ADVERTISEMENT

VMI Game observations

97spiderfan

Spider's Club
Feb 2, 2005
14,168
11,188
113
Gonna bring this back, my player observations: We will start with the good.

Bigelow: Probably was the least heralded of our 3 transfers and well that was wrong. This guy is a stud. Big, tall, athletic, can run the floor, plays with confidence. He is going to be starting at some point, likely sooner than later this year.
Nelson: I've been holding my breath about him, knowing how important him being good was to our team. He delivered. Really smooth handle, can get himself to the bucket, quick. He is going to be a great player for us. Caveat: 2-8 from the FT is unacceptable particularly as a PG. Needs to clean that up.
Dji: Y'all, I've been high on Dji since he got here and he confirmed that last night. Has a nice stroke from 3 and with his size and handle, he can get himself inside and to the rim against anyone. I REALLY like a back court with Dji and Nelson in it together, like starting together.

They are what they thought they were:

Burton: His defense is still sketchy, please falling for the pump fake. But he is a monster on the class, bring his energy, shot wasn't falling last night but he is what we know he is an all A-10 caliber player.
Grace: Should Grace be starting? His 1 point, 4 rebound game says heck no. I do think he brings some stability to the court with all of these new guys and I see why Mooney is starting him, because Mooney can trust him to implement both our offense and defense.
Goose: Crowd favorite, but yeah he is what his 4 season body of work says he is. Really solid defensively, but we aren't getting much on offense. I think we say last night that offense is what is going to challenge this team. How long does he stay in the starting line up as well, if he can't contribute more on offense:
Roche: So, I see what Roche is not starting. He doesn't have A-10 athleticism. Beside that, his stroke is really frickin nice. He is gonna be a great zone buster for us and he plays scrappy, which you need from players like him.
Randolph: I'm not sure where he fits out there yet, he doesn't do one thing really great, but also doesn't do anything really poorly either. I like his versatility, he plays with confidence and looks like he has a bit of mean streak in him, which I like.

Needs some work:
Quinn: As excited as I was for what Bigelow showed, I was equally disappointed in Quinn. I can see why he was a stud in the Patriot League but my lord he is slow, not agile and not strong and I fear A-10 teams like VCU and Dayton are going to abuse him. I honestly thought Matz is his brief few minutes showed me more than Quinn. When I said Bigelow will be starting soon, it may not be Grace's place he is taking.

Overall: Nice opening season win. VMI looks terrible so I'm not going to get excited over that, but I will say last year's team despite having more talent than this year's would have let VMI hang around even more than this years version. Lots of rust and nerves in the first half. Defense looks really good, offense needs some work and in particular are reliance on the 3 ball needs to decrease. Way too much settlings for 3's last night. Also, FT's. Come on guys, they are free for a reason.

Additional prop: For Mooney for his first half technical. Those refs had lost control and I really liked how Mooney stepped up, got the tech, protected his young team who were obviously getting frustrated from their bad calls.
 
Best defensive team we have had in my 33 years of watching Spider Ball.
We are raw...offensively
This team will take Mooney's max skill to coach...so much versatility.
I bet we win a ton of games....ugly. Think UVA 54-49 type results.
With this kind of depth we should press nonstop.
If we figure out how to use Quinn, he could be special.
Grace and Goose are such glue guys....
Dji and Nelson give us super flexibility
Noyes fade away at end of game was a work of art
Bigelow gonna be a stud.
Burton needs to figure out how to mold "his" team into what he needs them to be. Last night was a good start imo
Roche is a healthy Nick Sherod....

Refs were bad, could have won that game by 50
 
Best defensive team we have had in my 33 years of watching Spider Ball.
We are raw...offensively
This team will take Mooney's max skill to coach...so much versatility.
I bet we win a ton of games....ugly. Think UVA 54-49 type results.
With this kind of depth we should press nonstop.
If we figure out how to use Quinn, he could be special.
Grace and Goose are such glue guys....
Dji and Nelson give us super flexibility
Noyes fade away at end of game was a work of art
Bigelow gonna be a stud.
Burton needs to figure out how to mold "his" team into what he needs them to be. Last night was a good start imo
Roche is a healthy Nick Sherod....

Refs were bad, could have won that game by 50
I didn't draw any general conclusions from the last night about our teams overall abilities. VMI, no offense, is hot garbage. They have 8 scholarship players, 5 of which are freshman. Yes we probably could have beat them by 50. We came out with a lot of rust/nerves in the first half, Northern Iowa will be a much better barometer on Friday.
 
I agree defensively, Fan 2. VMI isn't good, but you can see when a player can defend. we knew Goose and Dji were good perimeter defenders. I wanted to see Nelson and Bigelow out there. they're both very solid on that end. and I was pleased with Roche defensively too, though not at the level of those 4. I think we can be a substantially better defensive team than we've been.

we figured shooting would be an issue and they didn't surprise. I'm not concerned with Nelson from the line. form is fine. and Quinn shot 71% from the line last year so he'll be fine too. I'm more concerned with the shooting from 3. Burton didn't finish the year strong from out there and didn't look good last night. he's got to be our best shooter in the starting lineup.

Bigelow needs more than 19 minutes. Dji looked really quick. Randolph was a surprise and looked pretty good. I thought we'd tighten to 8 players with Crabtree out but still went with 9. certainly makes sense early in the year against a weaker opponent. will be interesting to see if Noyes gets a longer look at some point.
 
Best defensive team we have had in my 33 years of watching Spider Ball.
We are raw...offensively
This team will take Mooney's max skill to coach...so much versatility.
I bet we win a ton of games....ugly. Think UVA 54-49 type results.
With this kind of depth we should press nonstop.
If we figure out how to use Quinn, he could be special.
Grace and Goose are such glue guys....
Dji and Nelson give us super flexibility
Noyes fade away at end of game was a work of art
Bigelow gonna be a stud.
Burton needs to figure out how to mold "his" team into what he needs them to be. Last night was a good start imo
Roche is a healthy Nick Sherod....

Refs were bad, could have won that game by 50
Noyes reminds me of ex-Maryland, ex-Atlanta Hawk Kevin Huerter. So bouncy with a sweet mid-range jumper. He could be a perfect scorer to attack zones. He can move quickly and rise above the defender to shoot or pass.
 
Noyes reminds me of ex-Maryland, ex-Atlanta Hawk Kevin Huerter. So bouncy with a sweet mid-range jumper. He could be a perfect scorer to attack zones. He can move quickly and rise above the defender to shoot or pass.
I think we all would take a Huerter #2
 
I agree defensively, Fan 2. VMI isn't good, but you can see when a player can defend. we knew Goose and Dji were good perimeter defenders. I wanted to see Nelson and Bigelow out there. they're both very solid on that end. and I was pleased with Roche defensively too, though not at the level of those 4. I think we can be a substantially better defensive team than we've been.

we figured shooting would be an issue and they didn't surprise. I'm not concerned with Nelson from the line. form is fine. and Quinn shot 71% from the line last year so he'll be fine too. I'm more concerned with the shooting from 3. Burton didn't finish the year strong from out there and didn't look good last night. he's got to be our best shooter in the starting lineup.

Bigelow needs more than 19 minutes. Dji looked really quick. Randolph was a surprise and looked pretty good. I thought we'd tighten to 8 players with Crabtree out but still went with 9. certainly makes sense early in the year against a weaker opponent. will be interesting to see if Noyes gets a longer look at some point.
Was surprised that Noyes only got garbage minutes, since Mooney singled him out as a player who showed a lot of growth. He had a sweet little step back/runner in the paint. Also Walz looked good in his few minutes. For as much as Quinn's body was not giving me good vibes, Walz was much bigger and stronger for a freshman big man that I had anticipated. Obviously, we don't know if that translates on the court yet.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Section9.RowD
oh, we knew Walz had the big man body. it's just that Philly soured us on the potential!
I hope we get some more looks at him as a backup 5.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Section9.RowD
oh, we knew Walz had the big man body. it's just that Philly soured us on the potential!
I hope we get some more looks at him as a backup 5.
Walz was slow and lost out there. Tried to set some screens and never looked at the basket. He will be a decent senior.
 
Nice to see the young guards driving to the basket. They will need to finish stronger at the rim and make their free throws, but I loved seeing it.
 
  • Like
Reactions: SpiderDad75
Yep. "Get off my lawn" wasted no time to vent this year.
Black Ink Crew Laughing GIF by VH1

This took me out... 😂 😂
 
One thing I was wondering last night about our 3 transfers. Is this the biggest home crowd they’ve played in front of in their career? Maybe for Wofford not the case but (no offense) I’m not sure how many fans Lafayette and The Citadel are bringing in. I’m not sure what our attendance was last night but on tv it looked really good. Maybe some jitters from that?
 
Announced attendance was 6,049, though that's always high.

Wofford's arena only holds 3,400, Lafayette's holds 3,500, while Citadel's holds 6,000. But all of them rarely break 2,000 attendance and are often below 1,000.
 
One thing I was wondering last night about our 3 transfers. Is this the biggest home crowd they’ve played in front of in their career? Maybe for Wofford not the case but (no offense) I’m not sure how many fans Lafayette and The Citadel are bringing in. I’m not sure what our attendance was last night but on tv it looked really good. Maybe some jitters from that?
Lafayette for example played road games at Syracuse at Duke and at Rutgers last year. I'd think road games like that would be a lot tougher on a young player than having a decent sized home crowd for an experienced tranfer.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Section9.RowD
One thing I was wondering last night about our 3 transfers. Is this the biggest home crowd they’ve played in front of in their career? Maybe for Wofford not the case but (no offense) I’m not sure how many fans Lafayette and The Citadel are bringing in. I’m not sure what our attendance was last night but on tv it looked really good. Maybe some jitters from that?
It was a really good crowd - not sold out but biggest opening crowd I can remember and given a Monday night even better

“Count” Bigelow played at the Dean Dome as a freshman in Wofford’s 2nd victory in 5 years at UNC in 2019- sorry Dad for the memories - Isaiah scored 5 points per the box …


 
Thanks for that info SF, looks like it is the biggest home crowd they’ve ever played in front of them. May have nothing to do with anything but at the least that’s a pretty cool moment for each of them. Maybe it provides a little extra motivation…the better you play the more fans will pack in to watch you play and cheer you on.
 
Lafayette for example played road games at Syracuse at Duke and at Rutgers last year. I'd think road games like that would be a lot tougher on a young player than having a decent sized home crowd for an experienced tranfer.
I just remember my first time in front of a noticeably bigger home crowd. I’ve never had jitters and nerves like that before or since. Sometimes just have to get that first time out of the way
 
ADVERTISEMENT

Latest posts

ADVERTISEMENT