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VCU Game Observations

97spiderfan

Spider's Club
Feb 2, 2005
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Wanted to post some of my player observations. But first a shout out to CM and the coaching staff. We controlled the game from start to finish, even though in the first half we couldn't get the offense going. We never let VCU do their havoc crap, we made them play half court and when you make VCU play half court, they are very beatable.

A couple observations:

1. Kendall: What more can you say about him. He does this seemingly every game against VCU, he just takes over. VCU cannot turn him over and they foul him all of the time because they can't turn him over. He is the kryptonite to Havoc. Best player on the court again.

2. Terry Allen: I didn't see one other post about Terry Allen. Dude dropped 15 and 7, let's give him some love. He was money the whole game. He grabbed some man rebounds.

3. Deion and Trey: Both played the type of game we need from them to be successful. Great defensive effort, all over the boards, and both hit a couple buckets and were active offensively. That is all we can ask of these 2. Trey in particular also did a great job with his "guard" responsibilities, 1 turnover, knocked down a big 3. I thought we would have to play SDJ and Kendall all game to avoid the VCU pressure, Trey stepped up.

4. SDJ and TJ: I thought these two were the keys to the game. They weren't. Both had off nights, SDJ partially due to foul trouble. However, both hit some absolutely huge buckets. SDJ hit the 3 when VCU went up 11 that and TJ came out after half time and hit 2 huge 3's to give us the lead.

5. ANO: Solid effort, nothing superlative but his two FT's when VCU cut it to 4 were huge.

On the VCU end. Aside from Graham and Weber, I wasn't impressed. They talk all day long about there big time recruits, the top 100 guys, yada, yada, yada. Burgess, Tillman, Larrier, and Lewis combined for 4 points. Sheesh, Deion had that many himself.
 
Like I said in the 'by the numbers' thread, if they can't turn you over they are mediocre. K0 is too small and quick, we match up well to VCU. Can't wait for the rematch, we are a lot better at home.

This post was edited on 1/31 8:58 PM by fan2011
 
Me either. If we are still playing close to how we've been playing at home lately, we will beat them again. They get very panicked when they are down even by a few and start throwing up bad three-pointers. And today, we took away their ability to drive and find open looks elsewhere. It was a complete effort on all fronts.

Now the test is whether we can keep things going. If we play at this level, we can run off a bunch of wins. The road ahead looks pretty kind, but we can't let up.
 
Some of my observations:

1. It looked like TJs first time playing in this rivalry in the first half. The game looked too fast for him at first but he hit 2 hugggeee threes in the second half.

2. TD did a great job as a guard today, no havoc there.

3. I would like to thank them for letting us wear our home whites

4. There wasn't as much energy in that building as normal.

5. I've killed DT this season but he did a great job today playing within himself, thought he did a great job keeping the ball moving on offense.

6. I'm going to be as glad to see graham graduate as their fans are to see K0 graduate.

7. Just want to make sure ulla knows some of us made it all the way downtown and back unscathed.
 
Here is my interpretation of the game

mentos-spider-commercial-o.gif
 
Good find, fan. Maybe find one of a tarantula (like Tara) taking out a ram.

Also, our highlights video is now up on website. Always great to hear Bob's and Greg's enthusiastic calls on our best plays.
 
Just a great, complete game. Coming back from 11 down was pleasantly surprising. Across town guys took a lot of quick shots but the defensive rebounding was the best I have seen in a long time.
 
Observation: In addition to scoring and rebounding very well, Terry Allen played a critical role in breaking the press.

Trey did a great job against the press too.
 
TA has been much more consistent in conference play. He was tremendous yesterday and I think he will continue to be from here on out. He just a matchup nightmare. He is being aggressive and calling for the ball in the post. RPI doesnt have an answer for TA in the post. We should exploit that advantage often in the rematch. I also think TJ could score in the post against them. Cox is strong, but short. Their freshmen bigs and lanky and can be pushed around in the paint. Kendal was great as he always is against RPI. We finally got a big road win and closed the game out. Time to keep up the intensity on the road and get on a roll. The A10 is wide open and no one is playing better basketball than the Spiders.
 
With TA, ANO and TJ playing well as bigs, it's creates a huge problem for other teams to guard.
 
Did anyone else see Weber do the schoolyard stare down to KO all the way back up the court after taking it to hole over him in the first half? The reason I mention it is that KO woke up after that on defense and more importantly on offense. He took Weber and Lewis to the wood shed after that.
 
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The team is starting to peak at the right time. I think the trend is obvious and only good things will come from it. Keep working hard toward a common goal...
 
This shows me that Coach Mooney has known what he s been doing the whole year. This wasnt a fluke the Dude Mooney knows what the hell is doing ! He s been very patient and it has paid off . Just hope he takes his BP meds because it sure the hell is a stressful job. Great job Chris !
 
RPI #14 in the country is 0-3 against Virginia schools and 0-1 against Richmond schools.
 
And I think they were undefeated against the state last year. Every 24 hours, the world turns over on someone who is sitting on top of it.
 
The RTD and the rest of the local media can go pound sand. More news to Weber's mangled knee than our win.
 
Throughout the game yesterday, it finally started to hit me that this is Kendall's senior season. I am gonna miss seeing him in a Spiders uniform after the season comes to a close.
 
Exactly right MO, between UVA losing and Weber injury, and the Norwegian curling team being snowed in, we didn't have a chance of getting a write up in the RTD.
 
I noticed that JOC didn't write up the article in the paper. Maybe he will for the game at the RC. Maybe they flip flop.
 
NBC 12 is the worst. The sports guy there did a long segment basically lamenting Weber's injury. It was like a eulogy. He even quoted some book or poem saying thanks for the memories. I thought he was going to shed a tear! I have never seen anything like it on local news. Then they spent about 20 seconds talking about the game. Pathetic.
 
Originally posted by Spider B:
NBC 12 is the worst. The sports guy there did a long segment basically lamenting Weber's injury. It was like a eulogy. He even quoted some book or poem saying thanks for the memories. I thought he was going to shed a tear! I have never seen anything like it on local news. Then they spent about 20 seconds talking about the game. Pathetic.
I watched the news and forgot we even played.
 
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The coverage and social media activity of the injury really has been over the top. Nobody died out there yesterday. Pretty sure Weber will recover and make couple hundred k per year in Europe, just like he was going to anyway.

Additionally, does anyone give 2 craps about the NCAA steals record? I can't name the gyy with the current record. It's steals, for crying out loud.
 
I was surprised to learn that Pepe Sanchez was second on the all-time steals list. We played against him for his entire career and I never heard that stat mentioned once.
 
Assists, steals, and blocks have been relative newcomers as far as being accounted for as a national basketball statistic. Think that started sometime in the 80's.
 
Eight, Pepe was at Temple 11/1996-3/2000. I didn't remember us playing them then.
 
The local tv sports guys root against the spiders. They really hate us!

As for Broad St. U, the tv sports guys they have a major crush!
 
They dont hate us, but most prefer to talk RPI because they have been winning. Want the local media to start covering us? Let's win every game between now and the rematch and sweep RPI this year. We have to start beating them on a regular basis and making NCAA Tournaments.
 
Lol. They don't hate us or care about us one way or the other because we have no fans!! VCU has 30,000 students we have 3,000. They have thousands of alumni that live in Richmond. We have a couple of hundred (exaggerating). It's ratings boys and girls, all ratings. You all know that. That's why Lexus advertises to UR fans and Jimmy John's advertises to RPI fans. Little Dig!! :)
 
Originally posted by Eight Legger:
I was surprised to learn that Pepe Sanchez was second on the all-time steals list. We played against him for his entire career and I never heard that stat mentioned once.
Well when your school is one big Ponzi scheme, appearances mean everything. They grab hold of anything that makes them look better to people that have bought into their big scam on Broad/Grace/Franklin/Cary St.
 
Originally posted by wr70beh:

Well when your school is one big Ponzi scheme, appearances mean everything. They grab hold of anything that makes them look better to people that have bought into their big scam on Broad/Grace/Franklin/Cary St.
Geez, quotes like this are ridiculous and do not make UR look good.
 
We may be peaking, Creepy, but I sure don't think it's the right time, that's already past. We have 9 loses, you can't undo those. The only way we make the NCAA is to win the A10 tournament. We needed to get the ball rolling many games ago.
 
Maybe, just maybe, coach Mooney, has come up with the right combination of players. The Great One, Dick Tarrant, called it chemistry.
 
I will argue that our VCU friends, could be in trouble. If they struggle the last month of season without BW, the committee will discount their record with him. Now I'm not saying they are going to miss the NCAAs, but if they go .500 or so down the stretch (I have to admit I don't have their schedule in front of me), their 12 game win streak won't mean squat.
 
It was a shame to see Weber get hurt. No one likes to see that - not even with our most hated rival. But I have a feeling VCU will be fine without him. He was a key piece on defense and a leader on the floor, but with the depth they have and the amount of players they play - it will just be the next man up. Not to say they will the same team - I don't think they will generate as many steals as before, but they can still play "Havoc" and still push the tempo.

In contrast to us - which if you look at the VCU game, it shows we are a 7 man rotation, so one injury to us - to anyone, could really hurt us. We have been lucky this far to miss the injury bug for the most part, but it shows the difference in how fragile we really are with our 7 man rotation. And you wonder - come A10 tourney time, where depending on our seed - we might have to play 3 straight days - how that will wear on us.

Where you look at VCU - they played 9 guys (10 minutes or more), and played 12 alltogether - so the loss will hurt some, but I think Weber is replaceable. A loss of Graham or Johnson or even Larrier might have been more damaging in the long run.
 
Seems to me that last year the committee would have held the CL injury against us had we performed well enough to receive any postseason consideration. Not sure if the same thing would happen to the Lambs with Weber going down. I think many see him as the "face" or "key cog" in Havoc, and if the Lambs sputter over the next few weeks without him, it may hurt their chances.

Graham is already somewhat slowed by an ankle injury, and if Lewis and/or Larrier were to go out injured, I think it would have a big negative impact on their seeding.
 
Originally posted by SpiderTrap:
. A loss of Graham or Johnson or even Larrier might have been more damaging in the long run.
Come on Trap. I will give you the loss of Graham being more damaging, but Weber was the epitome of what VCU tries to do. He is the 2 time reigning A-10 defensive playing of the year and I think the POY in the league probably would have come down between him and Graham. He would have been first team all A-10. No question.

He was the straw that stirred their drink. His loss is enormous to them. I don't expect them to fall apart but they lost their most irreplaceable player.
 
As evidenced by Saturday, they are an average half court team at best-on both ends of the court. No size inside, and there are shooting terribly.

This isn't like bringing in DQwan Lewis (who by the way has a thumb injury) for a few minutes to spell Weber. He is half the player on the press that Weber is.

I'm shocked 97 and I agree on something....Maybe congress can try that.
 
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