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mat1992

MBB falls to Hofstra, 84-61; Pride have now won 16 straight

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No scathing criticism from me; I predicted a 20-30 point loss. Too much JWF (he will play in the NBA. If not, he’ll make a barrel full of Euros playing overseas) & Pemberton. As Skerry conceded on the postgame show, the 2 best players on the court today both were wearing blue. We couldn’t stop them off the dribble & when they didn’t get layups they rained 3’s on us.

I am compelled to voice my displeasure with #20. I don’t like anything about his game. He has no post moves, his D is lackluster, he commits too many fouls & I don’t get a good vibe from his body language. Aside from that, he’s great. Whoever vetted him dropped the ball. I wish he’d leave after this season, but I doubt we’ll be that lucky. I’ve been critical of Howard, but at least he tries, & is our 2nd leading scorer & out best or 2nd best 3-point shooter. 

My takeaway from today is simple...recruit better players. When your best player would be the 3rd or 4th best player on the other team, you need to go get better players. Mihalich ALWAYS has guards who can light up the scoreboard-Juanya Green, Tankersley, JWF, Pemberton & I bet he’s got 1 or 2 more in the pipeline. This ain’t brain surgery or even rocket science 

 

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Comments after the game from PS

They ran away from us. They're good obviously. That's like Captain Obvious. They are a hard team to stop. They are playing well. They have a lot of confidence. They are well-coached. We're not going to beat anyone if we can't guard or rebound. We turned it over a lot. We tried it all. Our normal ball-screen defense. That was a big team the other night. This is a quick team. We played some zone. Tried to switch every ball screen and to keep them out of the lane. They are too quick to press. We weren't very good on offense, catching, passing. That mental toughness creeps in when we miss free throws and layups. Against a team like that, you have to play at a high level. They had two dominant players on the floor. Best player in the league in Wright-Foreman and Pemberton is a first-team All-CAA player.

On swing of getting close (cut it to 7) but then getting blown out

I have to look at the tape. We're not where we need to be mentally in terms of toughness. Not an effort thing but where is the focus. Where is the execution. It was a choppy game. They went to the monitor a lot. We're better than we played. We couldn't stop them. Not that anybody has. They average 85 and they got it. We can't win games when it gets to that number. I burned two timeouts early. We had some crazy turnovers early. 

On best team?

Joe Mihalick has done a great job with that team. They have a ton of experience. They play seven guys and the seventh guy averages 12mpg. They literally don't sub. The just ride those starters so they can't afford an injury. That's not easy. In the league, they have three of the top 10 minute guys. Those three guards play well together. They spread it out. They shoot it. Buie is making 18% from 3 and sticks a 3 and a jumper.

On Freshmen

Jakigh is playing hard. The numbers are decent. We still have to work on him against the zone because everything is a drive with him. I thought Allen (Betrand) had good energy today but his numbers didn't indicate it. Solomon didn't have his night. We tried going small in the second half. We probably needed seven guys to keep up with him.

On their quickness on D causing off. fouls

I probably didn't get that message to them. It starts with me. We tried to harp on that we have to keep the ball out of the land and we can't mess around with the ball because they are quick. Showing that on film and talking about it is one thing. Seeing that at game speed put us on our heels.

On ball movement

They play just zone. I didn't we were crisp in passing. We forced shots. All of a sudden you get down 10 and..I probably fought with this team in the huddles more that there's not a 10-point shot. You have to get a good shot and string together a couple of shops. We haven't consistently done that. Can they figure it out how to do it consistently.

On Nakye Sanders (played just 11 minutes)

He has to look in the mirror. He has to play better and figure out how to get ready to play. I got after him at halftime. He has to play better. That's it period. We expect better. He is better. If he wants to help us moving forward, he has to play better. Turnovers, Fouls. Those are things that have to be controlled if you are going to be a good player.

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Just now, TSU88 said:

No scathing criticism from me; I predicted a 20-30 point loss. Too much JWF (he will play in the NBA. If not, he’ll make a barrel full of Euros playing overseas) & Pemberton. As Skerry conceded on the postgame show, the 2 best players on the court today both were wearing blue. We couldn’t stop them off the dribble & when they didn’t get layups they rained 3’s on us.

I am compelled to voice my displeasure with #20. I don’t like anything about his game. He has no post moves, his D is lackluster, he commits too many fouls & I don’t get a good vibe from his body language. Aside from that, he’s great. Whoever vetted him dropped the ball. I wish he’d leave after this season, but I doubt we’ll be that lucky. I’ve been critical of Howard, but at least he tries, & is our 2nd leading scorer & out best or 2nd best 3-point shooter. 

My takeaway from today is simple...recruit better players. When your best player would be the 3rd or 4th best player on the other team, you need to go get better players. Mihalich ALWAYS has guards who can light up the scoreboard-Juanya Green, Tankersley, JWF, Pemberton & I bet he’s got 1 or 2 more in the pipeline. This ain’t brain surgery or even rocket science 

 

We so far away from that team. I think Pemberton is the better all-around player and since he's a junior, has a better chance of making the NBA at 6-5. Wright-Foreman is a great college player but he's 6-2 (maybe) and a shooting guard. Can he defend at the next level? They aren't going to play zone a lot in the NBA. Either way, they are outstanding players and they aren't like Charleston, because they have 3-4 other good players. My only problem with them is they don't even pretend to go to their bench. Not even up 20 with 2 minutes left when the game was way over. Mihalic didn't even attempt to take out Pemberton or Wright-Foreman. Imagine if they had gotten hurt? JWF did get banged up earlier.

As for Sanders, I asked PS about him and he wasn't happy. If you are on the chat, you know my feeling about him. I try not to blast kids here but his effort just isn't there. His focus isn't there. When you know you are playing against a quick team, why do you consistently put the ball on the floor? Why dribble drive against this team? Why not post up or just face-up? More later.

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So, this was a long day. Saw the lax game. I'll have a brief report on it on another board but while I don't know the final score, it wasn't a good showing against Bucknell.

As for the hoops game, nobody really played well. We got outclassed at every position. Jordan, once again, can't really put together two strong back-to-back performances together. He wasn't bad against Delaware (9pts), played his best game possibly of his career against NE and then today, had two points and two turnovers. I know it's tough trying to defend Wright-Foreman, who didn't have his best game with four turnovers but did have 25 points, one below his average.

Really impressed with Pemberton. BTW, they had two points from their bench.

As for us, we couldn't handle their quickness. If they could pressure us 35 minutes, we would have had 25 turnovers at minimum. We had 15 but it felt like a lot more. We couldn't complete simple passes. Howard had 3 turnovers and one assist. I get it, you want a heat check after you hit a couple of long 3s but to pull up for a 27 footer like you're Steph Curry? The passing today was dreadful. But I think as PS said it, once we get down big, we sort of do own thing. I would say we go rogue or just get selfish. Not just Howard, but Fobbs and McNeill. You have to move the ball against that time. You can dribble it around. The ball kept getting "stuck" today. I hope we learn our lesson on offense the next time we play them or the result will be even worse up in Hempstead. 

 

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11 minutes ago, TSU88 said:

I am compelled to voice my displeasure with #20. I don’t like anything about his game. He has no post moves, his D is lackluster, he commits too many fouls & I don’t get a good vibe from his body language. Aside from that, he’s great. Whoever vetted him dropped the ball. I wish he’d leave after this season, but I doubt we’ll be that lucky. I’ve been critical of Howard, but at least he tries, & is our 2nd leading scorer & out best or 2nd best 3-point shooter. 

100% agree with you on this point.  I've been thinking this the last 3-4 games I've been able to watch.  For someone who had at least a little D1 experience (albeit at Duquesne), he has done very little to be a pillar that the younger guys can learn from.  What is it that he does well?  Rebounding, maybe?  That might be about it.  He's turned into a liability on offense with his penchant for wanting to dribble whenever he gets it (and subsequently losing it or committing an offensive foul) or not being able to finish.  Solomon in 20 games time has passed him in skill level offensively and I'd much rather than Solomon out there for the majority of the minutes.  Defensively, Sanders commits some silly fouls and seems overmatched in a lot of 1-on-1 situations.

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Mat, I’m sorry about venting on here about #20, but I also believe these kids are on the cusp of entering the “real” world and should be prepared to take criticism, when it is well founded. And in his case it is.

 I agree wholeheartedly with 1 of Skerry’s post-game comments...Dottin has to be coached up to shoot a jumper occasionally. I’m at every home game & I can’t recall the last time he took an outside shot. If I’m the other team, I just lay off him on D, because I know he’s not going to take the jumper. Obviously, outside shooting is not his strong suit (my “nice” way of saying his outside shooting is poor) but if he could just hit 1 occasionally it would help make him a serviceable backup PG

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2 minutes ago, Chris Datres said:

100% agree with you on this point.  I've been thinking this the last 3-4 games I've been able to watch.  For someone who had at least a little D1 experience (albeit at Duquesne), he has done very little to be a pillar that the younger guys can learn from.  What is it that he does well?  Rebounding, maybe?  That might be about it.  He's turned into a liability on offense with his penchant for wanting to dribble whenever he gets it (and subsequently losing it or committing an offensive foul) or not being able to finish.  Solomon in 20 games time has passed him in skill level offensively and I'd much rather than Solomon out there for the majority of the minutes.  Defensively, Sanders commits some silly fouls and seems overmatched in a lot of 1-on-1 situations.

At times, Sanders shows some offensive initiative but why float around the perimeter? He's probably 20 pounds heavier than Tunstall and Dennis is always around the basket, looking for that offensive rebound. Sure, his lack of strength costs him at times in putbacks but at least he gives effort. On defense, I just don't see it. Solomon isn't the greatest on that end and hopefully by next season, with an addition 10 pounds or so, he'll be better. He had a rough day but you won't see him not at least going hard every play. Sanders wasn't the reason we lost today. Not even close. But you expect more from a kid who sat out last year and started at Duquesne.

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2 minutes ago, mat1992 said:

I get it, you want a heat check after you hit a couple of long 3s but to pull up for a 27 footer like you're Steph Curry? 

 

I admit that when he was bringing the ball up after hitting those 2 pull-up 3's, I was saying 'pull up again'.  Probably needed another dribble.  But at that point still in the first half, I didn't think it was that much off the beaten path to at least take a look at it.

A game like today pretty much shows the difference between Hofstra and everyone else in the conference.  We can get away with playing a wonky game and beat someone like NE.  But we have to play beyond a perfect game to beat someone like Hofstra.  The Dutch play a defense that we repeatedly get mystified by and that's an active zone.  As you said, Mat, you have to move the ball against a zone as well as penetrate with passes as well as dribbling.  I didn't like how we kept trying to set ball screens against a zone -- that'll never work and all it will do will cause illegal screens (had at least one today).  We need guys who can hit that elbow jumper against that zone -- Fobbs hit a number of them but unfortunately, no one else could.  Howard, McNeil, even Thomas should be able to take full advantage of that little dead zone at 13-15 feet to eat up the zone.  But to get those opportunities, you gotta move the ball.  Instead, we make sure that the ball has air in it.

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1 minute ago, TSU88 said:

Mat, I’m sorry about venting on here about #20, but I also believe these kids are on the cusp of entering the “real” world and should be prepared to take criticism, when it is well founded. And in his case it is.

 I agree wholeheartedly with 1 of Skerry’s post-game comments...Dottin has to be coached up to shoot a jumper occasionally. I’m at every home game & I can’t recall the last time he took an outside shot. If I’m the other team, I just lay off him on D, because I know he’s not going to take the jumper. Obviously, outside shooting is not his strong suit (my “nice” way of saying his outside shooting is poor) but if he could just hit 1 occasionally it would help make him a serviceable backup PG

That's fine. You can do what you want as long as you don't get personal. I just try and stay away from crushing kids individually here and well, I vent on the chat. I have to talk to these kids so I don't want to load on them all the time here. But the criticisms are warranted about #20.

As for Dottin, I don't mind him not shooting jumpers. Not yet. You see how bad he is at the line. He just needs to shoot about 500 jumpers a day all summer or he'll just become a UTPG. Underwhelming Towson Point Guard.

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