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TuTigers2012

What is wrong?

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3 minutes ago, TuTigers2012 said:

I’m not sure the CT regression is fair. his stats say he is the same or slightly better than last year.  Out of the 3 he had played the best imo. 
 

We don’t seem to be pushing it offensively.  I know we don’t have depth but we really need cheap easy shots.  Timberlake. May and Russel can all run and should get out in transition more.  Nick has always been decent in the short corner and on corner threes.  I don’t remember seeing him ever there this year.  Yes he’s being marked more by other teams but he isn’t being doubled (lol) and the staff needs to do a better job getting him open if he really is our only scoring threat. 

CT’s stats last year were skewed in my estimation by that blistering run he went on at the end of the season. My point is that this season I don’t think he’s playing to the level he played to at the end of last season. Maybe it’s not fair to hold him to that standard. He’s certainly not the biggest problem the team has, by any stretch of the imagination. Truthfully, Skerry should have brought in a competent big to help CT out

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Their biggest issue right now is turnovers. We actually played a pretty good second half against a very good team and forced 24 turnovers so think there is some hope. Even without Gibson. However, that means the three main players from last season (CT, NT and Cam) have to step up their games big-time. Stop giving up easy shots or getting lost on D and limit the turnovers on offense.

However, the offense has to change. Less ISO and posting up from 15 feet. More ball movement. I would like to say more drive and kick as the Cougars did Saturday, but who can do that? There's the Catch-22 of playing a lot more May and Conway, but then playing through mistakes because both can shoot. Conway turns it over and he sits, but then Hicks comes in and looks indecisive on offense whenever he has the ball. 

As for the importance of losing Gibson? It's huge because he was a 43% shooter from 3-point range last year. I don't care if he averaged 9.8 points. His presence allowed people like Nic to get open because you can't just focus on one player. Also, even though he got to the line just 46 times last season, he shot 89% from the line. He also turned the ball over 35 times and had 72 assists so that's better than a 2-1 ratio. 

Timberlake got better shots and shot 41% from 3-point range and 44% from the field. Now, he's shooting 41% from the field and 31% from long-range. The only way this team gets to where they want to be (assuming Gibson doesn't return) is that Conway gives the team at least two 3-pointers per game and improves on the other parts of his game. He's shooting 43.2% from long range at 19-for-44 and just 37.1% inside the arc. Should he have been on the court instead of Russell on offense on the last play in overtime? IMO, yes. 

The problem with Conway is that he has just 10 assists and 10 turnovers. But 10 turnover isn't bad for a guy averaging 16 minutes per game and with eight starts. May is averaging 12.5 minutes per game and is 4 of 11 from 3-point range. A very small sample size (5-6 FT). The kid needs to play and I know he's going to make mistakes, especially on defense.

So, May, Conway and even Russell weren't bad pickups. You can say Russell and Rizzuto as a swap is about even. However, you lose Juwan Gray (6.3ppg, 4rpg, 48% FG, 84% FG) and you turn him into Sekou Sylla (5.2ppg, 5.1rpg, 40% FG, 69.6 FG). You go from 6-8, 220 with good length and defense for 20mpg to a 6-5, 230-pounder with little athletic ability who has struggled to finish every game inside of five feet and has no perimeter game. And he struggles defensively. So that's a loss aside from Gibson injury.

Antonio Rizzuto averaged just 7.4 points last season, but shot 35.5% from 3-point range and shot 81.3% from the line. I thought Nygal Russell would replace him and he has to an extent. But he's not a 30.1 mpg player and he's really more like 23.1mpg as Rizzuto was last year. He's a good defender, probably better than Rizzuto, but is shooting just 33.3% from 3-point range. Despite driving to the basket (awkwardly), he's taking just 12 free throws (made 8). So Rizzuto has been slightly more efficient and Russell's rebounding (4.4 to 2.0) hasn't really made a huge difference in the replacement of players. Last season, he averaged 7.8 points on 34.5% shooting with SE Missouri State, but averaged 6.5 rebounds last year. Just 4.4 this season. I guess 6.5 rebounds is a bit much to ask for a 6-4 small forward.

Let's get to Terry Nolan. He really struggled last year at times with some respiratory issues and before that was dealing with becoming a father. Still played 26 minutes per game despite shooting just 37% from the field and 28.5% from long range. But you know what he did pretty well? Take care of the ball. He had 101 assists and just 39 turnovers with 45 steals. Yes, he defended well and at 6-4, gave the backcourt some size. They missed his leadership even more than his on-court presence.

The main problem is taking care of the basketball. Last season, Cam was the main dude, but he was turnover-prone even last season with 107 assists to 86 turnovers. No Gibson (72-to-35) and Nolan (101-to-39). But when they were on the court, Gibson missed four games and Nolan missed seven, they were a big help to Cam. Without those guys, we don't have another ballhandler to count on. I see Conway improving in other areas but he and Hicks are limited in several ways. Combine Hicks' defense with Conway's offense and you have a good player, but neither is a competent QB right now. 

Still, it's Cam's team. He shot 70.1% from the line last season and this year, it's at 60.4%. He averaged 7.9 rebounds last season and he's now at 6.5. He does have 29 steals, but he does gamble and gives up some open shots to be kind. He's shooting just 25.6% from the 3-point line and last season was 27% so not much difference. But was shooting 43% from the field last season and now is at just 40.6%. So he's not finishing well in the paint and when he gets to the line, he's shooting 10% worse than last season. Fixable things yet, but if not, we all know the result.

Turnovers, bench, leadership. There are 17 games left to fix most of that stuff, but the last two things I just don't see getting much better outside of May becoming a legit starting-quality small forward by February and maybe moving Russell to the bench (then defense suffers). Or do you play a bigger lineup of Timberlake, Russell, May, Holden and Thompson? Bring Conway off the bench as the 2 guard to replace Timberlake or Russell and Hicks to play 10mpg at the point and to press some. Sylla has to play 10mpg to help Cam and Biekeu may go back to playing backup 5, depending on the matchup (he will against Drexel).

 

 

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1 hour ago, mat1992 said:

As for the importance of losing Gibson? It's huge because he was a 43% shooter from 3-point range last year. I don't care if he averaged 9.8 points. His presence allowed people like Nic to get open because you can't just focus on one player. Also, even though he got to the line just 46 times last season, he shot 89% from the line. He also turned the ball over 35 times and had 72 assists so that's better than a 2-1 ratio

Reasonable minds can differ, so we’ll have to agree to disagree. There’s no real way to quantify exactly how much impact his absence has had. You say huge, I say it’s certainly had a negative impact, I’m just not so sure it’s huge though. His absence for instance has nothing to do with not bringing in a competent big in the offseason, in favor of bringing in Sylla. His absence also has nothing to do with the lack of production from certain bench players, nor the inability to draw up even a decent set play when the game is on the line. It also has nothing to do with Holden’s foul shooting struggles. 

I admit my unwillingness to agree Gibson’s absence has had a “huge” impact, is that such a conclusion would, IMHO, deflect much of the responsibility from the biggest culprit, the head coach 
 

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43 minutes ago, TSU88 said:

Reasonable minds can differ, so we’ll have to agree to disagree. There’s no real way to quantify exactly how much impact his absence has had. You say huge, I say it’s certainly had a negative impact, I’m just not so sure it’s huge though. His absence for instance has nothing to do with not bringing in a competent big in the offseason, in favor of bringing in Sylla. His absence also has nothing to do with the lack of production from certain bench players, nor the inability to draw up even a decent set play when the game is on the line. It also has nothing to do with Holden’s foul shooting struggles. 

I admit my unwillingness to agree Gibson’s absence has had a “huge” impact, is that such a conclusion would, IMHO, deflect much of the responsibility from the biggest culprit, the head coach 
 

Huge might be a stretch, but he's extremely important to the team and considering there are no quality point guards on the roster without him, it makes his absence even worse. If Hicks had progressed to where he needed to be, at least it wouldn't be quite the loss. But his poise, aside from shooting, is what we miss the most. The body language has not been great even before the games during layup lines. Not saying he's this incredible vocal leader, but he's not putting his head down when he misses three straight. He's almost like a security blanket for those three seniors because they know if they are in trouble, they can throw it back to him or teams can't help out on Cam and CT inside with Gibby on the perimeter. He's almost a better decoy than a scorer.

Gibson played three games this season and while he averaged just 8.7 points, he shot 52.6% from the field and 40% from 3-point range. Against UMass, after a horrible game against Albany going 1 of 10 (and he got good looks), Timberlake scored 27 points on 10-of-14 shooting. In Gibson's last game against Penn, Timberlake had 23 on 7-of-12 shooting. Would he average 20 points if Gibby wasn't hurt? Of course not, but I'd think he'd get much better looks and his shooting percentage would be higher The same would be for Conway if he started playing more minutes (he would when Hicks got hurt). I know they would struggle defensively, but I wanted to see Conway and Gibson in the backcourt for a bit.

This all could be irrelevant because I just don't know if he returns this season or ever.

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11 minutes ago, mat1992 said:

Huge might be a stretch, but he's extremely important to the team and considering there are no quality point guards on the roster without him, it makes his absence even worse. If Hicks had progressed to where he needed to be, at least it wouldn't be quite the loss. But his poise, aside from shooting, is what we miss the most. The body language has not been great even before the games during layup lines. Not saying he's this incredible vocal leader, but he's not putting his head down when he misses three straight. He's almost like a security blanket for those three seniors because they know if they are in trouble, they can throw it back to him or teams can't help out on Cam and CT inside with Gibby on the perimeter. He's almost a better decoy than a scorer.

Gibson played three games this season and while he averaged just 8.7 points, he shot 52.6% from the field and 40% from 3-point range. Against UMass, after a horrible game against Albany going 1 of 10 (and he got good looks), Timberlake scored 27 points on 10-of-14 shooting. In Gibson's last game against Penn, Timberlake had 23 on 7-of-12 shooting. Would he average 20 points if Gibby wasn't hurt? Of course not, but I'd think he'd get much better looks and his shooting percentage would be higher The same would be for Conway if he started playing more minutes (he would when Hicks got hurt). I know they would struggle defensively, but I wanted to see Conway and Gibson in the backcourt for a bit.

This all could be irrelevant because I just don't know if he returns this season or ever.

There’s no question it’s a double whammy-bad for the team and very unfortunate for Gibson. After his injury last year and now this season, it’s anyone’s guess if he ever plays again. Why risk messing around with your back, especially at such a young age. There are more important things than basketball, and perhaps he’ll decide to move onto the next phase of his life. 

Assuming he moves on, you can add him to the list of players who won’t be back next season, which already includes Sylla, Russell, NT (can’t imagine he’ll be back). Other guys (CT, for instance) may or may not be back, and we typically shed some of the guys at the end of the bench (Paar, Coleman, Hicks come to mind as possibilities). Skerry is going to really have to hit it out of the park with the portal. 
 

 

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34 minutes ago, TSU88 said:

There’s no question it’s a double whammy-bad for the team and very unfortunate for Gibson. After his injury last year and now this season, it’s anyone’s guess if he ever plays again. Why risk messing around with your back, especially at such a young age. There are more important things than basketball, and perhaps he’ll decide to move onto the next phase of his life. 

Assuming he moves on, you can add him to the list of players who won’t be back next season, which already includes Sylla, Russell, NT (can’t imagine he’ll be back). Other guys (CT, for instance) may or may not be back, and we typically shed some of the guys at the end of the bench (Paar, Coleman, Hicks come to mind as possibilities). Skerry is going to really have to hit it out of the park with the portal. 
 

 

True but as an alum, fan and blogger, I’m looking forward to a younger team with no expectations compared to an old one with high ones.

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19 minutes ago, mat1992 said:

True but as an alum, fan and blogger, I’m looking forward to a younger team with no expectations compared to an old one with high ones.

On this point, we are in complete agreement. High expectations with low results (depending on how the season plays out of course) = one very disappointing season 

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Preseason expectations, early season success ,and some key injuries = sloppy play, loses and the reality that you’re not as good as you think you are. How do you react as a program?  I expect that they’ll right the ship.

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12 minutes ago, RundaPower said:

Preseason expectations, early season success ,and some key injuries = sloppy play, loses and the reality that you’re not as good as you think you are. How do you react as a program?  I expect that they’ll right the ship.

I was thinking this too maybe they right the ship and improve. Hopefully they heat up when it matters most. Lots of time to practice all January when class isn’t in session

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disappointed, but.....am I the only one that is "OK" losing to a top 25 team by a bucket in OVERTIME?  WTF / SMH  CofC is really good, we were right there.....and now two pages of "what is wrong"????   TOWSON......TOWSON...not Duke gents.  I'll ride w/ these players and coaches if we are playing teams like this down to the wire.

sucks not having gibby (spreads the floor so much just being on it) and the turnover issues are real; but May & Conway are going to get better faster w/ more mins.  

Ton of things to work on and ton of hoops left.  but this isn't a stock you should sell right now.  (get over the preseason chatter/rankings... now meaningless).  this team is going to be good....right there in da mix, AGAIN, when the CAA tournament comes around.   bring on da dragons .........

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