MBB upset by winless Northeastern 58-53

[El Tigre Oro 86]

I have a buddy who is a Northeastern Alum. More of a hockey guy, but thinks Coen is a terrible coach that can’t win a big game.

Just shows how every fan base always thinks they can do better. 
 

[TuTigers2012 1,061]

14 hours ago, El Tigre Oro said:

I have a buddy who is a Northeastern Alum. More of a hockey guy, but thinks Coen is a terrible coach that can’t win a big game.

Just shows how every fan base always thinks they can do better. 
 

Yup. Lots of hoftsra fans upset with speedy and Uncw board was polling on when sidle should be fired back in early December. 

[Tiger93 299]

Several things jumped out at me after this game. Of course the obvious one was the three-point shooting, which was a season-worst 1-15. There were a few rushed attempts, but I thought we missed 6 or 7 point-blank 3s that usually fall for us.

As we have talked about before, when threes aren't falling our offense gets stagnant. We had our second-lowest assist total of the season at 6 (5 vs. San Francisco was the lowest).

I know we didn't turn the ball over much, but we still had less than a 1-1 assist-to-turnover rate. We are 4-3 in those type of games, and the wins have been in some of our closest games at Elon, our comeback win against Drexel, our road win at Delaware and home against Northeastern (I think the turnovers piled up at the end of those). We are 15-2 in games where we have double-figure assists with the only losses coming at Drexel (10) and Pittsburgh (14, horrible shooting game). 

We also had our third-lowest number of attempted field goals at 48 (41 at Hofstra, of course we didn't need a lot of shots because so many went in; 45 vs. San Francisco). This was one of the most alarming stats, because it felt like Northeastern had a bunch of possessions where they took the shot clock down to 5-10 seconds or less and made the shot or got the foul.

There were definitely a few too many comfortable three-points by Northeastern, but give them credit for being patient and hitting their open looks. This one concerns me the most, because if teams control the tempo against us we lose the talent edge that we have against most if not all the teams in this conference. 

Two things we did well that we probably could have leaned on more were forcing turnovers and scoring in the paint. We forced 14 turnovers and scored 16 points off turnovers. I honestly felt like there were more opportunities to speed this game up and try to get some easy points off turnovers since we labored to get every point we got, because of poor outside shooting).

Secondly, although we were 1-15 from three-point land we were also 20-33 from 2-point land with 40 points in the paint. I think there were more opportunities to push it to try to get easy buckets or continuing to hammer it inside. Timberlake was so awesome at Hofstra I don't want to be too hard on him, but he should not have led the team with 16 field goal attempts with the shooting night he had when Holden was 7-13 and Thompson was 5-7. 

It is very strange after losing to a 0-11 team, but I didn't think we played awful. It was a terrible shooting night, but I actually thought a lot of good lucks were slightly rushed and missed. Mostly in Timberlake's case, which is completely understandable since he could not miss at Hofstra and was playing in front of all sorts of friends and family. That is just human nature. 

The main three lessons I got out of this is we need to be more aggressive when teams try to slow down the pace against us, if the three is not falling we need to probe a little more for not just the good shot, but the best shot we can get, and third even without Nolan Jr. we have enough options offensively to figure out plan B and C and realize when our first and second ideas might not be working on a given night. 

To beat a dead horse, right now Nolan Jr. is the missing piece to making us probably the first or second-best team in this conference. Without him, we are one of the 4 or 5 best (we can be the best on a given night but not any night), but we have to work a lot harder and have a lot less of a margin for error. I still feel good, but the margin for error is extremely low both in conference play (for a title or top 2 seed) and especially (as usual) in the conference tournament (not that I am saying anything we don't all know). 

[TuTigers2012 1,061]

12 minutes ago, Tiger93 said:

Several things jumped out at me after this game. Of course the obvious one was the three-point shooting, which was a season-worst 1-15. There were a few rushed attempts, but I thought we missed 6 or 7 point-blank 3s that usually fall for us.

As we have talked about before, when threes aren't falling our offense gets stagnant. We had our second-lowest assist total of the season at 6 (5 vs. San Francisco was the lowest).

I know we didn't turn the ball over much, but we still had less than a 1-1 assist-to-turnover rate. We are 4-3 in those type of games, and the wins have been in some of our closest games at Elon, our comeback win against Drexel, our road win at Delaware and home against Northeastern (I think the turnovers piled up at the end of those). We are 15-2 in games where we have double-figure assists with the only losses coming at Drexel (10) and Pittsburgh (14, horrible shooting game). 

We also had our third-lowest number of attempted field goals at 48 (41 at Hofstra, of course we didn't need a lot of shots because so many went in; 45 vs. San Francisco). This was one of the most alarming stats, because it felt like Northeastern had a bunch of possessions where they took the shot clock down to 5-10 seconds or less and made the shot or got the foul.

There were definitely a few too many comfortable three-points by Northeastern, but give them credit for being patient and hitting their open looks. This one concerns me the most, because if teams control the tempo against us we lose the talent edge that we have against most if not all the teams in this conference. 

Two things we did well that we probably could have leaned on more were forcing turnovers and scoring in the paint. We forced 14 turnovers and scored 16 points off turnovers. I honestly felt like there were more opportunities to speed this game up and try to get some easy points off turnovers since we labored to get every point we got, because of poor outside shooting).

Secondly, although we were 1-15 from three-point land we were also 20-33 from 2-point land with 40 points in the paint. I think there were more opportunities to push it to try to get easy buckets or continuing to hammer it inside. Timberlake was so awesome at Hofstra I don't want to be too hard on him, but he should not have led the team with 16 field goal attempts with the shooting night he had when Holden was 7-13 and Thompson was 5-7. 

It is very strange after losing to a 0-11 team, but I didn't think we played awful. It was a terrible shooting night, but I actually thought a lot of good lucks were slightly rushed and missed. Mostly in Timberlake's case, which is completely understandable since he could not miss at Hofstra and was playing in front of all sorts of friends and family. That is just human nature. 

The main three lessons I got out of this is we need to be more aggressive when teams try to slow down the pace against us, if the three is not falling we need to probe a little more for not just the good shot, but the best shot we can get, and third even without Nolan Jr. we have enough options offensively to figure out plan B and C and realize when our first and second ideas might not be working on a given night. 

To beat a dead horse, right now Nolan Jr. is the missing piece to making us probably the first or second-best team in this conference. Without him, we are one of the 4 or 5 best (we can be the best on a given night but not any night), but we have to work a lot harder and have a lot less of a margin for error. I still feel good, but the margin for error is extremely low both in conference play (for a title or top 2 seed) and especially (as usual) in the conference tournament (not that I am saying anything we don't all know). 

Some good points here. We knew going in that northeastern plays a slow style and limits the amount of possessions in a game.  That has been coens style for a while. We didn’t really do anything to try and speed the game up.  Poor game planning.
The other games that played with low possessions, uncg, usf etc we would have low assist numbers obviously  but we also shot poorly from deep. Players feeling antsy when they can’t get up and down the court as much?  Maybe. 
 

I know there are a lot on here full of excuses, and I’m one to call them out…but the horrific 3 point Shooting in games maybe something to do with the backdrops/hoops. 
Mathews is a a hockey rink that’s 10000 years old with nothing behind the hoops. Pitt is a big arena that was empty.  Against usf in Vegas another big arena that was empty. Drexel I believe still has the hoops hanging from the ceilings rather than a stanchion.  All of that does have an effect on shooters.

 

we have had a large amount of offensive stinkers over to years but a large majority of those have been against ne and Drexel. 
 

it is alittle sad that in 3 road games we have allowed, 58, 65 & 63 and lost all 3

[Tiger93 299]

1 hour ago, TuTigers2012 said:

Some good points here. We knew going in that northeastern plays a slow style and limits the amount of possessions in a game.  That has been coens style for a while. We didn’t really do anything to try and speed the game up.  Poor game planning.
The other games that played with low possessions, uncg, usf etc we would have low assist numbers obviously  but we also shot poorly from deep. Players feeling antsy when they can’t get up and down the court as much?  Maybe. 
 

I know there are a lot on here full of excuses, and I’m one to call them out…but the horrific 3 point Shooting in games maybe something to do with the backdrops/hoops. 
Mathews is a a hockey rink that’s 10000 years old with nothing behind the hoops. Pitt is a big arena that was empty.  Against usf in Vegas another big arena that was empty. Drexel I believe still has the hoops hanging from the ceilings rather than a stanchion.  All of that does have an effect on shooters.

 

we have had a large amount of offensive stinkers over to years but a large majority of those have been against ne and Drexel. 
 

it is alittle sad that in 3 road games we have allowed, 58, 65 & 63 and lost all 3

Good points, although the only thing I think Skerry could do better from a game-planning situation is probably to put more pressure on to create turnovers and speed up the pace. I think he tried that at times. Sometimes it worked and sometimes they got better looks than if we had played half-court defense.

Others on this board may have a better eye on this stuff than me, but seemed like we went to a zone that confused then towards the end of the game. Down the stretch, Northeastern had three or four bad offensive possessions that helped us tighten up the game. It just felt like there were more opportunities to try to speed up the pace, but we also got beat on it at times and we did force 16 points on 14 turnovers.

I don't think the game plan criticisms are all that obvious, they are more on the periphery on micro-decisions that could have been handled better by Skerry. I don't really know as a coach how you tell a kid who went 8-11 with 26 points two days earlier and is playing in front of hometown friends and family, you don't have it tonight so make the extra pass. That is one of the you take the good with the bad situations. 

One of the other posters on this board brought up that backdrop point to me offline. I think it is a great point, however, we need to overcome that to win in a neutral-site conference tournament situation where the backdrop will be unfamiliar. 

The good news is it has taken some horrific three-point shooting performances for us to lose our three conference games. The bad news is we have now shot worst than 30 percent from three in nine of our 24 games. While that is not the majority, seeing that it has happened in nearly 40 percent of our games means we need to figure out ways to overcome it because it is not a complete outlier. In our defense, we are 5-4 in those nine games (of course two of those wins were against really bad Hampton and Long Island teams).

I guess the one thing that would be encouraging is to see if we can try to find ways to beat some solid teams without relying on the three-point field goals (we did do it against Drexel last week). That is hard for most teams, but finding a way to win those games is probably the difference between being good and being great. You know we will probably have to overcome a performance like that in at least one of the conference tournament games, and I would like to have confidence to believe we will be ready for that moment. We won't know until we get there, and we obviously have a lot of fan trauma associated to confidence in conference tournament to success. I am Caps fan and I believed in 2018. At some point I have to think if I keep believing I won't be made a fool of in these big spots. 

[Tiger93 299]

One other thing. I know the Northeastern loss was a bad one for us, but this stuff does happen fairly often on a year-to-year basis. In fact, just last year if you remember our dead-in-the-water squad knocked off first-place Northeastern at the end of the conference season. I remember trying to talk myself into the fact that it might be an awakening only to see two straight weeks of games get postponed, followed by getting blown out by Elon to end our nightmare season with a whimper. No matter what, much happier times for the program this year. 

https://towsontigers.com/news/2021/2/14/dominant-defense-leads-towson-mens-basketball-over-northeastern.aspx

[griggey20 178]

I think all of these points are generally fair.  The only other things I'll add.  How are we going to pick up the pace and increase pressure without Nolan?  I just dont think we have the guards to do it without him which is why I believe he's so important.  I think he can get us easier buckets, create more space and is a willing passer to get other guys shots at the rim more than anyone else on the team.

I also think Nick was pressing.  He's in front of his family/frends and wants to play well for all the people there rooting for him.  And he didn't.  I was never good enough to play at this level but I would think at 21 yrs old, I would want to do the same thing.  PS did hint to this a bit during his post game as welll....

[TuTigers2012 1,061]

48 minutes ago, griggey20 said:

I think all of these points are generally fair.  The only other things I'll add.  How are we going to pick up the pace and increase pressure without Nolan?  I just dont think we have the guards to do it without him which is why I believe he's so important.  I think he can get us easier buckets, create more space and is a willing passer to get other guys shots at the rim more than anyone else on the team.

I also think Nick was pressing.  He's in front of his family/frends and wants to play well for all the people there rooting for him.  And he didn't.  I was never good enough to play at this level but I would think at 21 yrs old, I would want to do the same thing.  PS did hint to this a bit during his post game as welll....

Lol but nick isn’t 21 he’s got to be pushing 25 now haha. Kidding. Sort of