|
Post by Hoops Junkie on Nov 29, 2014 21:09:16 GMT -5
|
|
|
Post by uptempo on Nov 29, 2014 21:31:46 GMT -5
The team loses Pacher, Darling and Young and replaced them with Karena. This team was undersized last year, this year they are so undersized that it is a joke, even with Sledge this team was going to get killed on the boards game in and game out. Karena is a good addition, but we needed 3 or 4 Karena's to give this team a chance to have a good team. The team lost 6-9 Pacher, 6-8 Darling, and 6-6 Young. Donlon brought in 6-9 Karena, 6-8 Roderick Davis, 6-9 Parker Ernsthausen, and 6-9 Zach Lett. My point was that Wright State is undersized this year because of Donlon's recruiting. Lett and Ernsthausen are redshirting so they don't help this team this year. R. Davis is averaging less than one point per game and based upon Donlon's track record will not see much court time this year. Anyway WSUFan it looks like Donlon brought in one decent big man in Karena and he is replacing Pacher, Darling, Young, and Sledge. Next year may be special if the big men all deliver, but this year may be doomed.
|
|
|
Post by Big D on Nov 29, 2014 22:50:05 GMT -5
Anyway WSUFan it looks like Donlon brought in one decent big man in Karena and he is replacing Pacher, Darling, Young, and Sledge. Next year may be special if the big men all deliver, but this year may be doomed. Hey Sherlock. He didn't know he had to replace Sledge. He was expecting Sledge to give us 20+ minutes a game this year which is all we would have needed to be in a better situation than we were in most of last season. In regards to Donlon's recruiting, would you rather have signed JUCO All-American Joe Thomasson or a another post player? That is the decision Donlon had to make last year. We had commitments from 3 guards (Evans, Benzinger, and Mitchell) and 1 post player (Roderick Davis) going into the early signing period. With our 2 remaining scholarships, Donlon was planning on trying to sign a JUCO post player and another high school post player. Joe Thomasson decommitted from Oklahoma State and contacted Donlon saying he was interested in coming back home and playing for WSU. Donlon chose to sign Thomasson and bring in one JUCO post player. Would you have done differently? I think only an idiot turns away a JUCO All-American in the hopes that he will be able to sign a big man that will make a bigger impact. No one expected us to be without Sledge this year. If he was on this team, we would be 2-3 players deep at both the 4 and 5. We were planning on playing Sledge/Karena at Center and Yoho/S. Davis at PF. R. Davis was going to get mop up minutes at both positions. Donlon did his best job of recruiting last year since he has been here. Not only did he sign everyone mentioned above. He convinced 2 high school big men and a D1 transfer to pay their own way this year while they red-shirted.
|
|
|
Post by Raider Country on Nov 29, 2014 22:55:23 GMT -5
|
|
|
Post by uptempo on Nov 30, 2014 0:46:35 GMT -5
Anyway WSUFan it looks like Donlon brought in one decent big man in Karena and he is replacing Pacher, Darling, Young, and Sledge. Next year may be special if the big men all deliver, but this year may be doomed. Hey Sherlock. He didn't know he had to replace Sledge. He was expecting Sledge to give us 20+ minutes a game this year which is all we would have needed to be in a better situation than we were in most of last season. You guys just don't get it. We are in this position of being undersized because we don't have any height on this team to speak of. Even with Sledge this team would of been killed on the boards. And as I stated before next year may be special, but if we are writing off this year than Donlon should play everyone now, hope for the best for this year, and look forward to next year. Sure this team is very talented, but they are so small they are all going to be worn out before the League schedule begins. Donlon should play R. Davis those 20 minutes that would of gone to Sledge and let him raise his game. In conclusion, stop talking down to everyone, Donlon needs to recruit more bigs and have a balanced team, end of story.
|
|
|
Post by Big D on Nov 30, 2014 6:09:33 GMT -5
We are 4-3 and have been in a possition to win all 7 of our games this year the way Donlon has coached this team. Roderick is a young guy with potential but he is not ready to give us much production. If Donlon was giving him 20 min a game as you suggest, we would be 0-7 right now. You play the players that give you the best chance to win. PERIOD. You worry about developing players at practice. When they show that they can contribute you play them in games. Roderick isn't doing that yet.
|
|
|
Post by Dr J on Nov 30, 2014 14:16:10 GMT -5
I maybe wrong, I thought one of the big differences between the first two games and last game was shot selection. In the first two games we were too busy trying run the clock we forgot to look for the shot. Many times good opportunities were bypassed to run more clock. In the last game we started to take open shots in the second half. I think we need more movement of the players and not everyone standing and passing the ball. I still say on of the best defenses is getting an offensive rebound. But under BD, that will happen very rarely. We will lead the nation on having the most players in the defensive end before the shot hits the rim.b
|
|
|
Post by Raider Country on Nov 30, 2014 14:48:18 GMT -5
We have many fans that think that we should be a great team. You guys all need a reality check. We lost 5 senior starters from last year's team. Four of those five guys will be making a living playing professional basketball. Going into this season we were returning the least amount of returning scoring than any other team in the HL and that was when we were including Tavares Sledge and Kendall Giffin. We currently have THREE players with any significant D1 playing time under their belt: Reggie, Chrishawn, and JT. The rest of our returning players have no significant time on the court under their belt. We brought in 9 new players this year. None of them have any experience in our system. It is going to take this team some time to gel and even when they do, they are going to have some big weaknesses due to our lack of big man depth and inconsistent outside shooting. Given all of that, this team still shows a lot of promise. If you take the time to look at this team you will see that we are 4-3 and could easily be 7-0. We have competed in every game. We have won 2 OOC road games already this year. Last year we did not win a true OOC road game all season. Our only OOC win away from the Nutter Center was vs. Houston Baptist in a neutral site tournament. We have 6 more OOC games (3 at home and 3 on the road) to work out the kinks before HL play starts.
|
|
|
Post by Dr J on Nov 30, 2014 19:46:25 GMT -5
Not sure if many people think we have a great team. We do have fans that want to see the Raiders improve and play exciting roundball. We need to bring back fans. That means exciting and then winning basketball. I and others have expectations and hope for improvement. We had hopes for some depth inside but Sledge let us down. I was hoping Kendall would make the decision to not play aging. He is an intelligent young man but is pushing the limits of concussions without permanent damage. I am sure they could have found him a scholarship outside of basketball. He is a fine young mand and athlete.
|
|
|
Post by Raider3G on Nov 30, 2014 22:24:36 GMT -5
Ugh, we had no business losing to either of these bad teams the last 2 days. Oh well. Dude...we're a bad team I never like to comment right after a loss, but I broke my own rule on this. After looking at some board discussions after yesterday's win, I don't think this is a bad team. This is an inconsistent team that has the potential to be a very tough team to beat come HL tourney time. I thought that when the OOC came out, a good, realistic goal would be 9-5 or 8-6 (which would be a .500+ record against D-I competition, assuming we win both DII games). I think this is still realistic, but it's looking more like we'll go 6-6 against D-I. I think WSU can beat MU and GMU, and I think that with JT (though we lose Kendall) WSU can still beat Belmont or WCU (though winning both will be tough). Evansville will be tough and OSU (well, enough said). I think that we tend to associate "points in the paint" with having post players. That is not necessarily the case. Broadly, this team is not playing to a key advantage, which is its ability to take people off the dribble and finish at the rim or get fouled. Even with the win, WSU shot 28 three's (way too many). Thomasson, Hop, JT, and even Reggie are excellent at getting into the paint off the dribble against people that guard them. If Stephen is matched up against most typical PF, he should be able to drive against them whenever he wants due to his quickness. True, we lack a traditional post presence like CSU, UWGB, Oakland and UWM, but this team has no more or less post depth than the 2006-2007 team. That team only had Pleiman (6-8), Scottie Wilson (6-6) and Drew Burleson (6-6). Excellent players that had more experience, but it is possible that by the time this team hits Feb, Karena (6-10), S. Davis (6-7), and JT (6-5) can be a quality trio in the HL. Also, we'll know by the end of the year how bad these two neutral-site losses were. Trying to predict mid-major programs, especially with all the coaching changes and JUCO transfers, seems more unpredictable than the stock market. Look at Toledo's struggles....also, note that the same Detroit team that beat what is supposed to be the class of the MAC (Toledo) just got beat by BGSU. But one thing that does concern seem is the defense by Hopkins and Reggie. It is noticeably less effective than Dixon,N'Gai, and Will Graham, etc. We like to point out how we don't have a strong defensive post presence, but part of the issue is guys are getting to the rim too easily against our 1 or 2 guard than in the past. Thomasson by far is our best perimeter defender now with Griffin out. I predict that if Howell can play better D, we'll see more of him as the year progresses (probably cutting into Reggie's minutes some). The win against USC Upstate really was impressive considering the circumstances, and I don't think it was luck. If this team can go .500 or better the rest of the OOC, I think that is a very good indicator that WSU can be a top three team in the HL again
|
|
|
Post by raiders74 on Dec 1, 2014 12:12:00 GMT -5
I hardly ever post but enjoy reading, even though it sometimes reads like a comedy. ECB posted a very common sense look at the Raiders I totally agree with his assessment and hope he turns out to be correct. I think he will.
|
|