Optimistic as I just saw 2 power company trucks go up the street 
. Back to the drawing board for the Spiders.
. Back to the drawing board for the Spiders.Holy Toledo ! - 11/30 Game Thread ...
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Seems like every time they got it to him down low he turned it over or had it taken from him.
A team that doesn’t even try to rebound beat us 44-30 on the boards. Thank goodness for Goose and Roche or we would have scored in the low 40’s. The guards shot about 4 for 50, or so it seemed. What a total disaster.
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Wasn't gonna comment postgame tonight but clearly you did not watch the game.
Quinn played an absolutely horrific game. He had 3 first half turnovers, started the second half with his 4th. Most were guards just ripping him. Then when he got shots off, he couldn't absorb any contact or take advantage of his giant height advantage, and the force feeding him the ball in the 2nd half led to the giant deficit. UR immediately pressed and changed tempo once he went out and cut deficit in half. Seems like a hard working guy, but he's like the 7th best offensive option and yet he gets force fed like Dream circa '94.
Sorry if you're a fan but he deserves far fewer shots, has shown nothing to deserve more looks.
Roche on the other hand, needs 75% of Bigelow's 3 pt attempts for himself and minimum 10 fgas per game (I posted this the other day in fact.) Time to design sets for him. I don't trust the offense to get him more looks than it has (simply because it hasn't.)
Roche is now 18 of 38 from three on the season -- almost 50%! And that's without us really doing much to try to get him open, as brownstone points out above. He's finding openings here and there and just draining shots on his own. If we start running some stuff for him, he might be even better.
Mooney doesn’t do that, just ask Darien Brothers and Nick Sherod.
So much for tonight game. Got a dose of reality. Mooney can’t coach
Watch it, or you’ll be called a Mooney Hater.
Goose played a good game. Roche played a good game and his shot looks great. No question we need Roche on the floor a lot. A whole lot. No one else played well. The result is predictable if only 2 players play well. We should win when we get 14 from Roche and 10 from Goose on a combined 6-8 from 3. Instead, we got drilled tonight. We tried numerous different lineups, but nothing really clicked because too many of our guys had below average games out there.
Correct on Nelson. He will have good games and bad games, but he needs to keep the turnovers down. We are just turning the ball over way too much as a team, and many are sloppy, unforced turnovers. PG is the key to most teams, and probably will be to ours also, so we will have a hard time winning when Nelson doesn't play well.
Quinn had 4 turnovers tonight in 16 minutes. Yikes! As a result, we had to go small, which would be fine if we can score enough and protect the ball. We did neither. We need Grace back. We seem to be smoother on offense with him being a big part of the rotation. Defensively, we obviously took a big step back tonight. Everything was way too easy for Toledo tonight. Hopefully, this was just a bad defensive game and our team is closer defensively to the 49 spot we allowed against Temple than what happened out there tonight.
We need to come out and get well against the Tribe Saturday, and I think we will.
We tried multiple times. He had 4 turnovers in 16 minutes.
Good luck with the power. And, yes, definitely back to the drawing board.Optimistic as I just saw 2 power company trucks go up the street
Sadly agree with all the above - Neal just in most situations so far appears too slow on both offense and defense .. it will be agony unless things change when we play fast and athletic A10 teams including Vcu, Dayton, SLU .. need MFG back healthy and then let’s see how a lineup with Grace , Bigelow , TB, Jaynel and Roche/Gus goes with Dji and Marcus getting good guard minutes And Neal helping out as best he is able to
Yep. I think you and I have been saying for weeks the guy needs at least 10 attempts from 3 a game. He is a huge weapon out there, and his defense has been more than acceptable.
We do seem to set screens for Roche on inbounds plays but no other time. The issue is we are running an offense made for multiple shooters being on floor, which we don't have. Rebounding AGAIN killed us and will never change just like the offensive system. You have to adjust the system to fit your roster or adjust the roster to fit the system.
Rebounding looked worse than it was because we missed shots and they made them. Even with our smaller lineup, we had 7 offensive rebounds and they had 9. The main issue was we shot 36% and they shot 49%. Roche and Goose were 9-13. The rest of the team was 12-45.
8legs1dream
Graduate Assistant
I thought it was bad when we gave up 40 in the first half man they really made a fool out of me.
Burton was 3/13 from the field. That ain’t gonna cut it from our leader
Toledo scored 40 in the paint. Unbelievable.
they had 27 with 3m left in the first half. We hit b2b 3s to tie it and then got zero stops the rest of the half and few the game for that matter. 63 points in 23m of game clock. Not good. First half ended with Toledo possessions being 3 pointer, 3 pointer, 2 pointer, 3 point play after a UR turnover, 3 point heave at buzzer. 11 points in 2 minutes.
Somehow there was a 6m period where Spiders held them scoreless. A mix of guys in there at that time, basically entire rotation, but it started when Marcus came off the bench, for what that's worth. But Spiders only turned their 10-9 deficit into a 13-9 lead in those 6 minutes.
Anyway, pretty bad game and another baffling game by stats - at least in the first half, when UR won the rebounding, shot 45% from 3, 100% from 4-4 fts and was down 7. 9 turnovers led to fast break points, and seemingly all the Toledo 2nd chances turned into points.
Somehow there was a 6m period where Spiders held them scoreless. A mix of guys in there at that time, basically entire rotation, but it started when Marcus came off the bench, for what that's worth. But Spiders only turned their 10-9 deficit into a 13-9 lead in those 6 minutes.
Anyway, pretty bad game and another baffling game by stats - at least in the first half, when UR won the rebounding, shot 45% from 3, 100% from 4-4 fts and was down 7. 9 turnovers led to fast break points, and seemingly all the Toledo 2nd chances turned into points.
We held them scoreless for 6 minutes and they still scored 90? Oof!
Our defensive strategy was literally just hope they miss. A guy in a damn wheelchair could have been out there and still gotten wide open shots.
That was bad. Really, really bad
That was bad. Really, really bad
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Sorry. It just bothers me when a parent or parents of a player criticize other players on the team. Always has, always will. I just don't think there is ever a time or place for it and it has happened on here multiple times. I happened to see a tweet, it bothered me, and I mentioned it. No worries if you disagree, but since you said you have no idea why I might have posted what I did, I wanted to give you the reason.
From pretty successful area coach
“Defense is an all-the-time kind of thing,” he said that evening. “Guys have to understand that. ... You can’t play this game ... in a tuxedo. You’ve got to show up ready. It’s got to be in your eyes, it’s got to be in your mind, it’s got to be in your heart. And when that’s lacking, it sticks out like a sore thumb.”
“Defense is an all-the-time kind of thing,” he said that evening. “Guys have to understand that. ... You can’t play this game ... in a tuxedo. You’ve got to show up ready. It’s got to be in your eyes, it’s got to be in your mind, it’s got to be in your heart. And when that’s lacking, it sticks out like a sore thumb.”
We were getting a lot of credit heading into last night because our defense was "holding" opponents to 63 a game or whatever, but it was obvious that in most cases, teams were holding themselves to that level. A good offensive team was going to get whatever it wanted against us, and we saw that play out last night.
You don't know me and can't read my mind. Think what you want, but if you follow the history here and read the posts, it will be clear. Maybe you think it is okay for a parent or parents of a player to be critical of other players. I don't. I tried 2 or 3 times to give the benefit of the doubt, but it keeps happening. Yes, it bothers me. If it doesn't bother anyone else, fine.
Correct. Toledo pushed quickly, a few passes, and then shoot. More so than most of the other teams we’ve played. Toledo successful at exploiting our interior weakness. It’s a formula that worked well and especially for second chance points for them. This needs to addressed because otherwise we’ll see it again this season.
I agree on your first couple of points, but rebounding or 2nd chance points was not an issue. They only had 9 offensive rebounds. Nearly 300 teams average 9 offensive rebounds. The issue was we missed shots, and we made it way too easy for them to make shots.
I don’t think what SDad posts comes across as overtly biased or irrational though. If it were, I’d understand the criticism. There are a lot of question marks at both of the 1/2 guard positions right now that rightfully are worth inspecting.
I hear you, T. No worries if we disagree here. Some things that bother some people don't bother others. I get that. I just don't think it's common at all, and, and as a parent, never did that. I can't even comprehend for a second doing that. But, that's just me.
Worth nothing at all, but here are my thoughts:
- Burton did a pretty solid job on the defensive boards, but was otherwise atrocious. His shot selection was abysmal, and unfortunately is a continuation of what I've seen this year. Contested, pull-up, off-balance 19 footers are not good shots ever. Even when they go in. And he's shooting about 5 of those a game. In addition, it's pretty obvious he did not work on ball handling nearly enough this offseason. I had some concern in the pre-season interviews where he was asked what he worked on or what he tried to improve and his responses were something along the lines of "my leadership." This is not to say I think he didn't work this offseason--I'm sure he did--but the glaring hole in his game is his ballhandling and it has not improved. He struggles to cross guys over and beat guys 1v1, which leads to the bad 19 footers. And when he backs guys down or turns his back, he's dribbling so far from his body that he loses it or gets it knocked away. It's really bad.
- Dji was way more aggressive, which I loved. He missed about 5 contested layups, which he's gonna have to make. But he was strong defensively and had several of our best hustle plays yesterday.
- Goose was good offensively, but I don't think he was good defensively at all. He got beat repeatedly, with the worst one being the one on the baseline with the shot clock at two and he simply let the guy pivot around him for a layup.
- I agree with everything folks are saying about Roche. He needs 10-12 shots a game, and his defense is decent enough to keep him out there to get it.
- Quinn was the worst one on the court. He does have good vision and is a willing passer, but he's simply going to have to toughen up. He can't keep getting the ball just taken from him, or missing layups from right in front of the rim. He didn't deserve to be out there after a while, and it really hurt us not having a big dude in the middle on defense.
- Nelson had a very tough game. Which is fine--he's a freshman point guard, and it's not going to be all rainbows and puppies. Keep battling, but take it easy on the drives in traffic. Gilyard, Kendall Anthony, Shawndre all had this issue too when they were underclassmen. Drives that they could get away with in HS don't work in college. They all figured it out, and Nelson will too.
- I like Randolph's edge, and I like his jumper. Looks clean. Ballhandling a little less so.
- Bigelow was good--got the short end of some bad calls yesterday for sure. But he definitely battles.
Now I see why last night hurt so much. We have a good team again. Let them play as competitors, determined to win at all costs like they did at the end of last season, despite the damn coach. Literally having no coach on the sidelines would be better than the one we have. He sucks the life out of them. He's not even mediocre, he's well below average and we pay him over a million ****ing dollars.
Despite our lousy ass coach, the rest of the season looks like 15-2 plus 7 toss-ups. If we hadn't blown last night and lost ALL of our close games, we woukd actually be alright. Win 2 of those 4, and we're looking at 23.5 - 7.5 and in a pretty good place.
Sucks that he can't keep our season alive into December.
Despite our lousy ass coach, the rest of the season looks like 15-2 plus 7 toss-ups. If we hadn't blown last night and lost ALL of our close games, we woukd actually be alright. Win 2 of those 4, and we're looking at 23.5 - 7.5 and in a pretty good place.
Sucks that he can't keep our season alive into December.
Agree with many of your points. Especially on Burton, or maybe that is one of the biggest areas of concern so far. Too much forcing, trying to draw the foul, and taking very very high degree of difficulty shots. Mooney has to pull him in the video room and simplify things for him. He can get his points in a multitude of ways, but going iso and trying to shoot over tight defense is very low on the list.
Nelson - I do think he has the ability to get in the lane - or the FT line and hit pull ups. And he has shown some very good finishing ability at the rim early. BUT, maybe he had a little too much success early and he looks to try to drive it in there too much now. I think he just needs to focus on making the easy plays, handling the balls and running the offense. Liking Randolph too. He has been a pleasant surprise. Really think the limited minutes and being so engaged last year is paying off. He comes in the game, is aggressive and confident, but not overly eager. I think he has very good mental make up to be a good contributor. Only downside I see is he seems a bit of a tweener between a guard and forward with size, ballhandling skill - but hey this is position less basketball right?
Nelson - I do think he has the ability to get in the lane - or the FT line and hit pull ups. And he has shown some very good finishing ability at the rim early. BUT, maybe he had a little too much success early and he looks to try to drive it in there too much now. I think he just needs to focus on making the easy plays, handling the balls and running the offense. Liking Randolph too. He has been a pleasant surprise. Really think the limited minutes and being so engaged last year is paying off. He comes in the game, is aggressive and confident, but not overly eager. I think he has very good mental make up to be a good contributor. Only downside I see is he seems a bit of a tweener between a guard and forward with size, ballhandling skill - but hey this is position less basketball right?
