8legs1dream
Team Manager
I think it is foolish to base anything on the current NET rankings of the conference but go ahead and serve up the koolaid
Mason Thread - A-10 Opener
- Thread starter flyder19
- Start date
Our best ooc loss was to I think a #88 Syracuse. I think if we’re hanging out hat on that being a tough ooc slate then we’re scratching for worms.
Btw, I don’t think the A10 is going to be a tough run either, but I haven’t seen anything that makes me think we’ll win two thirds of those games.
I'm not hanging my hat on our OOC schedule. Seemed pretty obvious with my first sentence I was getting on the A-10 with my comments, not praising our OOC schedule. Not that it matters, but just so you know, Kenpom, who I mentioned I was using, has Clemson at 60 right now. But, my point remains that 6 of our 7 losses are to teams ranked 105 or better. Only 3 of our 14 A-10 opponents are better than 105. Time will tell exactly bad the rest of the A-10 is, and time will tell how many we win.
Yeah, I know what you meant and not claiming you said otherwise. Just saying we look extremely average, I don’t think we look 2:1 win ratio IC, no matter how much “better” the ooc slate compares to our a10 schedule.
I’d love to be wrong.
LOL. Okay, sure, that's what he meant. So, instead of all of their positive stats, you can cherry pick a few bad ones and say, see, he meant those are not the stats of a winning team? Laughable. Sure, winning teams don't shoot 49% from the field, right? Winning teams don't make 15 FTs and shoot 11 more FTs than their opponents, right? Winning teams don't hold their opponents to 40% shooting, right? Winning teams don't protect the basketball, right? Winning teams don't have a guard score 22 and a big get 12 and 10, right?
I can respect that. Maybe it is more hope with me right now, but if I had to guess, I think 12-6 sounds right. But, 9-9 wouldn't shock me either until we know how good or bad some of these teams really are. I can agree we look very average right now.
Kenpom actually has us going 13 - 5. Really hard to figure out the A10 this season, was not expecting some of the game 1 and 2 results.
I understand, and don't blame you. If my posts were consistently shown to be way off and so easily countered by someone like yours have been by me today, I would stop posting with them as well.
I will stick with your 12-6 prediction until proven wrong. I kind of like agreeing with you for a change, anyway.
You're right. My bad. It's definitely not what he meant, even though he said it was.
Not exactly, I think he only has us as an underdog in 5, not quite the same thing as 5 expected losses.
But either way, I see a lot of games expected to be close…
Didn't watch a second but looking at stats a MOST accurate observation as to the initial gameplan after the tap. Possibly Mooney was using reserve psychology.
8legs1dream
Team Manager
I feel Kenny is wrong on this one and if George freakin Mason is our "second toughest game" then we should legitimately be looking to exit the A10
T-Rank - Customizable College Basketball Tempo Free Stats - T-Rank
T-Rank College Basketball Ratings and Rankings. And fun.
barttorvik.com
Atlantic 10 Conference at Bracketologists
bracketologists.com
And apparently location matters.
Lastly,
Pomeroy seems to indicate we will be favored in 13 of 17 future games but win 10.
Torvik seems to indicate we will be favored in 12 of 17 future games but win 10.
First off, I wasn't able to see game. Looking more at it GM scores more points 35% and greater attempts via the 3 like UR. Though for this game only 14% of GM's points came from 3PT range. I see ended shooting 19% going 3-16 with only one previous game below 30%. I guess when you can't make them try something else. A PinP ad of 38-20 says they did it well enough to win.
On a positive note Spiders did have a 9-4 ad on GM in 2ndC points only allowing 5 Off boards.
On a positive note Spiders did have a 9-4 ad on GM in 2ndC points only allowing 5 Off boards.
I got roasted on the Goose take last game. But, I just don't see how a guy can play 36 minutes, take 1 shot, grab 2 rebounds, and have several bad turnovers and yet still play 36 minutes. I'm sure his defense was lock down and all, but that is literally giving us nothing on the offensive end of the floor. And given that we scored 58 points, perhaps a bit more offense was needed.
I don't know who was guarding Polite but we sure made him look like a first team all A-10 player.
I don't know who was guarding Polite but we sure made him look like a first team all A-10 player.
I think the lesson here is that Goose low key uses the message board for motivation, seems to play well after we give him the run down. 97 keep it going after this no show and maybe we can get some offense from Goose vs Gdub.
I hear you and agree we want much better production in 36 minutes, but I think Nelson's foul trouble and how we played when Goose went back in after sitting in the 2nd half was a big reason Goose played 36 minutes. Nelson sat the final 17 minutes of the 1st half, so Goose was out there for 19 of the 20 minutes then. In the 2nd half, Nelson picked up his 3rd with about 15 minutes left, and then Goose sat from the 13 to the 10 minute mark. So, until then, not sure we should do a lot different. You could say sit him some in the final 10 minutes, but when he came back in around the 10 minute mark, we were down 50-43, and the next 6 minutes we went on an 11-3 run to take a 54-53 lead at the 4 minute mark. So, again, I will agree with you that we want and need more offensive production if he is on the floor for 36 minutes, but in this particular game, I'm not sure there was a definite time to say he should not be out there.
He obviously responded to my dig last game and then no dig and he doesn't. So, I will have to continue with the beatings until morale improves.
Agreed that Nelson's foul trouble left us with little options. Randolph is the only other ballhandler available and I haven't seen enough of him to leave him out there on his own without another viable option to bring the ball up.
Your dig b4 coppin game & subsequent discussion was related to defense. his defense was again good vs goo moos. he mainly guarded Bailey who didn't do much, Polite was primarily beating Burton from what I saw. I said in another post I don't get why Mooney didn't switch them, it made too much sense. Personally I think it would have won us the game even after struggling so much on O. But Goose didn't contribute at all offensively, & we're better as a team when he does, the putrid goo moo game may be best example.
Partially agree, but Crabtree came in for the last 2 minutes of the first half and had one steal on an inbounds play and was solid on D and was never seen again. Seems like he could have gotten some more run and provided a few points from a guard spot.
… Hasn’t he won more games than anyone as well? Are you sure you got your degree from UR? 😂
Well we didn’t make our free throws either? I’m not sure why you thought we were supposed to win that game… mason is a better team. Their first 5 were a lot better then our first 5.., I’m guessing that wasn’t known going into the game?
Let’s see how Wednesday goes.
Merrily pointing out the other side of the statistic people seem to forget such as you. And yes I got my degree at a time when people were more civil and didn't make smart ass remarks behind the anonymity of a message board. I wouldn't be surprised if some of the contributions I've made to the school supplemented your education.
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You're right, we should have never made the trip.
Right, I guess we must be worse than every team that beats us! Stupid of us to think otherwise.
I know I'm late to post due to holiday travelling, but I was at the game and want to make a few observations without repeating too much the frustrations already mentioned.
This is my second game in person, and I'm 0-2 (Syracuse at Barclays the other). Just judging on those two games (yeah, maybe not fair), not much improvement from early conference play until now. Both games terrible foul shooting so I guess you can blame me for that.
This game was as close to a "neutral court" road game as you could ever get. Not much home court advantage for GMU as few students due to the break, the usually extremely loud band had less than half the members there also due to the break, and the modest-sized crowd was asleep until the last play or two that sealed the win. Spiders couldn't capitalize on that.
Hard to win when two of your starters are invisible on offense. Goose focused on D exclusively, and Quinn decided early on not to even look at the rim in most cases.
I don't think there is any coach or player awareness of opposing team fouls. When Oduro picked up his 3rd foul, you would think we would take it inside to draw a 4th or see if he backs off on D. I recall one play where Quinn went to the rim for a bucket and thought that maybe an assistant coach had pointed that out to CM. But alas that was the only time we seemed to go inside. Same lack of awareness on opponent team fouls. GMU got their 8th or 9th with lots of time left but we still mostly jacked up 3's rather than driving to the rim to get to the double bonus. Yeah, I know, it wouldn't have mattered much the way we were missing FTs.
The worst of all was reading CM's post-game comments about how happy he was with the effort. I know these are kids and we certainly don't want him to be Sean Miller, but he over-coddles them. Unless behind closed doors he talks differently to them but I doubt it.
Enough for now. Wednesday against GW will tell a lot about what the rest of conference play holds for us. Go Spiders!
This is my second game in person, and I'm 0-2 (Syracuse at Barclays the other). Just judging on those two games (yeah, maybe not fair), not much improvement from early conference play until now. Both games terrible foul shooting so I guess you can blame me for that.
This game was as close to a "neutral court" road game as you could ever get. Not much home court advantage for GMU as few students due to the break, the usually extremely loud band had less than half the members there also due to the break, and the modest-sized crowd was asleep until the last play or two that sealed the win. Spiders couldn't capitalize on that.
Hard to win when two of your starters are invisible on offense. Goose focused on D exclusively, and Quinn decided early on not to even look at the rim in most cases.
I don't think there is any coach or player awareness of opposing team fouls. When Oduro picked up his 3rd foul, you would think we would take it inside to draw a 4th or see if he backs off on D. I recall one play where Quinn went to the rim for a bucket and thought that maybe an assistant coach had pointed that out to CM. But alas that was the only time we seemed to go inside. Same lack of awareness on opponent team fouls. GMU got their 8th or 9th with lots of time left but we still mostly jacked up 3's rather than driving to the rim to get to the double bonus. Yeah, I know, it wouldn't have mattered much the way we were missing FTs.
The worst of all was reading CM's post-game comments about how happy he was with the effort. I know these are kids and we certainly don't want him to be Sean Miller, but he over-coddles them. Unless behind closed doors he talks differently to them but I doubt it.
Enough for now. Wednesday against GW will tell a lot about what the rest of conference play holds for us. Go Spiders!
Perhaps a word from Merriam-Webster can summarize many threads on this board. Unfortunately the word does not show to be a part of our current bb program dictionary.
ADJUST:
adjusted; adjusting; adjusts
transitive verb
1
a
: to bring to a more satisfactory state:
(1)
: SETTLE, RESOLVE
ways of adjusting conflicts
(2)
: RECTIFY
adjust an error
b
: to make correspondent or conformable : ADAPT
had to adjust our approach
c
: to bring the parts of to a true or more effective relative position
adjust a carburetor
ADJUST:
adjusted; adjusting; adjusts
transitive verb
1
a
: to bring to a more satisfactory state:
(1)
: SETTLE, RESOLVE
ways of adjusting conflicts
(2)
: RECTIFY
adjust an error
b
: to make correspondent or conformable : ADAPT
had to adjust our approach
c
: to bring the parts of to a true or more effective relative position
adjust a carburetor
Gosh boys and girls this has me thinking of Mr.Robinson’s Neighborhood. Can you say
1
: capable of being flexed : PLIANT
flexible branches swaying in the breeze
2
: yielding to influence : TRACTABLE
a flexible person without strong convictions
3
: characterized by a ready capability to adapt to new, different, or changing requirements
a flexible foreign policy
Now let’s use it in a sentence!
flexible
adjective
flex·i·ble ˈflek-sə-bəl1
: capable of being flexed : PLIANT
flexible branches swaying in the breeze
2
: yielding to influence : TRACTABLE
a flexible person without strong convictions
3
: characterized by a ready capability to adapt to new, different, or changing requirements
a flexible foreign policy
Now let’s use it in a sentence!
This is the biggest frustration many of us have had for years. There's plenty to be said for encouraging players rather than berating them, but that's a lot different from praising poor performances and outcomes, which he seems to do frequently.
Mooney seems perpetually content to play the long game, building for that one shot three years from now instead of doing everything possible to win every game now.
a few New Year's thoughts:
I like the talent Mooney brought in but we're no where near as talented as we've been the past few years. we do play better defense, but we're miles behind offensively.
Nelson at this point in his career is no where near Gilly. not a knock. he'll get better. but tough to understand high expectations when the PG play is down.
Quinn is no where near Grant, who to me was one of the more underappreciated Spiders ever for his level of production. and I like Quinn. but it's a dropoff.
how many games do we go into the first break with like 5 points? I know there have been some exceptions, but it seems too often. I think we need to shake up the starting 5 for more offense.
our offense does historically get us good shots. we know Roche is more than a spot up shooter, but that's what he's become. he definitely has less freedom than he had at the Citadel but he can fit in this offense. he does cut hard but to no avail. he needs to add drives. and yes, I'd like a perimate screen of some sort for him added to the offense.
Bigelow ... we're going to have to live with an inconsistent shot I think. but man, he was a difference maker again on the boards. I watch him and Burton and I feel it's not truly a Mooney philosophy to avoid offense boards. Mooney just usually doesn't land these types of athlete. Bigs himself drew at least 3 fouls on boards. I'd start him, but just like with Goose we don't know what we're getting offensively.
I'd love to scrap playing Quinn with Grace. Grace is finally shooting a bit better so start him at the 5. but use Burton more at the 4 or with Bigelow. and get Randolph more consistant time. he's a gamer.
I like the talent Mooney brought in but we're no where near as talented as we've been the past few years. we do play better defense, but we're miles behind offensively.
Nelson at this point in his career is no where near Gilly. not a knock. he'll get better. but tough to understand high expectations when the PG play is down.
Quinn is no where near Grant, who to me was one of the more underappreciated Spiders ever for his level of production. and I like Quinn. but it's a dropoff.
how many games do we go into the first break with like 5 points? I know there have been some exceptions, but it seems too often. I think we need to shake up the starting 5 for more offense.
our offense does historically get us good shots. we know Roche is more than a spot up shooter, but that's what he's become. he definitely has less freedom than he had at the Citadel but he can fit in this offense. he does cut hard but to no avail. he needs to add drives. and yes, I'd like a perimate screen of some sort for him added to the offense.
Bigelow ... we're going to have to live with an inconsistent shot I think. but man, he was a difference maker again on the boards. I watch him and Burton and I feel it's not truly a Mooney philosophy to avoid offense boards. Mooney just usually doesn't land these types of athlete. Bigs himself drew at least 3 fouls on boards. I'd start him, but just like with Goose we don't know what we're getting offensively.
I'd love to scrap playing Quinn with Grace. Grace is finally shooting a bit better so start him at the 5. but use Burton more at the 4 or with Bigelow. and get Randolph more consistant time. he's a gamer.
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This explains a lot if this is your biggest frustration. Do you really think what Mooney says to the media is the same thing he says to his team away from the media? What about the numerous times the players have come out and mentioned how he got on them or had a few choice words for them. Do you always think what coaches say to the media is 100% accurate? Seriously? Wow.
Some coaches just don't believe in throwing their guys under the bus to the media. It used to be an ongoing funny topic with Braves fans when they had Bobby Cox managing.
Their starting pitcher could give up 8 runs in 2 innings and Cox would say, "He had good stuff tonight, they just got a couple bloop hits and he was just a little unlucky". He never bad mouthed or blamed his guys to the media, his guys loved him, and they all played super hard for him. A lot like what we have with Mooney.
And funny you said Mooney is playing the win every 3 years and not win every game now game when we often heard on here a few games ago just the opposite, that he worries too much about winning every game instead of giving certain guys more time.
He may say something totally opposite to the team, but he doesn't strike me as the kind of guy who is two-faced. I think he is what he is, in all environments. And if he is berating players in private but praising them in public, I'd say that sends a mixed message.
I'm clearly not suggesting that he throw anyone under the bus – I'm suggesting that the constant "I'm really proud of how we battled back" schtick in games that we should have won but pissed away does no one any good. How about saying "That was a very frustrating loss, because I thought we had every opportunity to win the game but couldn't do it. I saw some positives, but the end result was not what we needed, and we have to play with more urgency next time out." Fair, accurate and to the point. It really isn't hard.
I'm not sure who said that Mooney cares too much about winning every game, but it wasn't me.
LOL. So, basically he should check with you and say exactly what you think he should say. I hope this is one of your all too often sarcastic takes.
Mixed message? LOL. Yep, I'm sure the players are really frustrated when they see he didn't call them out to the media. And, I have no idea why you think what Mooney says to the media for 5 minutes would be more telling to the guys than what he says to them every day for a couple hours.
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Show me where I said that he should check with me and say exactly what I think he should say? Come on dude. Stop the strawman stuff. Can we just have a discussion? I'm simply explaining why he comes off as disingenuous and SUGGESTING what people like me would like to hear him say – even occasionally – after a game like Mason, or W&M, or any number of others that we gave away. I'm just asking him not to blow sunshine up our butts when it's clearly raining outside, that's all. Too tall an ask?
Yes, it actually is too much to ask because you are asking him to worry more about the fans than the team. It makes no sense. So, after a loss you would be a lot happier if he said something different? How does this 1% matter?
Is it too much to ask that you not be negative or sarcastic with every post? Different subject, but I have been meaning to ask you if you think any team in college basketball is good. Because all I ever hear from you is this team sucks and that team sucks.
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