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Matt Grace

I killed Matt Grace for three years and I have to admit, I was totally wrong. He won me over last year. He is one of the most underrated players in recent memory. We wouldn’t have made the tournament without him. I’ll always be a fan.
Matt Grace played against Grant Golden for 4 years. Grace is a good player.
 
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Last night was Matt's best game as a Spider. 16 points on 5-6 shooting, 5 rebounds 2 block shots. Quinn's minutes were limited because Grace was playing fantastic on both ends of the court. Hope he is ok. We need him in the lineup.
 
From JOC article "Grace, a 6-foot-9 fifth-year player who scored 16 points on 5-of-6 shooting in 32 minutes, went down late in the game with a leg injury and did not return. Mooney said after the game that it could not be determined Monday night if there was any structural damage and Grace would be evaluated more thoroughly in Richmond Tuesday."
 
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Same PA. I was dead wrong about Grace. Dude is a gamer, probably his best all around game as a Spider last night (not discounting his heriocs in the A-10 tourney last year). Hope his knee is ok, that would be a blow. Didn't see but if they "knocked" knees, hold out hope that this a bruise vs. ligament damage.
 
Hoping for the best for MFG. Always got to hold your breath with injuries. Never want to see an injury for any player obviously but Grace may be the least deserving of it on the team.
 
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We need Grace. If just a bone bruise - I might even rest him vs. Wichita. Without him - we take a severe hit to our lineup.

If its worse than a bone bruise and he misses significant time - better get Noyes ready. Bigelow could take Grace spot in the starting lineup, but Quinn needs to be replaced and is likely only playing 20 minutes or less a night.
 
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We need Grace. If just a bone bruise - I might even rest him vs. Wichita. Without him - we take a severe hit to our lineup.

If its worse than a bone bruise and he misses significant time - better get Noyes ready. Bigelow could take Grace spot in the starting lineup, but Quinn needs to be replaced and is likely only playing 20 minutes or less a night.
if Grace misses any time Walz will have to step up and play significant minutes.
 
Agree - could be Walz or Noyes. But most concerning - neither of them played a minutes in an OT game last night, which should tell us all something about what the staff thinks of their ability to contribute at this point.
 
Everything about Noyes screams "wing" player, not big man. Yes he has hops. But he is thin, and all his highlights and h.s. game footage he plays wing. Walz - I do want to see us throwing him in there more, big athletic kid - we need to try to speed up his development - especially with Reed bolting. I'm pulling for MFG to be OK, but if not - I think we will see Bigelow getting every minute he can handle and stay out of foul trouble. Quinn will need to be a 30 minute guy.
 
Everything about Noyes screams "wing" player, not big man. Yes he has hops. But he is thin, and all his highlights and h.s. game footage he plays wing. Walz - I do want to see us throwing him in there more, big athletic kid - we need to try to speed up his development - especially with Reed bolting. I'm pulling for MFG to be OK, but if not - I think we will see Bigelow getting every minute he can handle and stay out of foul trouble. Quinn will need to be a 30 minute guy.
So far from what I have seen - and yes, it is very early, but if we need Quinn to play 30 minutes because Grace is injured - I fear we are in trouble. He has not shown much production in his limited minutes and right now I think it would be better to start Bigelow in place of Quinn.
 
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Trap, I tend to agree with you about Quinn so far. If Grace is out (hopefully not, and hopefully not for any extended time), are you suggesting a frontcourt of Bigelow and Burton at the 5/4? If Grace is out, it may come down to that at times, but I am hoping Quinn gets more comfortable and aggressive and can provide good production for 25+ minutes.
I would like to see Walz get some minutes. I totally get 4700's sentiment on another thread - we shouldn't play guys to play them, we are looking to win. But I feel Walz is big and athletic enough that he can contribute D and rebounding when needed, while keeping it really basic on O.
 
If MFG is out, expect Walz to get a lot more playing time, especially earlier off the bench. I envision Mooney wanting to get a feel for Walz's play as early as he can to start to figure out if he can work his way in more if and when MFG returns.

He'd be silly not to, MFG will be gone, Walz will not. Agreed that we're not in a phase as a team where we can "develop players," but in this case, this is an opportunity to do so with a top player like MFG guaranteed to not get time
 
Trap, I tend to agree with you about Quinn so far. If Grace is out (hopefully not, and hopefully not for any extended time), are you suggesting a frontcourt of Bigelow and Burton at the 5/4? If Grace is out, it may come down to that at times, but I am hoping Quinn gets more comfortable and aggressive and can provide good production for 25+ minutes.
I would like to see Walz get some minutes. I totally get 4700's sentiment on another thread - we shouldn't play guys to play them, we are looking to win. But I feel Walz is big and athletic enough that he can contribute D and rebounding when needed, while keeping it really basic on O.
If Grace is out, next man up if he is ready. If Walz can give us some quality minutes, great. If not, we need to go with Quinn, Tyler, and Bigelow, and we showed last night we could be fine at times if we had Tyler and Bigelow out there for awhile with 3 guards. But, I agree with you and could definitely see Walz getting some minutes, and would expect that if Grace misses time.
 
Trap, I tend to agree with you about Quinn so far. If Grace is out (hopefully not, and hopefully not for any extended time), are you suggesting a frontcourt of Bigelow and Burton at the 5/4? If Grace is out, it may come down to that at times, but I am hoping Quinn gets more comfortable and aggressive and can provide good production for 25+ minutes.
I would like to see Walz get some minutes. I totally get 4700's sentiment on another thread - we shouldn't play guys to play them, we are looking to win. But I feel Walz is big and athletic enough that he can contribute D and rebounding when needed, while keeping it really basic on O.
If Grace is out - we have to stick with Quinn, and he probably has to play more. I would go with Quinn and Bigelow. But if Grace is good to go - I would like to see Grace and Bigelow starting, and Quinn gives them a rest here and there and probably gets 15 minutes or more depending on his production and matchups.

I think at the beginning of the season, a lot of people though Quinn would be much better than Grace, but that is simply not the case at this point. Right now I don't think Quinn is better than Bigelow. That doesn't mean Quinn is a bad player or will not be a key piece for UR this year or the future, but I think its both him trying to fit into the system and Mooney trying to figure out - how do I fit a 7 footer who is not too mobile, can't shoot, and is okay passer into a position where I generally have a guy that can shoot and pass pretty well much better than Quinn has shown.
 
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Quinn has certainly but underwhelming in the first couple of games. I do think Quinn does what Mooney wants in our offense out of the center position, which is to be a distributive center that is an important part of the flow of our offense. If Grace is out for any period of time, our solution is to start Bigelow alongside Quinn. Walz will probably get some significant back-up minutes behind Quinn, as I don't see and I don't think Mooney sees Quinn as a 30 minute per night guy. I have literally zero idea if Walz is ready for that role though. Certainly, body wise he is ready, but unsure if Mooney would have confidence in him at this point to do what he wants both offensively and defensively.
 
97, I disagree on Quinn. I don't think he is the same kind of big like GG or TJ. Quinn needs to be on the block. I don't think you want the offense running through him like it did with GG or TJ. I haven't seen anything so far to indicate that he is that kind of point-center like we have had in the past. That said, I think he can be an effective player if used right. Put him on the block and let him go to work.
 
97, I disagree on Quinn. I don't think he is the same kind of big like GG or TJ. Quinn needs to be on the block. I don't think you want the offense running through him like it did with GG or TJ. I haven't seen anything so far to indicate that he is that kind of point-center like we have had in the past. That said, I think he can be an effective player if used right. Put him on the block and let him go to work.
Quinn is a passing big man up top or from the block. absolutely a point-center type like Grant if that's what you want to call it. Lafayette ran their offense through him. and he averaged more assists than Grant ever did.

if by "go to work" you mean pass out of the block, then ok. but while huge he's not as skilled scoring in the post as Grant. Grant was really freaking good offensively.

it's been 3 games for Quinn. give him time.
 
The game was on Monday, today is Wednesday and we have another game tomorrow and still no word on Grace as far as I have seen. Does that suggest bad news on the horizon?
Or does it mean no news for Wichita Staff?
 
as I don't see and I don't think Mooney sees Quinn as a 30 minute per night guy.

I think this is a key point - not seeing him as a guy who can log major minutes at the center position like GG/TJ. If MFG is out, there's going to need to be 15/20 mins a game for someone at the position. Or do we just so small/athletic for those minutes.

Quinn is a passing big man up top or from the block. absolutely a point-center type like Grant if that's what you want to call it. Lafayette ran their offense through him. and he averaged more assists than Grant ever did.

if by "go to work" you mean pass out of the block, then ok. but while huge he's not as skilled scoring in the post as Grant. Grant was really freaking good offensively.

it's been 3 games for Quinn. give him time.

Its a small sample, sure, but I haven't seen this. He's not running our offense out of the top of the three point line like we've had guys do it in the past as centers. Seems to be a decent passer, but those aren't coming out of our normal princeton-type offense. Seen a lot of 2 man game with him on the blocks.
 
Shhhhh. I have it on good authority that MFG is in a very unique procedure in which they cloned his knee, fully repaired and now have replaced it. It is expected to be 101% by 10:35 AM EST tomorrow.

Disclosure: I am not a doctor, only play one on tv. All medical knowledge was garnered from any political science classes with Dr. Kleff in the early 90's.
 
I've only really seen the UNI game, and I was there in person, but at least in that game I thought Quinn was pretty much exactly what I expected him to be. He scored around the basket a few times, he disrupted shots and clogged the paint on defense, he handled the ball pretty well. Maybe he's looked a lot worse in the other two games, or maybe people were expecting him to put up 15/10 every night, I don't know. I think he will have a few games like that, but we don't really need him to be a scorer. We need him to play defense, get rebounds and distribute the ball effectively when he is in there. If he does that for 20+ minutes a game, I'd be happy.
 
I've only really seen the UNI game, and I was there in person, but at least in that game I thought Quinn was pretty much exactly what I expected him to be. He scored around the basket a few times, he disrupted shots and clogged the paint on defense, he handled the ball pretty well. Maybe he's looked a lot worse in the other two games, or maybe people were expecting him to put up 15/10 every night, I don't know. I think he will have a few games like that, but we don't really need him to be a scorer. We need him to play defense, get rebounds and distribute the ball effectively when he is in there. If he does that for 20+ minutes a game, I'd be happy.
While he didn't have good game at Charleston, first 2 games he was 5 of 6 from 2, 12 rebounds, 6 assists in 38 minutes. If he stays close to that, I think he is doing good. We will see how close against the better teams...
 
Quinn is a passing big man up top or from the block. absolutely a point-center type like Grant if that's what you want to call it. Lafayette ran their offense through him. and he averaged more assists than Grant ever did.
I’m not going to judge Quinn off 3 games, especially when two of those games were VMI and UNI. He was never going to just magically replace Grant’s offensive production from day 1.

One thing I noticed about him that gives me some concern in our offense is he does not seem comfortable making the pass on a backdoor cut. Grant picked up a lot of assists of that and so far Neal seems to either see it but just a split second too late or be hesitant to make the pass. I understand it, you don’t want to commit a turnover if it isn’t there.

I think as he develops within our offensive style he’ll get better at that and it will do wonders to help his overall game. I’m looking forward to it
 
not sure I've ever heard of a ligament bruise, but that sounds like a really good outcome.
maybe he only misses this game.
if he also misses the games at Barclays, at least we have an 8 day break for finals to get healthy.
 
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not sure I've ever heard of a ligament bruise, but that sounds like a really good outcome.
maybe he only misses this game.
if he also misses the games at Barclays, at least we have an 8 day break for finals to get healthy.
If MFG can't play at Barclays, I think he should sit a few rows back of the bench, pull a Gilly and have a few beverages and be a loud fan for a change and then join my group at Peter Lugar's following Monday night's game. I'm not sure Coach would approve however.
 
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