St. Joseph's 77 Richmond 73

[mojo-spider]

very tough loss for the Spiders...felt like except for the crucial four minute dry spell late we gave them our best shot and they still would not lose...great ball game and good entertainment despite the loss

Bembry and Miles got almost exactly what they were averaging, but where did the other three point shooters come from?...looking at the stat sheet and listening to Coach Mooney the inability of the Spiders to stop the Hawk threes was the difference maker...

Spiders did a great job on Bembry until crunch time when he showed up big time, despite keeping UR in the game with the three missed FTs...he didn't miss at the end and scored the Hawks last five points...just what you would expect out of a potential A-10 POY...

gallant effort by injured ShawnDre', Terry, TJ and Khwan...but against the best teams in the A-10 we need more stops and some scoring help off from the others to win...

this loss hurts a bunch, but we probably weren't going undefeated in the conference in the Robins Center...we just need to win an extra game on the road to compensate...if we get the same performance at Rhode Island Tuesday we'll have a good start on the comeback.

Go Spiders!

 

[SpiderK]

Is Paul Friendshuh just unplayable?? How could he be worse than DT and MW on defense? Pistol should have played a few minutes too.

 

[sdspider]

Is Paul Friendshuh just unplayable?? How could he be worse than DT and MW on defense? Pistol should have played a few minutes too.

Mooney pregame said something to the effect those guys need to play more and he should have played them more earlier in the year. It must come down to trust, hopefully not talent

 

[fatherspider]

Mooney pregame said something to the effect those guys need to play more and he should have played them more earlier in the year. It must come down to trust, hopefully not talent

He said that? Then why didn't he do it? Omg!! He is going at this on a whim and then second guessing himself. Glad we have such a confident leader. Not!!

 

[wr70beh]

he trusts Fore and Wood, but not Pistokache. Friendshuh probably just needs more seasoning. His lineup as it is composed right now means more players gassed at the end of a close game, and if someone's injured someone's going to have to play that hasn't played much. What if SDJ couldn't play today? Would he have played Pistokache more? Maybe.

 

[Not-A-Homer]

He said that? Then why didn't he do it? Omg!! He is going at this on a whim and then second guessing himself. Glad we have such a confident leader. Not!!

This is not new. Mooney has shown that he has a VERY low tolerance for risk. He tightens up, becomes ultra conservative, and plays not to lose when the stakes are highest. It appears to me that his personnel decisions spring from the same platform.

The oxymoron is that the ultraconservative approach often backfires in a business where smart controlled risks can pay great dividends.

 

[SpiderGuy]

He said that? Then why didn't he do it? Omg!! He is going at this on a whim and then second guessing himself. Glad we have such a confident leader. Not!!

I remember earlier in the year when he made some silly reference to better rebounding this year. These things are just lines for the press...nothing more.

 

[SpiderGuy]

This is not new. Mooney has shown that he has a VERY low tolerance for risk. He tightens up, becomes ultra conservative, and plays not to lose when the stakes are highest. It appears to me that his personnel decisions spring from the same platform.

The oxymoron is that the ultraconservative approach often backfires in a business where smart controlled risks can pay great dividends.

Bingo but too logical.

 

[Eight Legger]

My main objection today was that in the most critical part of the game, at the end when we were trailing, we basically had our starting lineup out there...which is not even close to our best scoring lineup. I suppose it is somewhat ironic that it was Deion who made that big three to make it 70-67, so maybe my point is not appropriate here, but just in general I wish we'd put our best offensive five out there at crunch time. At this point, those five are SDJ, Fore, Wood, TJ and TA.

 

[SpiderK]

Eight Legger , I know exactly what you mean. That shot DT threw up had a 9% chance of going in based on his career performance. Glad he made it, but that was a terrible position to be in. Neither he or TD were being guarded the last few minutes.

 

[Marley13]

That shot was nothing but luck. I cringed when he took it but screamed when it went in.

 

[Spideroldie]

I had an earlier post that happened to be within that thread that got deleted. The short version was that I thought the team played hard, SDJ was an absolute warrior to go out and play on what had to be a painful ankle, Khwan Fore played a great game (and I especially liked the 3 FTs in a row, when he was fouled shooting).

It was not popular for me to say in that thread that I felt the coaching staff did a masterful job of keeping Terry in the game, even after his two early fouls. The trust they showed in Terry kept us in the game and gave us a chance to pull this one out. We also had the exact match-up we wanted, at the end, when Bembry took his 2-point shot to break the tie, with roughly 30 seconds to go. Unfortunately, good defense by DT was not enough to prevent the great shot from going down. I also liked our offensive-defensive sub pattern, and I really liked keeping the bench really short, in this game, since I believe that gave us the best chance to win. Getting freshmen playing time is well and good, but not in a game like this one. I hope they will be patient, and understand that they will get their chances. Thumbs up to the coaches for keeping us in this one as long as they did, against a really good team.
Great effort by the players and great job of keeping us in this one by the coaches!

 

[Marley13]

Why do so many people think that DT is a great defender? Sure he had 4 blocks but only seven coming into this game and most of those were against totally inferior teams. Gotta play some guys that can score.

 

[Ulla1]

Eight Legger , I know exactly what you mean. That shot DT threw up had a 9% chance of going in based on his career performance. Glad he made it, but that was a terrible position to be in. Neither he or TD were being guarded the last few minutes.

K, DT has been practicing that shot; at practice on Friday he made a high percentage of similar shots. He has been working hard to improve. OSC

 

[SpiderK]

K, DT has been practicing that shot; at practice on Friday he made a high percentage of similar shots. He has been working hard to improve. OSC

Ulla, I have no doubt DT works on that shot all the time, however he goes 1 for 11 in a game. I wish he and TD would work on going to the basket for a closer shot and for offense and defensive rebounds. DT missed another dunk last night for crying out loud. Nobody wants these two guys to contribute more than I do, but 4 years is a long time to be disappointed.

 

[URSpider95]

I was at the game and honestly.... I don't think the Spiders played poorly. St. Joe's shot the lights out. When a team shoots 50% from the three-point line, it's tough to win.

The only things I would have done differently from a coaching perspective is (1) taken a timeout or two during St. Joe's runs (2) gone directly at Bembry when he had 3 fouls and 8 minutes to go with whomever he was guarding (3) contesting the three-point line.... even if this meant bringing in a fresh pair of legs..... perhaps even trying a 3/4 court press to get St. Joe's off balance.

 

[Eight Legger]

I would be interested to watch the game again and see if it was our over-defense of Bembry that left so many of their guys open for threes. It was great that we basically shut him down again until the end of the game, but their other guys were not missing. I remember a decent number of those shots being pretty uncontested, but I don't know if that had anything to do with our focus on Bembry or not.

 

[sdspider]

I would be interested to watch the game again and see if it was our over-defense of Bembry that left so many of their guys open for threes. It was great that we basically shut him down again until the end of the game, but their other guys were not missing. I remember a decent number of those shots being pretty uncontested, but I don't know if that had anything to do with our focus on Bembry or not.

Yes pick your poison they made us pay. Agree that the Hawks shot the lights out from three, it was the difference in the game imo

 

[SpiderRick]

I had an earlier post that happened to be within that thread that got deleted. The short version was that I thought the team played hard, SDJ was an absolute warrior to go out and play on what had to be a painful ankle, Khwan Fore played a great game (and I especially liked the 3 FTs in a row, when he was fouled shooting).

It was not popular for me to say in that thread that I felt the coaching staff did a masterful job of keeping Terry in the game, even after his two early fouls. The trust they showed in Terry kept us in the game and gave us a chance to pull this one out. We also had the exact match-up we wanted, at the end, when Bembry took his 2-point shot to break the tie, with roughly 30 seconds to go. Unfortunately, good defense by DT was not enough to prevent the great shot from going down. I also liked our offensive-defensive sub pattern, and I really liked keeping the bench really short, in this game, since I believe that gave us the best chance to win. Getting freshmen playing time is well and good, but not in a game like this one. I hope they will be patient, and understand that they will get their chances. Thumbs up to the coaches for keeping us in this one as long as they did, against a really good team.
Great effort by the players and great job of keeping us in this one by the coaches!

If you "liked our offensive-defensive sub pattern", then how do you justify Taylor or Davis being in for the final shot?

 

[3genspider]

Watching replay on dvr. Key possesion with 11 minutes to play ur up by 5 and shawndre misses a contested layup and st Joe responds with a 3 pointer. Shawndre had 20 pts and Terry 19 pts at that time. St Joe virtually shut those two down for remainder of game. Those two must score as the game winds down for us to be successful otherwise we don't have enough weapons on the floor to keep up.

 

[3genspider]

Coach-- From 10 minute Mark to 2 minute Mark we missed 6 MAKEABLE shots inside the paint and only drew 1 foul, also missed several wide open 3s. TJ looked absolutely spent during that time and shawndre/TA were scoreless for 8 minutes. I think the guys may need a breather here and there.
By the way, the last play designed for tj resulted Terry being matched up with 6'2" guard with the ball in his hand, please tell Terry to adlib and take the ball to the hoop in that scenario.

 

[Eight Legger]

if Deion hadn't made that last-minute three, all of our points would have been scored by just 4 guys. Not sure I remember another game like that, and not sure if that's a good or bad thing in general. All four of them played very well on offense, so it was good from that perspective, but I do think fatigue played a role in them going cold down the stretch, so in that way it's a bad thing. Could have used a few other scoring options to take the load off those guys a bit.

Also, Fore must start, from this point forward (even though we all know that he won't).

 

[urfan1]

Eight, I think the result answers your question --- some of our players need to look in the mirror

 

[SpiderRick]

It won't happen, because he is blindly loyal to his seniors.

 

[SpiderK]

It won't happen, because he is blindly loyal to his seniors.

I don't mind him starting the seniors, just get them out as soon as the game dictates the change. Which is when the opponent is not guarding the 2 and 3 position.

 

[Stork3]

Coach Mooney had better start trusting Jesse. Shawndre cannot play 37 minutes against VCU in two weeks - especially if his ankle isn't 100%. He played 37 minutes against St. Joe's, days after spraining the ankle at Texas Tech. Given the fact that Khwan is improving and can play the 1 or the 2, we should be getting the starters some rest, IMHO.

TJ was sucking wind at the 7:54 point of the 2nd period (a media timeout). However, this is better than last year, when he played around 22 minutes in games that we lost by four points. He needs a little rest - but Coach Mooney left him in as an offensive weapon for 36 minutes - which is probably why we were tied with possession of the ball at 19.7 seconds left. It appears that our friend Chris Mooney is actually starting to learn how to adjust.

 

[fatherspider]

Watching replay on dvr. Key possesion with 11 minutes to play ur up by 5 and shawndre misses a contested layup and st Joe responds with a 3 pointer. Shawndre had 20 pts and Terry 19 pts at that time. St Joe virtually shut those two down for remainder of game. Those two must score as the game winds down for us to be successful otherwise we don't have enough weapons on the floor to keep up.

Sdj forced that break by going 1 against 3 when he had two spiders w him on the wings. Huge turning point in the game.

 

[Not-A-Homer]

That shot was nothing but luck. I cringed when he took it but screamed when it went in.

That was a No, No, No, good shot