Riller, Brantley lead CofC over MBB, 67-55

[mat1992 2,233]

https://www.foxsports.com/college-basketball/story/charleston-wins-10th-straight-in-downing-towson-67-55-010319?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=twitter

https://towsontigers.com/news/2019/1/3/mens-basketball-mcneils-season-high-leads-towson.aspx

[TSU88 1,070]

No in-depth analysis required. Sometimes the other guys are just better. Riller in 1st half; Brantley in the 2nd. 

Kudos to McNeil for a nice game. He & Saunders hit 10-19 shots combined. Rest of team went 11-38 (30%). Can’t win like that. 

On to UNCW

[mat1992 2,233]

Skerry's opening comments

"Give Charleston credit. That's an excellent basketball team. I thought the effort was good. We were choppy at times. To beat a team like that, you need a couple of guys to play above themselves. To their credit, their two guys played very well.They are tough to stop. To get 47 points out of those guys. They did a good job of keeping us off the glass. Some of that had to do with not great shot selection by us. It felt like it got away from us in the first, we fought back in the second half. We had two bad possessions down six late in the ballgame.Those two guys are good. There's no question about that. 

On Al picking up two quick fouls.

"That hurt us. In the past, he's done a pretty good job on (Brantley). That's part of the game. Their two guys do not foul. Nakye did a good job tonight rebound and scoring. Fobbs played hard but tonight wasn't his night."

On foul line

"We're not doing a good enough job getting to the foul line. Some of it has been turnovers. We're not getting to the line enough. They make foul shots.Right now, it's hard for us to beat a team like that going 6 for 23 from the 3-point line, even on the glass and they shoot 94% from the line.If you told me before the game that would happen, I would have thought we'd lose by 30. We were able to control the tempo enough where it didn't get too crazy. We still have to make plays late in the clock and have to knockdown shots. Some of that is Charleston. Our passing and ability to find guys is not where it needs to be to beat a team of that caliber.

On Fobbs on Riller

He did a good job in the second half. We also need his points. Riller did a great job in first half, Brantley did it in the second half.

On Jakigh's first start

Jakigh is going to be a good player for us. He has good DNA. I like all of our freshmen. Like their competitiveness. Ball security and catching and passing is something we have to get better at. We couldn't get to the boards tonight like we normally do. This is the first time since the Vermont game that we didn't dominate the glass. Have to look at the tape.Why didn't we rebound? Was it all Charleston? Did we not get off on boxouts? Was our shot selection not great?

On second option

Going to be different guys. Sanders should be a guy that can give you 12 and 8. Likes starting but his best two games were off the bench. We're fighting foul trouble with him. We're not getting enough easy baskets so our passing, our spacing and playmaking ability has to get better either through development or recruiting. We're not playing as fast as I'd like but that was a disaster earlier in the year when we did that. Since then, every game has been competitive. We haven't been good enough to win all these close games. When we start going ultra fast, I've seen the turnovers. 

[Chris Datres 423]

Thought they should have tried more zone than just that one possession in the first half.  Charleston wasn't hitting anything from the outside unless it was Riller on a pull-up.  We didn't have anyone that could handle his drives in the first half and we paid for it there.  Thomas went back to his brain-dead ways playing defense.  Some of the fouls he commits are ones that I don't see get made in JV high school games.  Just has to be more basketball smarts on his part.  I'm happy that Dottin started.  He continues to build equity at that position.  Howard once again gave us next to nothing at the offensive end of the floor.  If he could just find his shot and get into double figures on a semi-regular basis, the offense would be in a lot better shape.  This team needs more scorers than just Fobbs and in these games they lose, they just don't get it.

Also, I wish we would stop this epidemic of driving to the basket and then just tossing a pass clear back out to the 3-point line.  Take the damn ball strong and get a foul and maybe an and-1.  If you get called for a charge, so be it but geez, be more aggressive and stronger at looking at stuff around the basket.  We had at least 3 turnovers in the first half because we had guys go to the basket and instead of trying to take it up in traffic and draw contact, we're tossing it out to the top of the key and the pass gets picked off for a fastbreak opportunity.

[mat1992 2,233]

1 hour ago, Chris Datres said:

Thought they should have tried more zone than just that one possession in the first half.  Charleston wasn't hitting anything from the outside unless it was Riller on a pull-up.  We didn't have anyone that could handle his drives in the first half and we paid for it there.  Thomas went back to his brain-dead ways playing defense.  Some of the fouls he commits are ones that I don't see get made in JV high school games.  Just has to be more basketball smarts on his part.  I'm happy that Dottin started.  He continues to build equity at that position.  Howard once again gave us next to nothing at the offensive end of the floor.  If he could just find his shot and get into double figures on a semi-regular basis, the offense would be in a lot better shape.  This team needs more scorers than just Fobbs and in these games they lose, they just don't get it.

Also, I wish we would stop this epidemic of driving to the basket and then just tossing a pass clear back out to the 3-point line.  Take the damn ball strong and get a foul and maybe an and-1.  If you get called for a charge, so be it but geez, be more aggressive and stronger at looking at stuff around the basket.  We had at least 3 turnovers in the first half because we had guys go to the basket and instead of trying to take it up in traffic and draw contact, we're tossing it out to the top of the key and the pass gets picked off for a fastbreak opportunity.

Agree about the zone in the second half. It was mentioned in the chat and agree that it worked late in the first half. Should have kept it up until they started making threes. We did go back to it briefly and actually went some zone press with Tunstall up top. Even the press at the end when we were trying to come back worked a little. It's not bad to change things up and try to force TOs when the opponent has one in the first half and about 3 in the first 55 minutes. Fobbs did a nice job on Riller in the second half but he had no legs on his jumper. Maybe that's the reason why.

Howard made a few threes and I still think is better off the ball. He did help get the lead down to 7 but then had a horrific turnover trying to dribble between two players. Not sure I agree about driving and kicking to a three pointer. That's today's game and I don't think we have a guy that can slash and finish other than Fobbs and Dottin. Both need some help with their off-hands. Dottin rarely finishes lefty and Fobbs, well, he's pretty much all left-handed. I know Fobbs had at least two of those charges is not three.

[TuTigers2012 1,061]

9 hours ago, Chris Datres said:

Thought they should have tried more zone than just that one possession in the first half.  Charleston wasn't hitting anything from the outside unless it was Riller on a pull-up.  We didn't have anyone that could handle his drives in the first half and we paid for it there.  Thomas went back to his brain-dead ways playing defense.  Some of the fouls he commits are ones that I don't see get made in JV high school games.  Just has to be more basketball smarts on his part.  I'm happy that Dottin started.  He continues to build equity at that position.  Howard once again gave us next to nothing at the offensive end of the floor.  If he could just find his shot and get into double figures on a semi-regular basis, the offense would be in a lot better shape.  This team needs more scorers than just Fobbs and in these games they lose, they just don't get it.

Also, I wish we would stop this epidemic of driving to the basket and then just tossing a pass clear back out to the 3-point line.  Take the damn ball strong and get a foul and maybe an and-1.  If you get called for a charge, so be it but geez, be more aggressive and stronger at looking at stuff around the basket.  We had at least 3 turnovers in the first half because we had guys go to the basket and instead of trying to take it up in traffic and draw contact, we're tossing it out to the top of the key and the pass gets picked off for a fastbreak opportunity.

Agree with you. Zone was the way to go. Charleston is not a good shooting team and they looked as lost against it as we normally do. We still would lose riller and brantley way to easily most times.  They are very good players but we should have tried to double and trap riller more to get the ball out his hands.  We also did let their jail-bird kill us with 10 and 6. If he comes along and stays out of trouble, those 3 are good enough to win the CAA alone.

 

Dottin does drive to score but he drives into the bigs and gets swatted without the defender jumping.  Love that aggression and determination but he needs to work on finishing/pumpfake. 

[TuTigers2012 1,061]

Interesting opponents take from the C of C message board:

Not calling for skerry to be fired. But other people are noticing as well...

[tualum 108]

23 minutes ago, TuTigers2012 said:

Interesting opponents take from the C of C message board:

Not calling for skerry to be fired. But other people are noticing as well...

Nothing new here...

[mat1992 2,233]

It's really about getting players. You can go more zone and be more creative on both ends because you need to. The talent is just not there to beat the top CAA teams or good teams on the schedule. Why do we continue to rely on offensive rebounding to win games? Because we can't shoot. We take poor angles to the hoop. 

But since we can't make trades at midseason, I'd like to see a few things to improve what we have.

1)Show Nakye Sanders every turnover he's made this season on video. Most come when he tries to dribble behind his back or between his legs. I saw Brantley do that last night but he's much quicker and more explosive an athlete.

2)Better ball movement and spacing would allow Sanders to hit that open mid-range shot and Howard to hit the standstill shot. My guess is if you go back on Howard's shots, he shoots a much better percentage when his feet are set instead of off the dribble. Early in the season, he was making that floater but now he can't seem to make anything in the paint. Maybe try passing the ball once you get there. Same thing with McNeill, who had a pretty good game last night (no missed layups). Get him the ball in the corner where he's the most comfortable.

3)Have to play the youngsters. I get it. You can't start Betrand, Solomon and Dottin together. You can't really play them together either but they need minutes. Solomon looked overwhelmed last night by their size. You need to bring your hard hat for game like that going up against Brantley, Miller and Harris. Hope that Timberlake returns by the end of January and the bench will be a bit stronger. Betrand just looks really uncomfortable on both ends. Sure, he couldn't stay in front of Riller but he does have potential to be strong at the end. On offense, he needs a year of skill work, becoming physically stronger and working on his handle and shot.

4)Head fakes. Shot fakes. Step backs. Anything to create separation. Fobbs does that decently. He still needs to be better with his off-hand because he's really a nice finisher on drives and is so strong. Problem for him is knowing the opponent. Who you can drive past and who you can't. A couple of tough chargers last night.

5)Fouls. It's either Sanders or Thomas who always seem to get in foul trouble. A lot of the fouls are just ludicrous reach-ins 15 feet away from the basket. 

 

[TSU88 1,070]

Mat, you raise a lot of good points, but the bottom line (as you pointed out) is what is the caliber of player Skerry is bringing in? Frankly, that C of C poster cited above by tualum is spot on-it is the same with us every year. We’re always near the top in rebounding & FG % of the opposition, but we’re always challenged to score.

Rebounding & rock ribbed D is great, but the object is to outscore the other guy. Is there ever a game where we don’t have at least 1 4-5 minute stretch where we can’t score? Ideally I’d love to see us win every game, but realistically, from an entertainment standpoint, if we’re going to lose, I’d rather lose 85-83 than 55-53. Watching this team turn the ball over, take insane shots, & miss gimmes is joyless.

Edited January 4, 2019 by TSU88