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Post by Jazzfan on Nov 24, 2011 10:43:38 GMT -5
I think part of the problem we are seeing so far this year is that Coach Donlon isn't making enough in game coaching adjustments. He seems to be getting stuck in last year's pattern of playing his upperclassmen way too many minutes and pulling his younger players too fast. I think he needs to treat everyone as a new player and start playing a more consistent rotation that allows us to stick with someone if they have a hot hand any given night. With the way we are struggling on offense at times, it would also be nice if we ran a few more set plays to get it going.
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Post by Tipp City Raider on Nov 24, 2011 10:49:30 GMT -5
I was thinking the same thing last night. I don't see why we are sticking with a guy like Mpondo who shows no potential to improve when we could be playing Darling, Pacher, or Sledge more minutes.
We also have a team with more depth this year. Why aren't we using it? Heck when the other team goes on a little run on us and we are struggling to score, why don't we bring in some of our bench players who aren't seeing the court much and go full court press on the other team. Try to force some TOs and get some easy baskets. It might spark the team to pick up their intensity and it would give some of our regulars a few minutes on the bench to catch their breath.
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Post by Class of '83 on Nov 24, 2011 22:28:11 GMT -5
With the way we are struggling on offense at times, it would also be nice if we ran a few more set plays to get it going. Brownell did that a lot his first year at WSU when everyone was new to the system. I think it would be a good idea to run a few more set plays every game just to get some players going. Some of our players are pretty streaky. Getting them off to a good start making an open shot or 2 wouldn't be a bad thing. I'd also like to see us taking the ball inside more. We get into a bad habit of standing around the 3 point line and just pass the ball back and forth until someone takes a 3. Last night we got NFU into foul trouble early in the second half. We should have been all over that and kept taking the ball into the paint and we could have gotten back into that game at the FT line. We need to capitalize on that.
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Post by keithfromxenia on Nov 25, 2011 11:42:13 GMT -5
83, to do that you need someone who can do something with it once it gets inside. with johan, no chance at all. i will say that wed night aj looked very good with the ball inside. very aggressive. he took a couple of outside shots but worked the low post a lot. that needs to continue. now the nf team did not have an inside guy of aj's size so we need to see him do it against better competition, but i look forward to seeing him develop into a good low post player.
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Post by Class of '83 on Nov 25, 2011 11:53:38 GMT -5
83, to do that you need someone who can do something with it once it gets inside. with johan, no chance at all. i will say that wed night aj looked very good with the ball inside. very aggressive. he took a couple of outside shots but worked the low post a lot. that needs to continue. now the nf team did not have an inside guy of aj's size so we need to see him do it against better competition, but i look forward to seeing him develop into a good low post player. AJ also had several really nice post up moves vs OSU so we know he can do it. Tavares just had a bad game getting lost defensively, but I think he also has a ton of potential as a post up player. Cole has also show the ability to post up. The nice thing about all 3 of these guys is that they are pretty good passers. If you feed them in the post and the defense colapses on them they are capable of finding an open shooter and kicking the ball out. If you never take the ball inside, defenses spread out more and try to take away your outside shot. I think that a really good motion offense has 3 things: good outside shooters, a decent inside post up game, and guards that can penetrate. When you have all 3 working it is very hard to defend against that.
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Post by Nutt House on Nov 25, 2011 12:09:43 GMT -5
I think that a really good motion offense has 3 things: good outside shooters, a decent inside post up game, and guards that can penetrate. When you have all 3 working it is very hard to defend against that. I agree, but unfortunately we aren't there yet. Reggie looks like he can be that penetrating PG we want, but he is still making freshman mistakes and is averaging more TOs than assists. Vest is another guard that has shown a good ability to penetrate and create for his teammates. Unfortunately we haven't seen him yet this year with his ankle sprain. As to shooters, we have been streaky all year. We really need more consistency to run our offense. In regards to post up players, we have a few young players that show potential: Cole, AJ, and Taveras, but they have all been inconsistent and usually in foul trouble. the other 2 guys we have used in the post: Mpondo and Armond are not post players. Mpondo just isn't a good D1 player. Armond isn't a post player. He is a 3 and we are wasting his skill set trying to play him in in the paint. Honestly, out of all of the coaching decisions I question, I do not get why we refuse to recruit and use more post players. Instead of utilizing Pritchett this year we are red-shirting him and forcing our team to play undersized with Armond at times. It just doesn't make sense. Next year is just going to be more of the same. We loose Mpondo after this year. Instead of bringing in a real post player we are adding 3 players 6-4 to 6-6. I don't understand why our coaches feel the need to handicap us by always being smaller than whoever we are playing.
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Post by Raider Grad on Nov 25, 2011 12:31:55 GMT -5
I think this team is a year away from being able to consistently compete with anyone on our schedule. I think we have strong freshmen and sophomore classes, but they both need more game experience and more time in the weight room to be the team we want them to be. I see the rest of this season as a rollercoaster of good and bad outings. I'm OK with that as long as we see continued progress with the team and coaching decisions.
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Post by Raider Pride on Nov 25, 2011 12:53:12 GMT -5
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Post by riceownz2 on Nov 25, 2011 13:12:05 GMT -5
The nice thing about all 3 of these guys is that they are pretty good passers. If you feed them in the post and the defense colapses on them they are capable of finding an open shooter and kicking the ball out. I don't know that I have seen this too often this year. Like most big men i have seen on any team, once the ball goes inside, a vast majority of the time they are not passing it out. Also in regards to this, i have seen on a few occasions the ball go inside and there be no one on that same side of the floor for the big man to pass it out. In the OSU and Jackson St. games i seen the ball go inside to AJ and/or Tavares and everyone moves to the backside. Its frustrating at times to watch this team make the Freshman mistakes. But it comes with the territory lol.
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Post by mcchick on Nov 25, 2011 22:55:40 GMT -5
Speaking of big men I was checking out Rival's top 150 for the class of 2013 and their are only 13 players listed 6'9 or bigger and only 2 of those were 6'10. There just aren't that many good bigs out there.
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Post by Raider Fanatic on Nov 25, 2011 23:28:02 GMT -5
Speaking of big men I was checking out Rival's top 150 for the class of 2013 and their are only 13 players listed 6'9 or bigger and only 2 of those were 6'10. There just aren't that many good bigs out there. There are always going to be more good guards than big men. That being said, there are always going to be project post players available like Pacher and Sledge that mid-majors will sign and develop into good post players. The finished product big men sign with BCS schools out of high school. Guys like Pacher and Sledge, who need to add strength and fine tune their game may take a year or 2 to mature, but they are still a very good option. We should have 4 true big men on our roster at all times at a minimum. We seldomly have more than 2.
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Post by keithfromxenia on Nov 26, 2011 11:00:43 GMT -5
nutt, i just do not think alex is ready to play at this level yet. in the past few years we have had to play some guys who should have been redshirted (evans and vest come to mind) due to a lack of players. hopefully we will benefit from this rs when alex is a 4th year junior and 5th year senior by his improved play.
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Post by riceownz2 on Dec 2, 2011 9:29:51 GMT -5
This has been on my mind for a while now. Do we like how BD takes the kids out right after they make a mistake?
My feel its good sometimes but not as often as BD does it. I think it makes the kids play tight. You play afraid of making a mistake and not playing to your potential and athletic ability. I know that most of the time he is taking kids out for the lack of defensive responsibility, but I feel its hurting the offense. Where is the throwing it down with authority? I thought during our Italy trip, AJ was dunking all over people.
This is just my opinion. Wanted to know if anyone else felt this way or if I'm just crazy lol.
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Post by Willie on Dec 3, 2011 13:14:24 GMT -5
I like the adjustments Donlon made for the CSU game. I'm looking forward to seeing what he has up his sleeve for today's game.
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Post by Willie on Dec 3, 2011 13:17:56 GMT -5
This has been on my mind for a while now. Do we like how BD takes the kids out right after they make a mistake? My feel its good sometimes but not as often as BD does it. I think it makes the kids play tight. You play afraid of making a mistake and not playing to your potential and athletic ability. I know that most of the time he is taking kids out for the lack of defensive responsibility, but I feel its hurting the offense. Where is the throwing it down with authority? I thought during our Italy trip, AJ was dunking all over people. This is just my opinion. Wanted to know if anyone else felt this way or if I'm just crazy lol. I haven't noticed him taking out players after a mistake. He almost always takes a player out after they pick up a foul and we have been doing that since Brownell was here. I don't know where you got that AJ was dunking all over everyone in Italy. I think he had one dunk there.
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