Moral Victories

[97spiderfan]

Reading some of the posts in the G-Town thread and it looks like we are reducing ourselves to moral victories now. I fully expect this from Mooney who only looks at how we compete not whether we win or lose. But as a fan, the only thing that matters is whether you win or lose. To the point, a couple observations from last night.

1. Defense: We gave up 90 points last night. We can point to things we did well on offense last night (and there were certainly some of them) but our defense is still atrocious.
2. Golden's defense: Is non existent. JOC said this exact thing on the radio today that Golden is our only big man and has to stay on the court for offensive reasons and as a result he avoid contact on the defensive end. He rightly pointed the finger at Mooney's roster management as the reason we play this way. But serious question, how in the world do you tell you one big man, too basically not play defense, and not expect other teams to just pound you inside and take the ball to the rim? Cause that is what happens every single game.
3. Bench production: Zero points last night.
4. Player conditioning and substitution. Every game, I hear the announcers say the same thing midway through the second half, our players looked gassed? Um, they are gassed. Woj and Andre both played 39 minutes last night. Mooney is going to run these guys into injuries just like he ran Gilly into one. Tired players are injuries just waiting to happen. And of course, midway through the second half is when G-Town took control of the game.
5. Andre: He can play, which begs the question... Why in the hell was Mooney playing Oddo over him and why did Mooney not use Andre before to rest Gilly in prior games and specifically in 2nd half of the Wyoming game instead of Gilly when playing him now quite obviously exacerbated his groin injury.

 

[spiderman]

1) agreed
2) I don't think it's that simple. maybe he says be careful and don't challenge every shot. but there's no way he says stay 5 feet off of a shooter who flashes to the elbow. some of this is on Grant to play defense.
3) agreed. as the announcer said, we're not deep and our bench is now starting. expected more from Noah. Sal will probably take time, but tough to complain about recruiting him when he had the most offers.
4) we started missing shots and we point at tired legs, but then somehow we start hitting shots again despite no rest. I definitely don't agree that Mooney ran Gilyard into an injury. he played 4 games averaging the same minutes as last year. many guys play those kind of minutes.
5) just because Andre looked good last night doesn't mean easing him in was crazy. he's a freshman who missed the summer and some fall. if Sal scores 10 next game, are we going to say "why the heck wasn't he playing before"?

 

[spider23]

Number 2 - I want to defend Grant here. I have a feeling that either he is being tasked to play tentatively (not foul), or is taking it on himself with full awareness that he has to stay on the court. In either case, it is very hard to play this way. In addition to trying to figure out the correct play in Mooney's passive/cerebral match up, you have an extra layer of passive/aggressive to figure out, meanwhile it is actually a game of basketball going on. Tough to lay on Grant. I point to recruiting, need to have 4 viable front court guys. Aggravating the situation is that Cayo is often in foul trouble. Tough spot for Grant.

I too am afraid that in Mooney's fear for his job, he will run guys into the ground. Again, either lack of depth, or "forgetting" to play guys, it is not ideal.

 

[97spiderfan]

Number 2 - I want to defend Grant here. I have a feeling that either he is being tasked to play tentatively (not foul), or is taking it on himself with full awareness that he has to stay on the court. In either case, it is very hard to play this way. In addition to trying to figure out the correct play in Mooney's passive/cerebral match up, you have an extra layer of passive/aggressive to figure out, meanwhile it is actually a game of basketball going on. Tough to lay on Grant. I point to recruiting, need to have 4 viable front court guys. Aggravating the situation is that Cayo is often in foul trouble. Tough spot for Grant.

I too am afraid that in Mooney's fear for his job, he will run guys into the ground. Again, either lack of depth, or "forgetting" to play guys, it is not ideal.

To be clear: I am saying that Grant is playing soft defense upon instruction from the coaches. Grant might be an adequate defensive players but he is only doing what he is instructed to do.

Secondly, what about Bryce and Tomas. Both of these guys sat out last year as redshirts, so they should know our offense and defense well now. Why are they not giving blows to Jake/Andre at the very least. If they each got 5 minutes, than Andre and Jake only are playing 34 minutes, which probably cuts into their tired legs/injury proneness in the second half of games.

 

[Marley13]

Same reason PF didn’t play. Not good enough.

 

[spiderman]

To be clear: I am saying that Grant is playing soft defense upon instruction from the coaches. Grant might be an adequate defensive players but he is only doing what he is instructed to do.

did Grant say this?

 

[GKiller]

We played the exact same interior defensive philosophy a few years ago when we only had TJ inside so we should be much more experienced at it.

 

[97spiderfan]

We played the exact same interior defensive philosophy a few years ago when we only had TJ inside so we should be much more experienced at it.

Yes, we did. And our defense was terrible then as well.

 

[nathanw19]

Yes, we did. And our defense was terrible then as well.

Agreed. T.J. was abused defensively, especially his first couple years. I think his senior year he was decent. Hopefully Grant grows defensively as well.

 

[kneepadmckinney]

Agree violently on the defense observation, both as a team and to Grant in particular. I think it is a combination of instruction to not get cheap fouls, and that he hasn't been coached how to play good defense without picking up cheap fouls, and that he's a little clueless. He definitely has times where he simply watches someone drive right to the rim and he does nothing. He also had at least 4 occasions of simply not stepping closer to Govan at the elbow, or even putting his hand in the air. He was 4 feet away from a guy at the ELBOW, and to me that is clearly cluelessness or lack of defensive effort.

As for bench production, I've never understood this one. Who gives a flying eff how many points the bench scored if our team scores 82 and shoots 53%???? The problem is not how many points the bench scores, it is defense. T

o be clear, I am reacting to you equating "production" to "zero points". If the broader point is that we don't have guys that we can bring in to allow our starters adequate rest and not have a drop in TEAM offensive or defensive production, then maybe that's a discussion. But jesus christ, I don't care if Noah Yates never shoots the ball again this year if all of his shots are instead going to 3 foot baby hooks from Golden, driving layups by Cayo, and open three pointers by Wojcik.

 

[GKiller]

Yes, we did. And our defense was terrible then as well.

It wasn’t a compliment.

Mooney best defenses had Garrett & ANO to come off bench. As good as KA and Harp were we don’t win A10 & go to S16 without Garrett.

 

[spiderman]

agreed, GK. while I'm pleased with how Grace has looked, I wish we had a defensive minded rim protector on the roster. we need that more than extra offense.

 

[spider23]

If you have the time to peruse Xavier's couple hundred page manifesto on pack line D, it does give clear instruction for big men on how to guard post, high post, etc aggressively without fouling and being able to show the ref you are not fouling.

I can send it to Moon if someone can post his email. I'm sure he has not read it. I think rule number 1 is: No straight line drive to the basket by dribbler. I don't think he has read it. I think many of the principles apply to any defense.

 

[97spiderfan]

agreed, GK. while I'm pleased with how Grace has looked, I wish we had a defensive minded rim protector on the roster. we need that more than extra offense.

Man, if you only Mooney had recruited one of those in oh the past 5 or so years since Garrett left the program. He hasn't been able to or perhaps he chooses not to.

 

[MrTbone]

Yes, we did. And our defense was terrible then as well.

I believe our defensive efficiency rank TJs senior year was 167 which is the best of the past four years. That was a small and inexperienced team which was a lot of the problem.

 

[SouthJerseySpiderFan]

I believe our defensive efficiency rank TJs senior year was 167 which is the best of the past four years. That was a small and inexperienced team which was a lot of the problem.

Tbone, Kenpom even had them better at #132. Different sites have their own numbers but what you say is true, defense was better than average by both our numbers.

And the Spiders that year were indeed a small team, they had a couple undersized players for their positions named Fore and Buckingham who played 84% and 74% respectively of UR's minutes. What can we make of that?