A10 Game 6 - Rhode Island

[spiderman]

I'm usually pretty satisfied with our offense, but it really didn't seem to create any shots yesterday. not sure what's needed. Burton and Quinn are the only guys who you can give the ball to and they can get their own shot. Grace can on the block.

the key last night was keeping a good offensive rebounding team off the boards. and they had plenty of missed shots to chase.

 

[GKiller]

23, that was a good one. Hardt doesn't even know what a match up zone is. If he comes to Pig Beach in March and makes just 1 attempt to explain it I will buy his meal (big $).

 

[kneepadmckinney]

We could scoot around the court on our butts for 40 minutes blindfolded, and if it resulted in wins, I’d be all for it. Most of us only care about winning, not about the systems that we employ in pursuit of that. It’s up to the coach to figure out how to win as many games as possible.

So going from an offense-first to a defense-first philosophy (if that’s actually what we’ve done) really doesn’t matter if it doesn’t result in more wins, which so far it hasn’t.

Agree--I don't care what it looks like if we win.

The calculus is not a comparison of this year's team vs. any other year's team. It is: what is the best version of this year's team? I think that emphasizing defense is/was the right way to go, because we really are trying to incorporate a bunch of new pieces into the offense, and replacing four guys that played together for half a decade. It's naive to believe that there's not going to be a drop-off in efficient execution. I think that being strong defensively is the right approach, and that hopefully by March the team will be more in tune offensively as a unit.

 

[SpiderGuy]

No great fan of Mooney.

But if he leaves players playing poorly in the game, he gets ripped for that.

It's like when we won last year, it was because the players refused to lose (until, of course, they refused to defend or make a shot against Providence). But when we lost, it was coaching.

Why anyone would want to coach is beyond me.

Didn't see the score on the crawl while watching the KSU-KU game. But when I saw it was only a two-page thread I figured we won.

Playing poorly as opposed to making a single mistake and getting yanked are 2 different concepts. Mooney’s short chain was prevalent last night. Sorry - it doesn’t build self assuredness.

 

[VT4700]

Playing poorly as opposed to making a single mistake and getting yanked are 2 different concepts. Mooney’s short chain was prevalent last night. Sorry - it doesn’t build self assuredness.

What examples are you talking about? Nelson? I love Nelson and want him out there a lot, but he made a very lazy pass that they stole and got an easy lay up out of. That pass should never be made. You are worried about a guy's confidence? These are college kids, not grade school. So, what did Nelson do after getting pulled? He came out in the 2nd half and scored 7 of our first 9 points. I think our guys will be fine confidence wise if they get pulled for something. If not, they probably are not good enough mentally to compete at this level.

 

[gcarter52]

I leave you with: coal will eventually turn into diamonds.

 

[SpiderRick]

What ever happened to back door cuts that we used to be so good at?

 

[Spider B]

What examples are you talking about? Nelson? I love Nelson and want him out there a lot, but he made a very lazy pass that they stole and got an easy lay up out of. That pass should never be made. You are worried about a guy's confidence? These are college kids, not grade school. So, what did Nelson do after getting pulled? He came out in the 2nd half and scored 7 of our first 9 points. I think our guys will be fine confidence wise if they get pulled for something. If not, they probably are not good enough mentally to compete at this level.

I agree and think the quick hook for Nelson in the RI game was the right move. We are halfway through the season. It's time for some tough love for Nelson. His turnovers numbers have to come down.

 

[97spiderfan]

I agree and think the quick hook for Nelson in the RI game was the right move. We are halfway through the season. It's time for some tough love for Nelson. His turnovers numbers have to come down.

Agreed. Nelson has been really careless with the ball at times, which he just can't be as our starting PG, if Mooney has to reinforce that by pulling him from time to time, I'm fine with that.

Also, since his back-up gets pulled for similar mistakes, it sends a consistent message to our young backcourt, take care of the ball.