Positives from games so far...
- Thread starter Spideroldie
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We have moved up to #228 in the RPI, just ahead of vcu at #230.
http://realtimerpi.com/rpi_atl10_Men.html
http://realtimerpi.com/rpi_atl10_Men.html
November 25, 2017: Positives from the Louisiana and Georgetown games:
1. Grant continues to look like he could become the most effective center we have seen in many years. The 24-point and 10 rebound performance against Georgetown tonight was outstanding. It is hard to believe that with the production we have had from the center position we have still not put all the pieces together, but it is just a matter of time.
2. Buck had his "break-out" game of the season so far, at long-last. He did what he does best, in driving the lane and scoring on lay-ups, and follows. Great to see he still has the effort level from last season.
3. We are starting to figure out what each player does best and the players are gradually starting to follow the recipe. The two clearest success formulas for us have been Grant inside and Buck driving the lane. Our other players still are learning their roles and what they do not do as well, but we are gettign closer...
4.We are doing a nice job of avoiding foul trouble, and Grant especially is learning how to defend well without getting fouls. He already looks like a much more veteran center in how he plays post defense.
5. We are still allowing too many wide-open 3-point shots, but the number and rate has gone down. It took an amazing 3-point shooting performance by Georgetown (shooting over 50% from 3) to beat us. Most teams we play will miss 2 out of 3 of those shots, and we will look so much better when their shots are not falling.
6. The bench has been shortened and our injured guys seem to be getting better. KF, for example, looked like he was almost back to 100% tonight. He can make a big difference if he continues to take drives and lay-ups, and limits the 3-point shots. JJ still is not hitting on all cylinders, but he is is likley getting closer to 100%. JMA is looking like a reasonable sub at center for us, as he gets more experience. We have mostly a 7-man rotation that can extend to 8, but we will likely get better faster if we keep the bench short.
Very nice effort tonight. We lost to a team that made all the shots they needed to make, at critical times. It is hard to beat one dagger after another. Spider fans should be feeling more hopeful that if we can be smarter with our outside shooting (who is taking them, and when) , we will turn this ship around. .
1. Grant continues to look like he could become the most effective center we have seen in many years. The 24-point and 10 rebound performance against Georgetown tonight was outstanding. It is hard to believe that with the production we have had from the center position we have still not put all the pieces together, but it is just a matter of time.
2. Buck had his "break-out" game of the season so far, at long-last. He did what he does best, in driving the lane and scoring on lay-ups, and follows. Great to see he still has the effort level from last season.
3. We are starting to figure out what each player does best and the players are gradually starting to follow the recipe. The two clearest success formulas for us have been Grant inside and Buck driving the lane. Our other players still are learning their roles and what they do not do as well, but we are gettign closer...
4.We are doing a nice job of avoiding foul trouble, and Grant especially is learning how to defend well without getting fouls. He already looks like a much more veteran center in how he plays post defense.
5. We are still allowing too many wide-open 3-point shots, but the number and rate has gone down. It took an amazing 3-point shooting performance by Georgetown (shooting over 50% from 3) to beat us. Most teams we play will miss 2 out of 3 of those shots, and we will look so much better when their shots are not falling.
6. The bench has been shortened and our injured guys seem to be getting better. KF, for example, looked like he was almost back to 100% tonight. He can make a big difference if he continues to take drives and lay-ups, and limits the 3-point shots. JJ still is not hitting on all cylinders, but he is is likley getting closer to 100%. JMA is looking like a reasonable sub at center for us, as he gets more experience. We have mostly a 7-man rotation that can extend to 8, but we will likely get better faster if we keep the bench short.
Very nice effort tonight. We lost to a team that made all the shots they needed to make, at critical times. It is hard to beat one dagger after another. Spider fans should be feeling more hopeful that if we can be smarter with our outside shooting (who is taking them, and when) , we will turn this ship around. .
Easy to make 3's when they are wide open (well, at least for our opponents that is). We sure seem to miss them.
Agree. Georgetown picked next to last in their league with a rookie coach and they beat us at home. Fire Money.
It appears that a few posters on this thread would prefer to focus on things other than the positives, even though the number of positives do appear to be increasing steadily.
Based on Vermont game on 11/29/17:
1. Nick appeared, for a while, to get un-tracked and hit about 3 3's in a row. If only he had continued to get open and continued to take those shots!
2. Jacob had what was likely his best game as a Spider, and showed in this game what many of us have been reporting about from pre-season practices. We knew he would be a great PG, he would get an amazing number of steals, and eventually he would start taking a more assertive role, and become a real 3-point threat. Once he starts to become "the man" at the end of games for us, and once he starts taking any critical 3's that Nick passes up, we will close out games in a much stronger way.
3. Grant continues to show that he can be a very positive force, even against teams like Vermont that pack-in their zone and try to take away the interior. Anytime he has only one man to beat, I want to see him taking the shot inside. His shooting percentage from 0-5 feet will be well over 50%.
4. Our defense had a few moments of playing well, including some very nice steals (n=9) and close enough coverage to lead to lots of traveling calls. However, our D still has a ways to go, and we allowed too many open 3s and open lay-ups.
5. Our offense and mental game looked better for most of this game, and our outside shooting looked like it will for most of the remainder of the season. We do have to work on who takes which shots though, since our shot selection in the last 2-3 minutes of this game likely cost us the game. Is it the coaches who are deciding who will take the "last-two-minutes" shots, or is it the players? If it is the players, then they really need to re-watch the last 3 minutes of this game, because if we had Nick, and Jacob taking our last two threes (rather than Khwan and Buck?), and if we had Grant taking our inside shot instead of Buck, the outcome could have swung. Hopefully, our guys will decide who the "go-to" guys should be late in our games. This team will not be as good as it can be unless our starting freshmen are given a chance to shine, and that includes late in games. .
Based on Vermont game on 11/29/17:
1. Nick appeared, for a while, to get un-tracked and hit about 3 3's in a row. If only he had continued to get open and continued to take those shots!
2. Jacob had what was likely his best game as a Spider, and showed in this game what many of us have been reporting about from pre-season practices. We knew he would be a great PG, he would get an amazing number of steals, and eventually he would start taking a more assertive role, and become a real 3-point threat. Once he starts to become "the man" at the end of games for us, and once he starts taking any critical 3's that Nick passes up, we will close out games in a much stronger way.
3. Grant continues to show that he can be a very positive force, even against teams like Vermont that pack-in their zone and try to take away the interior. Anytime he has only one man to beat, I want to see him taking the shot inside. His shooting percentage from 0-5 feet will be well over 50%.
4. Our defense had a few moments of playing well, including some very nice steals (n=9) and close enough coverage to lead to lots of traveling calls. However, our D still has a ways to go, and we allowed too many open 3s and open lay-ups.
5. Our offense and mental game looked better for most of this game, and our outside shooting looked like it will for most of the remainder of the season. We do have to work on who takes which shots though, since our shot selection in the last 2-3 minutes of this game likely cost us the game. Is it the coaches who are deciding who will take the "last-two-minutes" shots, or is it the players? If it is the players, then they really need to re-watch the last 3 minutes of this game, because if we had Nick, and Jacob taking our last two threes (rather than Khwan and Buck?), and if we had Grant taking our inside shot instead of Buck, the outcome could have swung. Hopefully, our guys will decide who the "go-to" guys should be late in our games. This team will not be as good as it can be unless our starting freshmen are given a chance to shine, and that includes late in games. .
I feel we are better at a faster pace, but we also need to make the other team move
and get out of place in half court. Last night we missed several lay ups and short shots.
For one Kwan was 0-5 early on and 2 or 3 of those was in the lane. Nick had a chance to
put us ahead around 3 minute mark, and who would think he misses both. These misses
affected us as it seemed to take wind out of our sail. We go ahead after being so close all
game, I feel strongly the game would have gone in our favor.
and get out of place in half court. Last night we missed several lay ups and short shots.
For one Kwan was 0-5 early on and 2 or 3 of those was in the lane. Nick had a chance to
put us ahead around 3 minute mark, and who would think he misses both. These misses
affected us as it seemed to take wind out of our sail. We go ahead after being so close all
game, I feel strongly the game would have gone in our favor.
Nick was also very successful in a flurry of 5-10 minutes, I think hitting 3 three pointers. After a time out, Vermont successfully shut him down. Buck didn't look good too me. For all the Mooney haters, again he can not make the shots for the team, THEY HAVE TO DO IT THEMSELVES.
But how many games have we lost like this over the years with Mooney as our coach? This is the exact template for a Mooney team. a close game, in which we had numerous chances to take control but didn't, and then wilted down the stretch. At some point that's not a coincidence anymore. At some point that sits squarely on the shoulders of the head coach. The team adopts the mentality of its head coach, and Mooney's mentality seems to be a passive one.
His teams lack that killer mentality because he doesn't exude it or demand it of them.
His teams lack that killer mentality because he doesn't exude it or demand it of them.
+1000. In fact, he seems to be almost excusing the losses now. At least the players understand winning and losing but the doesn't seem to be much emphasis on winning games coming from Mooney, just that we "get better".
True, kind of, why is it year after year different players and the same scoring/shooting woes? Remember CM recruited all of them. And most of them came in with good shooting reputations. Something isn't working.
Here is an interesting stat. So far this year we have been an ABOVE AVERAGE defensive rebounding team. We have pulled down 71.4% of available defensive rebounds while the national average is only 70.7%. Rebounding is important, but not nearly as important as other aspects of defense and we are horrible at them, which is why our defense is really bad overall despite being slightly above average in rebounding. Things work much better when it is the other way around which is the way things usually are under Mooney. Of course defense works best when you are good at everything.
Since we giving up so many points, that just shows we are giving up very easy shots and the other teams are not missing very often. Which our lack of coverage is visible to most. But we don't even try to get the offensive rebound on half of our shots which means we are one and done on half on more than half of our misses. Too many empty possessions.
Yeah, the raw numbers are meaningless given the difference in opportunities. We're ranked 323rd in offensive rebounding percentage.
We retreat worse than the French on most shots. It is easy to see, a shot goes up and every player runs the other way to get back on defense. Most of our offense rebounds either are coming in late game situations when we are down and have to crash the boards (which is all of the time) or due to long rebounds.
But I mean, it kinda is. Are you saying that you think we are battling for offensive rebounds as a habit? I strongly disagree if so. That would be even worse because it would mean we actually suck at rebounding. I don't know if we suck at it or not because we don't really try. I think that's fairly obvious to anyone who watches us play offense.
Eh, I think SF explained why those numbers alone are not really relevant. It would be like saying two hitters both have 80 RBIs and therefore are equally productive at driving in runs, even though one guy came up with men on base 0 times and hit 80 home runs, while the other guy came up with men on base 500 times and drove in 80 of them with sacrifice flies. The first guy obviously is the more productive hitter.
There are lies, damned lies and then statistics. Anyone think we put a lot of effort into getting offensive rebounds is not watching the games. BUT I do think it's better this year than previous years. An offensive rebound is as good as forcing a turnover or a steal.
I hate that quote, it is really unfortunate it is repeated often and taken to heart by many. It is just an excuse for people who are unable to evaluate statistics effectively to ignore them entirely. Statistics don't lie, not at all, not even a little bit. They tell an objective truth. Drawing erroneous and unsupported conclusions from statistics is where lying enters the equation.
I would argue about an offensive rebound being as good or better than a turnover, but I would need to use a lot of statistics.
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I love statistics they can be extremely valuable tool, regression analysis, standard deviations, etc. it's one of the few text books I still have on my book shelf. That being said they can also be used in very misleading ways. For instance a very simply example; any time you hear a company say they are the fastest growing blah, blah, in the industry it often means that their market share is so small any increase in growth means a huge increase percentage wise. (the statistic is true but very misleading) Or who provides the best cellular coverage? Nationally some of the carriers claim it's very close, reality it depends on your specific area. So yes statistics can 'lie', or if it makes you feel better people can use statistics to mislead.
This post was the most-read post on Spidernation.com in the past 5 seconds.
perfect, just put the 'in the past 5 seconds' in print so small it takes a magnifying glass and you have a future in advertising.
You just proved my point, they are shooting 7% and 9% better than us and still have 4 more OR
we could crash the boards all night and get a couple more. even turn half of those into baskets. presumably the theory is we'd also give up some transition baskets in doing so, so no net gain.
we're losing because we're letting teams score too easily and we aren't hitting shots at a high enough rate. and we're turning the ball over more than we ever have under Mooney. and we're missing foul shots. it's not because we don't get offensive rebounds.
good weekend everyone.
we're losing because we're letting teams score too easily and we aren't hitting shots at a high enough rate. and we're turning the ball over more than we ever have under Mooney. and we're missing foul shots. it's not because we don't get offensive rebounds.
good weekend everyone.
Why is it that we forsake offensive rebounding in order to rush back on defense to prevent fastbreak points, but most other teams don't do that -- and they still don't give up a ton of fastbreak points?
And also, it really doesn't matter if we get back on defense first anyway -- we are a terrible half-court defense and get torched when we do more often than not. So we might as well try to get offensive rebounds and score another 8-10 points a game that way.
And also, it really doesn't matter if we get back on defense first anyway -- we are a terrible half-court defense and get torched when we do more often than not. So we might as well try to get offensive rebounds and score another 8-10 points a game that way.
Well, for several years there was data that supported the notion that the “Flee and Retreat” methodology resulted in pretty good defense (fan2011 knows of what I speak).
That doesn’t matter much when your half court defense is abysmal though.
Eight, the answer is simple, we have a terrible terrible coach who runs a terrible system of basketball that wouldn't work at the PAL level.
I think bad defense is no surprise to Coach because he sees this every practice. I think I like to see big line up with PF and Golden sometimes with 2-3 . Not to use more bench play is mistake I think because players know each other in practice so new team sometimes is surprised by players that do not surprise in practice . I think to see more than short bench now is important later . straight man with less pinch to stay with shooters and live with this. Start basic learn basic no reason to be the fancy now
The 'flee and retreat' strategy is being used more and more by NBA and D1 teams. Offensive rebounding has decreased across D1 every year for the past 5 years, and is currently at its lowest point in at least the past two decades (I don't have data going back further than that so it is possible that offensive rebounding is at its lowest point ever.) The effect is also seen clearly in the NBA which is at its lowest offensive rebounding percentage ever this year, and has seen offensive rebounding numbers decrease every year since 2011. I would guess that the reason for this is that it is generally a better strategy to 'flee and retreat' than to battle for offensive boards in most cases. Either that or NBA and D1 coaches don't know what they are doing.
An interesting but ultimately meaningless stat: our offensive rebounding percentage is higher than 10 NBA teams so far this year.
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Is the % of shots that are threes increasing in the NBA over the last 20 years? If so I would expect that scoring off of each offensive rebound may have been decreasing as well.
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I'm guessing all 10 have slightly better shooting percentages than we do, however.
