Buffalo Game thread - 7pm Thursday MASN/ESPN+
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Question for you sdad - been noticing Dji finished everything at the rim with his right hand, even plays that naturally would favor the left hand, was wondering about why - comfort thing, or something he's being coached to do?
Are you referring to the skilled finishes at the rim? If so those finishes are things we worked on from a very very early age and also coached and worked on with his trainer and David while G Road all through out. He’s comfortable doing it and he can use his left but I think most of those were done that way to keep defenders away. As far as being coached now…no clue. It’s just something I know he’s worked on for a very long time.
I’m not sure what he meant. But Adam’s missed the last 5 games and had 19 points tonight.
Endgame was just a series of poor decisions and poor plays, that really came out of nowhere. You can't turn the ball over 4-5 times in a 3 minute stretch, along with missing a dunk, taking a bad 1 on 3 layup attempt that gets blocked and dribbling down and launching a 3 with zero passes. That no one responded and stopped the issue to score and settle the team down was a real concern.
He was one of the guys and they had two that were deemed eligible bc of recent ruling and hadn’t played or only played beginning of season. This was there 1st game or 1st game back. He could have been injured but either way he wasn’t expected. A coach confirmed this with me after the game when we were talking.
My point was that he had 14 points with 6m left and they were down 20, which to me, meant he hadn't really made a difference in them being competitive. He likely will against lesser competition, but it's not like they were in the game until UR started tripping over its own feet the last 6m. So to me they didn't have any player that made a difference in how the game went. It was UR taking control and UR fumbling it all away. Anyway, not an important thing.
can't tell if this is sarcastic, defensive or genuine, so I'll just clarify to say it was a question without any tone to it, was genuinely interested in the answer. As long as its working, I don't care which hand he finishes with, was just curious.
If he had 19 and hasn’t played then he was a difference maker for them…They hadn’t been getting 19 pts from him bc he hasn't been playing. The board was talking about earlier how many games they were losing by and all that. They don’t have him for most of those games…so again, to me that’s a difference maker. I don’t care if we were up 20 he didn’t stop playing and bc we were bad the last 6 min doesn’t mean that player didn’t make a difference. What if he wasn’t there? Jmo
It was genuine answer my man. Wasn’t meant to be sarcastic or defensive.
I would love to know if SF somehow has a way to see this, but is that the latest into a game we’ve ever had our first foul called? I can’t remember us ever going 19 minutes 56 minutes before having a foul called on us
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Ply I was wondering the same, pretty sure it was 3:58 left in the first half when the first foul was called - pretty amazing.
Yes 4 points, all from Walz. Noyes and Roche just can't seem to get going. One issue is that neither provides the threat of putting the ball down and beating their man off the dribble. It will help to have Dlo back obviously, but with Dji beating out Noyes we have little punch off the bench at the moment.
they didn't call fouls in first half, but made up for it second half
the last six minutes are hard to explain, it looked to me like we lost focus on both ends. Personally I think a perfect time for Chris to call a TO and challenge his team
8legs1dream
Team Manager
yeah I think there were only 2 fouls called in the entire first half, maybe 3?
There was a media timeout at 3:55, then we called one at 1:54, and they called one with 51 seconds left. My guess is he challenged them pretty good all 3 times here. Not sure a 4th timeout in the final 6 minutes would have made much difference.
I've noticed too now - as the rotation has been getting tightened up - Dji is getting (earning) the second most minutes on the team. He's definitely making the most of finally being healthy. He's like a swiss army knife out there, contributing in so many ways and just making good basketball plays more often than not.
Noyes actually drove baseline and missed a floater, got a couple def rebounds, but got pulled after poor pass that went back court. I liked fact he drove to rim vs 3pt shot. Roche is too one dimensional, and teams know it. Walz took shots he can make. Harris is coming into his own as he will attack rim but is pass first shoot second player. I see Harris and Walz being our prime reserves heading into the A10 schedule
Those last 6 minutes were probably some of the most frustrating Spider basketball I have watched. Just completely undisciplined street ball, launching quick shots, behind the back passes, attempted alley oops and generally just not even attempting to run the offense.
And what was Mooney doing this whole time? Standing there watching it happen. Mooney should have lit into the starters at about the 6 minute mark when he saw this happening. They weren't running the offense, they were freelancing, showboating, and not taking Buffalo seriously.
I'm glad Mooney at least identified this during the postgame and in being disappointed, saying we don't have enough talent to do that. What is frustrating is why he didn't impart that message forcefully when he saw it happening during the game. I do hope the "disappointment" he expressed in the postgame carried over into some type of forceful conversation in the locker room after the game with the team, because they deserved it. Mooney also deserves a long hard sleep because he sat there and let it happen.
It is a shame because it overshadowed what was a really good effort for the first 30 minutes or so. So, now instead of going into the holidays happy with a nice win over an inferior opponent, we all leave that game, questioning our ability to put 40 minutes of good hardnosed basketball together.
I kept hoping for the Mooney Slowdown™. 🤣
This is teachable moment for the team, there is no margin for error, let’s learn to stay in our lane!
Not sure how to see Kenpom historical rankings?
I do see Lafayette is now 344 in kenpom, I know I just posted the other day that they were 333.
We are 98 kenpom, not sure what before that game last night?
I do see Lafayette is now 344 in kenpom, I know I just posted the other day that they were 333.
We are 98 kenpom, not sure what before that game last night?
We lost 6 spots in the NET because we decided to showboat for the last 6 minutes. Hopefully, we learned a lesson that instead of trying to make a Sportscenter Top 10 play, maybe just play hard, execute the game plan and completely stomp on the throat on an opponent. A more capable opponent would have made us pay with a loss last night, we will have much more capable oppositions once we enter conference play.
This is an issue, a huge one. None of the combos of bench lineups are working at all recently.
I feel like Noyes is in that position that other guys have been in, just trying not to make mistakes and get the quick MoonHook. Every year there is a guy like this. But it leads to a guy playing a certain way that often prevents them from being aggressive. Noyes bad pass was just horrible though, no idea what that was.
And I've said it before but Roche off the bench becomes someone easy to defensively focus on for 3-4m stretches. He shouldn't be starting over Dji, who has been great and deserves all his minutes, but shooting is a real issue for this team. It's almost mandatory that Moon solve how to get Roche open looks IMO.
Harris brings good defense and a small ability to get into the lane on offense, I liked the lineup with he, Dji and Bigs, very rangy and quick on the wings. But he's a non-shooter from the perimeter, so those lineups bring almost no threat from outside.
Walz remains a project, just has to keep working on everything and not trying to - to borrow a baseball analogy - hit a grand slam with every pass. Would love to see him just utilize his size and strength more on offense. Another guy that seems too much in his own head at times.
My overall impression is that when 3 of the bench guys are in, they're often too focused on running the offense properly and relying on whatever 2 starters are in to shoot. Or, in Roche's case, getting up the first look that comes, even if it's not a great one. Something has to improve pretty quickly though - even if it becomes playing one bench guy at a time with starters to see if he can get them going.
Yep, cue Trap advising the board how we claim to have so much depth every year, then in reality we don't 
.
And 4700 to chime in with how most teams only go 8 or 9 deep. Which I do think is accurate.
BUT, it we need to have 3-4 guys that can contribute off the bench. DLO coming back will obviously help. 6-8 weeks was initial info. Assuming 8 weeks, as others have noted the left wrist for a left hander seems like a high leverage and important area (unlike if he broke his right pinky finger), he maybe misses 5 A10 games? If he can hit the ground running, I think Mikkel has shown his worth and is a very nice contributor. That will be a huge help, I know doesn't help frontcourt, but does give us a little more depth.
.And 4700 to chime in with how most teams only go 8 or 9 deep. Which I do think is accurate.
BUT, it we need to have 3-4 guys that can contribute off the bench. DLO coming back will obviously help. 6-8 weeks was initial info. Assuming 8 weeks, as others have noted the left wrist for a left hander seems like a high leverage and important area (unlike if he broke his right pinky finger), he maybe misses 5 A10 games? If he can hit the ground running, I think Mikkel has shown his worth and is a very nice contributor. That will be a huge help, I know doesn't help frontcourt, but does give us a little more depth.
I honestly don't know what Noyes is doing out there these days. I know a lot of complained as to why he wasn't getting more time out there last year but I think we now have the answer to that question. Remember when were told that Mooney had figured out our recruiting issues when he signed the 2020 class of Noyes, Dread, Randolph, and Nelson. Ahh good times.Feels like there should have been somebody up top on that Noyes backcourt, but yeah, he obviously shouldn't have just assumed there was when he got into trouble on the baseline.
Already had "Sports Center" highlight with Bigelow on slam dunk.....................didn't need to try to get another one.......................
The dribble-handoff/screen is a thing. No idea why we never seem to do it with Roche. All he needs is half a second to get a shot up, and this gets him that opening whenever he wants it. So naturally, we never do it.
I was very glad Mooney was pissed in the post game interview. In the end, I'm glad this happened while earning a W. Apparrently we needed the lesson, and I think we learned it.
I'm just sorry (for him and for us) that he has had to battle so many injuries over the years. I would have liked to have had this version of him for his entire time here.
Also, Quinn said in the post game interview that the last few minutes were like an all-star game. My interpretation of that is that it was more of a individual effort than a team game, and, as some other posters have said, looking for highlights. I wonder if we (and other teams at our level) will be seeing more of this as a result of all the transfers, NIL, etc. Much less of a team spirit if you only play with guys for a year or two instead of three or four.
Mooney said in the post game interview that we didn't play well at all. I'm assuming he meant those last few minutes because the rest seemed fine. I think he was rather "peeved" and even with a kinder gentler persona I bet they heard it in the locker room.
Mooney said in the post game interview that we didn't play well at all. I'm assuming he meant those last few minutes because the rest seemed fine. I think he was rather "peeved" and even with a kinder gentler persona I bet they heard it in the locker room.
Me too…but injuries are part of it unfortunately but we are all extremely happy that he’s now able to show what he’s capable of and what he’s always been able to do.
Definitely not the game I was hoping to see.
The season’s bright spot of handling inferior talent at home and looking good doing it went out the window. Hopefully this was just a getaway game issue, but seems broader than that to me.
The one piece of good news is that we have seen the team play much better and the A10 is a “good fit” for the level of talent on this team. The league is still wide open with only Dayton as the obvious frontrunner. Granted the Spiders once again have a “tight rotation” with limited options.
The season’s bright spot of handling inferior talent at home and looking good doing it went out the window. Hopefully this was just a getaway game issue, but seems broader than that to me.
The one piece of good news is that we have seen the team play much better and the A10 is a “good fit” for the level of talent on this team. The league is still wide open with only Dayton as the obvious frontrunner. Granted the Spiders once again have a “tight rotation” with limited options.
Bench should be pretty good once Hunt gets back. Tyne, Roche, Harris, and Walz looks like a good , versatile bench. We need Roche and his 3 point shooting. Just have to keep playing him and hope he gets going. We won't go as far as we want to go without good 3 point shooting. Not sure if Noyes will remain part of the rotation, especially with Hunt back, which puts us at 9 guys. What Noyes might bring is needed 3 point shooting so I am not counting him out. It just looks like his minutes will be low for now.
Tyne, Roche, Harris, Walz and Noyes - who is providing consistent bench scoring from that 5? Tyne is a freshman, we cannot figure out how to get Roche good looks, Noyes is still extremely hit or miss, Walz is not a scorer and Harris is a defensive guy first.
Tyne and Roche are badly needed. Noyes if he can figure out a role.
Tyne and Roche are badly needed. Noyes if he can figure out a role.
