game with both sons yesterday, and she watched at home. At the final buzzer I get a call on my cell from my wife, screaming as we were. She said she was watching the last five minutes of regulation and then OT screaming at the TV and scaring the dog. She said "don't tell the kids but I was screaming 'kick their ass' the last 5 minutes"! Of course I immediately told them.
Finally, upon arriving home she announced that she was already making calls for a Final Four party at the house on Saturday, and wanted to know the start time!
A long post but relevant to explain the special nature of this team.
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