Coppin State Game Thread

[LongTimeLurkerFirstTimePoster]

@97... Facts Matter..... Sessoms w/ a season low..

Sam Sessoms Game by Game Stats and Performance | ESPN

Latest on Coppin State Eagles guard Sam Sessoms including complete game-by-game stats on ESPN

www.espn.com

 

[bongturk]

Why did it take a whole half for someone to figure out that a 7 footer has a clear height advantage over a guy 6'8?? Also how tall is George Mason's center? Wouldn't this have been a perfect game to put Quinn on the LOW blocks right away so he could catch pivot and shoot as many times as possible to get ready for conference play??? And this guy makes 1.3 million a year???
How much of the offense os based on guys hitting three pointers? Burton will almost always get any shot he wants inside or outside no matter who is guarding him, but who else can do that consistently? What happens when opponents decide that Roche is primarily a three point shooter with a very quick release and must be guarded tightly?
I think Richmond will win most of the A10 games primarily because the league appears to be even worse than it was last year. Despite that I wish they had an offense that actually generated shots inside the arc instead of relying so much on three point shooting.

 

[97spiderfan]

Alright, I'm here for my penalty. Goose played great tonight, in particular on Sessoms and as others have noted made a lot of critical plays at critical times. I thought it was Goose's best game of the year. Even made some nice contributions on offense, which yes he needs to do, particularly when the other guy, playing his position is lighting it up.

To be fair, Sessoms was greatly limited by early and then continued foul trouble. He was in and out of the game and couldn't be as aggressive playing with 4 fouls a lot of the time. So to say, Goose limited him to a season low is a bit of an oversimplification but even with that he didn't score his points off of Goose.

Bottom line, Goose made me eat crow tonight. Credit where credit is due.

 

[ur2K]

a few thoughts
- weird to knock on Goose, he’s always been a solid defender and team guy. #3 didn’t do much tonight, but the refs might have done more to keep his average down than us
- those refs weren’t great. Two of the softest T’s imaginable
- Quinn had a huge height advantage all night, we needed to exploit that but didn’t
- Coppin State played hard on defense and game us a lot of problems in the first half just pressuring whoever had the ball and doubling, I imagine better A10 teams will watch that tape and do some of the same, CS just wasn’t good enough to match us in the 2nd half when they were missing shots
- Roche needs more shots - a lot of shots
- Randolph had a great shift in the 2nd half with some points and an assist
- what’s the story with Crabtree? He got some first half minutes, didn’t do anything great or bad, but then didn’t sniff the court again, seemed to be moving well

 

[97spiderfan]

Why did it take a whole half for someone to figure out that a 7 footer has a clear height advantage over a guy 6'8?? Also how tall is George Mason's center? Wouldn't this have been a perfect game to put Quinn on the LOW blocks right away so he could catch pivot and shoot as many times as possible to get ready for conference play??? And this guy makes 1.3 million a year???
How much of the offense os based on guys hitting three pointers? Burton will almost always get any shot he wants inside or outside no matter who is guarding him, but who else can do that consistently? What happens when opponents decide that Roche is primarily a three point shooter with a very quick release and must be guarded tightly?
I think Richmond will win most of the A10 games primarily because the league appears to be even worse than it was last year. Despite that I wish they had an offense that actually generated shots inside the arc instead of relying so much on three point shooting.

Bong this was so frustrating. Quinn literally could have scored at will whenever he wanted tonight with his size mismatch. Quinn is a player that plays with emotion and I think we need to do more to get him going early. Overall, I thought he had a really solid game, but it seemed like every time he got it on the block the entire crowd was encouraging him to take it to the hoop.

And yes, the amount of 3 pointers we shoot is excessive for our personnel. We need to play to get our bigs going and play inside out, but we usually do the opposite. We did force it inside to start the second and low and behold that is when we took control.

 

[97spiderfan]

a few thoughts
- weird to knock on Goose, he’s always been a solid defender and team guy.

Yes, I agree. He is a solid defender and team guy. I wasn't trying to slam him, I just don't understand the fan boy status he has as a great defender. He was really good tonight though. Said from the beginning of the year, I don't think he is our best option as a starting 2 guard. But if he plays every game like he did tonight, than I would reevaluate that assessment.

 

[GKiller]

Alright, I'm here for my penalty. Goose played great tonight, in particular on Sessoms and as others have noted made a lot of critical plays at critical times. I thought it was Goose's best game of the year. Even made some nice contributions on offense, which yes he needs to do, particularly when the other guy, playing his position is lighting it up.

To be fair, Sessoms was greatly limited by early and then continued foul trouble. He was in and out of the game and couldn't be as aggressive playing with 4 fouls a lot of the time. So to say, Goose limited him to a season low is a bit of an oversimplification but even with that he didn't score his points off of Goose.

Bottom line, Goose made me eat crow tonight. Credit where credit is due.

Hey at the very least I get to serve the crow Goose made u tonight lol!

But that was just Goose doing Goose things. Btw I think your superstar from Penn St. got his 1st bucket on him w ~7 mins to go down 19.

Until the next never wrong “eye test”…

 

[VT4700]

Alright, I'm here for my penalty. Goose played great tonight, in particular on Sessoms and as others have noted made a lot of critical plays at critical times. I thought it was Goose's best game of the year. Even made some nice contributions on offense, which yes he needs to do, particularly when the other guy, playing his position is lighting it up.

To be fair, Sessoms was greatly limited by early and then continued foul trouble. He was in and out of the game and couldn't be as aggressive playing with 4 fouls a lot of the time. So to say, Goose limited him to a season low is a bit of an oversimplification but even with that he didn't score his points off of Goose.

Bottom line, Goose made me eat crow tonight. Credit where credit is due.

You should share the crow with Ply and SDad since they liked your post that criticized Goose.

 

[Eight Legger]

Sessoms scored their first seven points but then only six the rest of the game. That's a pretty good turnaround by us on him.

Bigelow needs to shoot fewer threes. Roche needs to shoot more threes.

 

[brooklyn brownstone]

How did that guy go to Binghamton initially and what took him so long to leave? They're one of the worst D-1 programs in the country.

 

[urmite]

Yes, I agree. He is a solid defender and team guy. I wasn't trying to slam him, I just don't understand the fan boy status he has as a great defender. He was really good tonight though. Said from the beginning of the year, I don't think he is our best option as a starting 2 guard. But if he plays every game like he did tonight, than I would reevaluate that assessment.

Out of curiosity, what was your opinion of Tony Dobbins?

 

[ncspiderfan]

Maybe the person that Sessions covers on D, should be seeing if he can get him to pick up some early fouls

Well, someone must have listened to you.

 

[SFspidur]

How did that guy go to Binghamton initially and what took him so long to leave? They're one of the worst D-1 programs in the country.

Binghamton was his only offer out of high school. Don't know for sure, but I wouldn't be surprised if some loyalty/gratitude toward Dempsey kept him there for a second year before he decided to move up. Penn State of course ended up being a big mess during his time there.

 

[LongTimeLurkerFirstTimePoster]

even for this board, its bizarre to be complaining about the offense when we scored 83 points. 40 in one half 43 in another. the center who stands outside the block too much had 14 points and 7 ASSISTS, 4 rebounds and ZERO Turnovers.

The score at halftime had nothing to do w/ offense---some defensive adjustments made--only 25 points and Sessoms had his season low--

 

[Eight Legger]

Watching the replay, it was interesting that we scored 20 points in the first 15 minutes of the first half and 20 in the last five. Maybe apropos of nothing, but just an unusual fact, I thought. Coppin was bad enough, and we played strong enough defense in the second half, that we could recover from a long dry spell and still win comfortably.

 

[I-M-UR]

I don’t get this team. They come out flat. In mid game they go into cruise aand stop competing. They have enough bench strength that if someone is off someone else should be able to step in and step up, but no they all go into a slump. What is going on with this team?

 

[VT4700]

I don’t get this team. They come out flat. In mid game they go into cruise aand stop competing. They have enough bench strength that if someone is off someone else should be able to step in and step up, but no they all go into a slump. What is going on with this team?

We didn't come out flat. We scored the first 8 points of the game.

We didn't go into cruise mid game and stop competing. Mid game we went on a 50-27 run to go from down 24-20 to ahead 70-51.

They all did not go into a slump. Far from it as most of the guys shot well last night. And, the bench did come through. Roche scored 13 in the 1st half, 16 for the game, and Randolph had a solid game, with a nice 5 point burst to help get our lead to 17.

What's going on with this team is we have won 4 out of 5 heading into conference play.

 

[GKiller]

Sessoms scored their first seven points but then only six the rest of the game. That's a pretty good turnaround by us on him.

Bigelow needs to shoot fewer threes. Roche needs to shoot more threes.

Bigs needs to drive he can finish & he can affect the game in other ways like his rebounding but the outside shooting has not been there all year. He had an open 3 in corner in 2nd half, thought better of it tried to drive but traveled. So maybe he is realizing or he was told.

Randolph & Goose should be getting his jumpers. Ideally Roche first of course but I'll take his 8 3s shot last night. Obv has to be spread around a bit, and Bigs would still get em here & there too, just needs to be minimized.

 

[GKiller]

even got in game hype...

 

[8legs1dream]

hard for me to get too excited about this sadly. I have sat there and watched us just crush an inferior team like this too many times and start thinking we have turned a proverbial corner only to get brought back to Earth real quick. Unfortunately we have to wait a few weeks until we play what I would consider an actual decent team.

 

[bongturk]

even for this board, its bizarre to be complaining about the offense when we scored 83 points. 40 in one half 43 in another. the center who stands outside the block too much had 14 points and 7 ASSISTS, 4 rebounds and ZERO Turnovers.

The score at halftime had nothing to do w/ offense---some defensive adjustments made--only 25 points and Sessoms had his season low--

and where did he get the 14 points????? and how long did it take to get him there??? Did you watch the two halves??

 

[VT4700]

Bigs needs to drive he can finish & he can affect the game in other ways like his rebounding but the outside shooting has not been there all year. He had an open 3 in corner in 2nd half, thought better of it tried to drive but traveled. So maybe he is realizing or he was told.

Randolph & Goose should be getting his jumpers. Ideally Roche first of course but I'll take his 8 3s shot last night. Obv has to be spread around a bit, and Bigs would still get em here & there too, just needs to be minimized.

Randolph is at 50% from 3 (7-14) and Goose is at 44% (11-25). I love their all around games and what they bring. They continue to prove a lot of people wrong on here.

 

[VT4700]

and where did he get the 14 points????? and how long did it take to get him there??? Did you watch the two halves??

Uh...I think the point is we scored 40 in the 1st half and 43 in the 2nd. It doesn't matter where the points come from. You take that every game. I bet if Quinn scored 10+ in the 1st half and Roche didn't make any 3s, we would hear why are we going inside so much and not getting Roche any shots?

 

[GKiller]

hard for me to get too excited about this sadly. I have sat there and watched us just crush an inferior team like this too many times and start thinking we have turned a proverbial corner only to get brought back to Earth real quick. Unfortunately we have to wait a few weeks until we play what I would consider an actual decent team.

True a lot is still unknown. I did at least like that we beat all 3 pretty handily, I was actually expecting 1 of the 3 last cupcake games for us to be in a battle late. Because I feel like we have at least a couple of those types every non conf. Of course W&M still got us earlier and Clemson blew off our doors. So those r mixed in recently.

But I do think we'll know more right away. The Goo Moo game is crucial. U get that 1st A10 game on road it goes a long way. and it could potentially set us up for a nice start if we then take care of next 2 at home where we'll certainly be favored. Goo Moo is a toss up, idk how good/decent they are. with the a10 mediocrity they could be close to top tier a10 whatever that says. regardless it will be a tough game. But also quite winnable. I see a loss Saturday. But if wrong and get the W maybe we could be rounding the proverbial corner. Overall the OOC wasn't good enough bottom line we gave games away which u cant do, but some good things shown, and now its a new season in some ways.

 

[UR80sfan]

hard for me to get too excited about this sadly. I have sat there and watched us just crush an inferior team like this too many times and start thinking we have turned a proverbial corner only to get brought back to Earth real quick. Unfortunately we have to wait a few weeks until we play what I would consider an actual decent team.

Outside of the Clemson and Toledo games, we lose close games and have complete blowouts when we win. The frequency of the blowouts seems to be much higher than previous years, which means this team is a lot better than its record.

It is very difficult to determine how a player will perform in actual games before the season starts. Our coach historically has done a good job of improving the performance of the team as the season goes on by modifying player's playing time and what they do on the court. I think we will see a lot more productivity from Quinn and Roche during A10 play and less shooting from Bigelow with a greater focus on defense and rebounding.

 

[gospidersgo]

Nice job taking care of business last night by the Spiders, doing what we should against an outmanned opponent. Probably let them hang around a little longer than we should've but some games will go like that.

Good to see Roche getting a higher number of 3 point attempts up and Quinn in double figures again. He should be scoring in the teens against any team without a quality center.

Nelson held his turnovers down which I like to see but he and Bigelow shot poorly again. If these 2 are going to continue taking the second and third most shots on the team we really need them to start shooting better.

 

[plydogg]

It was nice to see the team come out and throttle a team we were supposed to easily beat and, more importantly, get back to our first winning record since mid-November.

The Goose was loose last night! That was awesome.

Thought we shot well from 3 last night too, and if you take out the combined 1-8 from Nelson and Bigelow (IMO those two should be combining for a max of 5 each game, if not less) the rest of the team shot 50%.

Cool to see Roche get his Spider high in points as well. I’d love to see him break that against VCU.

 

[plydogg]

Flyder…thank you for your service here. You’re up for the George Mason thread New Years Eve

 

[kneepadmckinney]

Bong this was so frustrating. Quinn literally could have scored at will whenever he wanted tonight with his size mismatch. Quinn is a player that plays with emotion and I think we need to do more to get him going early. Overall, I thought he had a really solid game, but it seemed like every time he got it on the block the entire crowd was encouraging him to take it to the hoop.

And yes, the amount of 3 pointers we shoot is excessive for our personnel. We need to play to get our bigs going and play inside out, but we usually do the opposite. We did force it inside to start the second and low and behold that is when we took control.

I think he's reasonably agile, but not super agile. So when he gets double-teamed, which he was, he's not going to footwork his way out of it. Quite often, when he received a pass near the low block, they had the primary defender, plus a second guy cracking down on him to limit his operating space. So while I agree Neil needs to be more aggressive when he has the opportunity, he very often is getting double teamed, and I don't think our best use is him trying to dribble and spin through double teams.

Lastly, the # of 3s is NOT excessive. We are making 37%, which means it is better than making 50% on twos, which we are not. If anything, we should take more. Just not Bigelow.

 

[urmite]

I think he's reasonably agile, but not super agile. So when he gets double-teamed, which he was, he's not going to footwork his way out of it. Quite often, when he received a pass near the low block, they had the primary defender, plus a second guy cracking down on him to limit his operating space. So while I agree Neil needs to be more aggressive when he has the opportunity, he very often is getting double teamed, and I don't think our best use is him trying to dribble and spin through double teams.

Lastly, the # of 3s is NOT excessive. We are making 37%, which means it is better than making 50% on twos, which we are not. If anything, we should take more. Just not Bigelow.

I agree, since we are 58th in 3 point % getting 40.6% of our points from three (13th) is not excessive.

 

[SFspidur]

Lastly, the # of 3s is NOT excessive. We are making 37%, which means it is better than making 50% on twos, which we are not. If anything, we should take more. Just not Bigelow.

We're shooting 51.5% on twos.

(Points per shot is still better with the threes though as 36.9% from deep is equivalent to 55.3% from two. Doesn't take into account the greater chance of earning foul shots on two-point attempts, but still.)

 

[VT4700]

We're shooting 51.5% on twos.

(Points per shot is still better with the threes though as 36.9% from deep is equivalent to 55.3% from two. Doesn't take into account the greater chance of earning foul shots on two-point attempts, but still.)

You want a good mix of both. The 2 attempts will not only give you the FTs, but will also get you to the bonus earlier, and possibly get some opponents in foul trouble. Also, making enough 2s inside will open up the 3 point game. I love the 3 point shot and it is very important, but you don't want to go crazy and just get 3 happy all game.

 

[kneepadmckinney]

I would take 5 more Roche three point attempts per game, and 2 fewer Bigelow attempts from deep, for a net of +3 per game.

And I defy anyone to disagree.

 

[spider fan]

Coppin State #24 from Sydney, Australia enjoyed dishing out two armed moving blocks that the refs ignored in the first half. During the half time both the Coppin State coach and the assistant gave him demostrated ways to defend that were legal. Don't recall another opponent that was so blatant causing several of our players to stumble backwards because the contact was so hard.

 

[brooklyn brownstone]

I would take 5 more Roche three point attempts per game, and 2 fewer Bigelow attempts from deep, for a net of +3 per game.

And I defy anyone to disagree.

Maths

 

[SpiderRick]

I don’t get this team. They come out flat. In mid game they go into cruise aand stop competing. They have enough bench strength that if someone is off someone else should be able to step in and step up, but no they all go into a slump. What is going on with this team?

What's wrong with this team is they have the same coach that for 18 years has shown to be inflexible.
And for those of you who are getting your hopes up going in to A10 play and continually point out that the A10 is weaker this year.....may I remind you that Richmond is also drastically weaker also. Zero sum gain.

But nice win over a very inferior team at home. Beats losing to Toledo for sure.

 

[gcarter52]

It was nice to see the team come out and throttle a team we were supposed to easily beat and, more importantly, get back to our first winning record since mid-November.

The Goose was loose last night! That was awesome.

Thought we shot well from 3 last night too, and if you take out the combined 1-8 from Nelson and Bigelow (IMO those two should be combining for a max of 5 each game, if not less) the rest of the team shot 50%.

Cool to see Roche get his Spider high in points as well. I’d love to see him break that against VCU.

By the way, they more than made up for it on defense and other phases of the game.

 

[72Spider]

Bong this was so frustrating. Quinn literally could have scored at will whenever he wanted tonight with his size mismatch. Quinn is a player that plays with emotion and I think we need to do more to get him going early. Overall, I thought he had a really solid game, but it seemed like every time he got it on the block the entire crowd was encouraging him to take it to the hoop.

And yes, the amount of 3 pointers we shoot is excessive for our personnel. We need to play to get our bigs going and play inside out, but we usually do the opposite. We did force it inside to start the second and low and behold that is when we took control.

Agree completely; need to play inside out.

 

[brooklyn brownstone]

Playing inside out is fine if Quinn will be more decisive with the ball and aggressive with his moves. Feeding him to theoretically create looks/space for shooters is also fine IF he can find the shooters. If not, I'd rather get the ball to Tyler, Roche, etc. I'm beating this horse dead but until he starts making under 4/10, get Roche the ball and let it fly nonstop over almost any other option in the offense.

Last night Grace made the perfect pass out to Roche cross court for an open 3 in the 2nd half (which he made) - it's the kind of pass I haven't seen from Quinn from the low post - one Cline did regularly. He had a good passing game last night from the high post but I actually like feeding Grace more in the low post at times because of his ability to make that kind of pass.

 

[Eight Legger]

I would take 5 more Roche three point attempts per game, and 2 fewer Bigelow attempts from deep, for a net of +3 per game.

And I defy anyone to disagree.

Exactly. Roche should be taking 13 or 14 threes a game until he starts making less than 30% of them.