Slow start dooms MBB in 61-51 loss to W&M

[mat1992 2,231]

https://towsontigers.com/news/2020/2/20/mens-basketball-fobbs-hits-milestone-against-william-mary.aspx

What a pathetic offensive performance behind a really solid crowd of 2,600+. I know, we've seen this script before, but this is a team that maybe peaked too soon?

I say offense, because W&M didn't shoot that well, making 39% of their shots and 32% of their threes. But take away Van Vliet's 1 for 8 from three, Ayese killed us with three treys. But they still scored just 61 points. 

Amazing that we pressed basically the entire second half and still only forced eight turnovers. I know, it wasn't a man press. And we put our bigs back, so we really no length at the top of the press. That's where we really miss Gray. But I still would have put Tunstall up top and Thompson or Sanders back.

Bottom line is you can't shoot 27% at home and win. Their defense forced a lot of contested shots and our lack of ball movement didn't help. Gibson 1 for 7, Betrand 3 of 13 and Fobbs 5 of 16. Not shocked at the loss. This is a story I've seen and covered dozens of times. Big moment in front of pretty good crowd and we shrink. Their length and size with a 7-foot Van Vliet and 6-10 Knight bothered us. But it didn't in the first meeting.

Must-win Saturday game against Elon. I doubt we get remotely close to the 2,600 tonight and the great student turnout. But, hopefully for Dennis, Fobbs and Sanders, this team turns it up a notch and plays better at home. Our worst games all year have come at home aside from the Vermont loss. 

[sr16 158]

Have to strings together a few wins to build momentum 

[TSU88 1,070]

The lead post stole most of my thunder. Incredibly disappointing to see this kind of performance, in a critical game & in front of a decent crowd.

We’re not beating Regent the way we shot tonight. 27% is just putrid. Frankly, I didn’t think W&M was that good tonight, we were just horrible. 

Now I’m going to go on a little rant. As lousy as we played, we had a chance to cut the lead to 4 points in the 2nd half, with plenty of time left in the game. But Timberlake tried a one hand slam, & naturally missed. He’s tried this showboat move at least 3X this season & it has never worked. If he catches the ball with two hands, he might have had a better chance to have scored tonight, & then the lead is down to 4, & we have momentum. Million dollar talent with a 10 cent basketball IQ. And I blame PS for not telling him to stop this move that he’s not capable of pulling off

Drexel lost tonight, so I don’t think they can catch us. NE lost too, but they still have a chance to catch us. Elon game Saturday is huge. If we lose, they’re only 1 game behind us. However, after Saturday, Elon only has 1 game left-on the road vs W&M, so we might be able to fend them off. Bottom line, if we L Saturday, it is not out of the realm of possibility we drop into the PIG 

 

Edited February 21, 2020 by TSU88

[mat1992 2,231]

Comments from PS

Opening 

Tough loss. Thought we played hard, but difficult to beat a good team when you shoot that poorly from the field. We didn't get the message across during the week that they were going to be loaded in the lane and we are going to need hit rolls, kick to corners, throw it to the post and go cut off that. We had one little flurry and other than that...thought we did a good job on their big guys who are both terrific. We shot the ball at a really poor percentage.

On difference between first game

We just haven't consistently executed at home compared to on the road at times. We just haven't. For whatever reason and that falls on me. We a couple of wings that had really bad performances shooting the ball and didn't have a lot of assists. We just didn't do enough. We have to make better plays. W&M is a good club. We tried to pick up the tempo. We worked on pressure all week. Thought we might need to get the tempo going. Thought it helped us. We didn't consistently get great shots. I thought down there we got great shots. We didn't live at the foul line enough.

On foul trouble in first half

Thought Charles helped us. Knight is an NBA player and we did a pretty good job on him. I'll sign up for 14 and 10. We probably didn't play through the post enough due to foul trouble with Nakye. I still think we can't get jump-shot happy. We did. Tough to lose a game when your defensive effort is pretty good. 27% leaps off the page.

I don't know if we played well enough to win the game. We mucked it up and had a chance to get over the hump. We were outplayed and outexecuted. We didn't get good enough shots. We've shot the ball much better than we have the last 13 games.

It's all about execution. I doesn't matter if there are 40 people in the gym or 4,000. Doesn't matter if you are home or away. You have to execute at a high level. We got away from that. We're not good enough to beat good teams playing like that.

Speed bump?

You hope. Elon is playing well. We'll try and wind them up. We have good seniors. You want to send them off the right way. You have to play the right away. You just can't put on a cape and become Superman. You need to stick to the script. They did a better job than us on the offensive end.

We had a stretch where our ball movement was good, but the ball stuck especially in the latter part of the first half. Anytime there is a lot of one-on-one, we get into four or five dribbles, that's not good for us. 

On Van Vliet

They are big in the lane. We had a lot of guarded mid-range shots. Our shooting percentages reflected that. We took a lot of guarded shots. That's why we shot the ball poorly. My credit goes to them, but we didn't help ourselves.

 

[Chris Datres 423]

2 minutes ago, TSU88 said:

Now I’m going to go on a little rant. As lousy as we played, we had a chance to cut the lead to 4 points in the 2nd half, with plenty of time left in the game. But Timberlake tried a one hand slam, & naturally missed. He’s tried this showboat move at least 3X this season & it has never worked. If he catches the ball with two hands, he might have had a better chance to have scored tonight, & then the lead is down to 4, & we have momentum. Million dollar talent with a 10 cent basketball IQ. And I blame PS for not telling him to stop this move that he’s not capable of pulling off

Very justified on this rant.  It's a problem that is plaguing college basketball all across the board.  There used to be a rule that got taken off the books a couple of years ago that you couldn't dunk in warmups.  It's still that way at the HS level.  Ever since they have erased the rule, every game I've gone to, many players will turn warmups into their own personal dunk contest.  High bounces off the backboard for slams and other BS that you'll never see in a game.  Then, when they get into a game, they miss simple freakin layups.  Again, it's not just us.  I've been to more than a dozen games across the country this year and I've seen it everywhere I've gone and I shake my head at it every single time.  And then when a player has a straightforward take to the rack, or a simple putback, they clank it.  Might as well start a hashtag for NCAA Tournament time for every one of those that are missed and call it #layupsarehard.  Now I'm sure the young'uns will be like, 'ah come on, Chris, let the kids have some fun in front of their peers and show off'.  Well, sorry, kids, but when you consistently get that bounce off the ground to the backboard for the through the legs slam in a game, then I'll let ya get away with it.

As for us tonight, I wish there was a shot chart available to show our location of every first half shot.  I think Spiro's most used phrase tonite was '18-foot jumper...' and it seemed like all we did was freakin settle.  No inside-out from the post and zero ball movement.  Of course, it seems that whenever the ball goes to the post, it dies there because it's just back it down, back it down, oh crap, stripped by a doubling guard.  That's poor development and a poor offensive scheme.  But it's also some very poor basketball IQ.  These guys watch other games and they watch NBA games.  Don't they see what works out there?  Move the ball, keep the defense on the slide, and lanes will open up.  But as Pat said in the postgame, we got jump shot happy and that was the death of us tonight.

As I interpret the standings, our magic number to stay out of 7-10 night is 1.  So we win one of our last 3 or Elon drops one and we're safe.  We swept Drexel so they can't jump us.  Just cool off Elon and get on with the last 2 games of the season.

[mat1992 2,231]

Let me try this again. Not sure what happened to the quote function. Was trying to address the Timberlake ally-oop try. Down 6, Fobbs misses a reverse layup. We are lucky to get the ball back and we run a nice out-of-bounds play. It didn't call for Nick to dunk it with one hand, but maybe he's trying to showboat in front of a rare big student section?

I don't know. Maybe these guys were playing for the students and themselves instead of sticking to the script. And they got their ass kicked. Hopefully, we get 2,000+ on Saturday, though I doubt the students come out for the Elon game as well as they did for the W&M game, even if the TL haircut is still on for 1,200 students.

[TSU88 1,070]

Thompson should only get better, but something needs to be done with his foul shot. Sanders was MIA on offense...again. The year he sat out, I did was by someone very close to the program that the expectation was he would be a 12 & 7 guy. It just never happened. Wish him the best when he’s done playing here, but I won’t miss him once he’s gone. 

There’s just too many guys on this team who, absent an outlier game, are not going to contribute much in terms of scoring (really, everyone on the team, expect Fobbs, Betrand & occasionally Gibson). I just don’t see this as a recipe to winning 3 straight (assuming we avoid the PIG) in the conference tournament 

Kudos to Fobbs for joining the 1,000 point club 
 

[mat1992 2,231]

2 minutes ago, Chris Datres said:

Very justified on this rant.  It's a problem that is plaguing college basketball all across the board.  There used to be a rule that got taken off the books a couple of years ago that you couldn't dunk in warmups.  It's still that way at the HS level.  Ever since they have erased the rule, every game I've gone to, many players will turn warmups into their own personal dunk contest.  High bounces off the backboard for slams and other BS that you'll never see in a game.  Then, when they get into a game, they miss simple freakin layups.  Again, it's not just us.  I've been to more than a dozen games across the country this year and I've seen it everywhere I've gone and I shake my head at it every single time.  And then when a player has a straightforward take to the rack, or a simple putback, they clank it.  Might as well start a hashtag for NCAA Tournament time for every one of those that are missed and call it #layupsarehard.  Now I'm sure the young'uns will be like, 'ah come on, Chris, let the kids have some fun in front of their peers and show off'.  Well, sorry, kids, but when you consistently get that bounce off the ground to the backboard for the through the legs slam in a game, then I'll let ya get away with it.

As for us tonight, I wish there was a shot chart available to show our location of every first half shot.  I think Spiro's most used phrase tonite was '18-foot jumper...' and it seemed like all we did was freakin settle.  No inside-out from the post and zero ball movement.  Of course, it seems that whenever the ball goes to the post, it dies there because it's just back it down, back it down, oh crap, stripped by a doubling guard.  That's poor development and a poor offensive scheme.  But it's also some very poor basketball IQ.  These guys watch other games and they watch NBA games.  Don't they see what works out there?  Move the ball, keep the defense on the slide, and lanes will open up.  But as Pat said in the postgame, we got jump shot happy and that was the death of us tonight.

As I interpret the standings, our magic number to stay out of 7-10 night is 1.  So we win one of our last 3 or Elon drops one and we're safe.  We swept Drexel so they can't jump us.  Just cool off Elon and get on with the last 2 games of the season.

Ok, Boomer (lol). I never really thought about the dunks in warmup, but Chris, we would miss layups whether we dunked or not dunked. That's what our bigs do and Fobbs will miss a few driving to his right and tonight, he actually used his right hand to lay it in, but still missed. Misses happen but they get magnified in a game like this against two very good bigs.

We have to play a certain way or we're not going to beat good teams. I think you go back to Regent, to a lesser extent JMU and tonight. We haven't played the right away on offense. Betrand is not getting his shots in a rhythm. It's more about going one-on-one. Gibson is forcing some tough drives and instead of dishing it (as he did to CT tonight), he's usually taking a low-percentage shot. What I didn't understand is our lack of awareness, knowing that Van Vliet is a 7-footer, yet Betrand and Dottin attempted to shoot over him. And others. Why not pass the f-ing ball out?

 

 

[TuTigers2012 1,061]

What a pathetic effort by both the players and staff tonight. Offense was awful. With that said, as bad as we played we were still in the game under 8 TO. Bigs gave us nothing but fouls tonight. 

I didn’t want to be the one who said we peaked, there’s still games left.. but they could have. Not having gray to atleast spread the floor tonight and take away the two 6’11 guys out of the paint. Somme questionable calls and crews who swallow their whistle hurts us as we rely on tight calls and getting to the line. 

Chris you should have seen knights pregame warmups. 75% were dunks. 360 off the bounce windmills etc. Crazy

magic number is 1 to clinch 6 seed. A win Saturday and Delaware win clinches 5 seed at worst which is a meh spot to be in

[TuTigers2012 1,061]

3 minutes ago, TSU88 said:

Thompson should only get better, but something needs to be done with his foul shot. Sanders was MIA on offense...again. The year he sat out, I did was by someone very close to the program that the expectation was he would be a 12 & 7 guy. It just never happened. Wish him the best when he’s done playing here, but I won’t miss him once he’s gone. 

There’s just too many guys on this team who, absent an outlier game, are not going to contribute much in terms of scoring (really, everyone on the team, expect Fobbs, Betrand & occasionally Gibson). I just don’t see this as a recipe to winning 3 straight (assuming we avoid the PIG) in the conference tournament 

Kudos to Fobbs for joining the 1,000 point club 
 

What happened with his shot?! It didn’t look like that last week at Drexel. His form was more than adequate then. 

Congrats to Brian. 

Betrand needs to get that mid range pull up/floater game working again.