Game 16: Fort Wayne

[5string]

Of course, in true WSU fashion, no lead is safe. Down to 97-84 with 2:20 to go.

[jumbojimbo]

On the plus side, the team is learning how not to finish a game with a big lead.

I was going to say we did some good things in the game but here we are with 101 points and the game isn't over. Ugh, two straight turnovers.

[5string]

WTF.

[wsuairstrike]

Up 10 with a minute left. Andrew and Calvin are collapsing.

[5string]

Looks like we will be able to slip out with a win. Terrible last few minutes, though.

[wsuairstrike]

The players from the UWM collapse were having some flashbacks. Pretty horrible decisions to end the game. Coaches job to calm them down and tell them to not speed it up. Lucky to escape that.

[Raider3G]

Congrats to the team and staff on a great road win. PFW had a high NET but compared to WSU a weak non conference schedule. Great to get back above .500. Good to Alex string together strong back to back games.

[raiderrunt]

Last six minutes of the game were flat out ugly, but glad to get a league road win. Raiders shot 66.1 percent and only won by eight Let's keep winning.

[OG Raiderfan]

[hokieraider]

Good win by the Raiders. Played well for 35 minutes, then drove us all crazy the last 5. Again with the 50+ given up in 2nd half, but at least they scored 55 to go with the 58 they gave up. For a few minutes, it seemed like an NBA game (dunks, 3s, and no D). No one seemed to be able to defend Jackson, and every time he drove, the whistle blew. Reminded me of Sykes from GB a few years back in that he always got the refs to make the call and send him to the line, whether deserved or not. Fortunately for us Jackson missed quite a few of those free throws (unlike Sykes). Nagy indicated in the postgame that WSU had recruited Jackson hard and he thought we were going to land him.

I still don't understand those on this board who want to sit Alex and Andrew to play the freshmen. Drey Carter is a future star and needs to be playing, but I just haven't seen it yet with the other two. Logan has been hurt, so I'll give him the benefit of the doubt. KK is a turnover machine who puts up bad shots. He also seems too often to dribble or pass into a trap. Granted, he brings lots of energy, but until he learns to harness it, he shouldn't be playing more than 5-7 minutes. Alex's defense was better today and against CSU, and his offense has been stellar lately. What Andrew sometimes lacks on defense, he makes up for with his shooting (and he doesn't ever take bad shots, which sometimes results in him not shooting enough).

[wsuwillie]

I'm not sure I remember watching a WSU team that is as sloppy with ball as this one.

[Dr J]

Jan 7, 2024 9:19:50 GMT -5 wsuwillie said:

I'm not sure I remember watching a WSU team that is as sloppy with ball as this one.

They don’t understand positioning and moving without the ball against a hard press. They need to learn how to press on defense so they can better understand offensive strategies against the press. How many times have you seen a player being double teamed and others just watching. Someone needs to move to area the ball can be passed to them. Most of the turnovers were because, tried to pass as soon as they caught the ball, without really looking, or trying to force crosscourt pass.

[Big D]

Jan 6, 2024 22:12:27 GMT -5 hokieraider said:

Istill don't understand those on this board who want to sit Alex and Andrew to play the freshmen. Drey Carter is a future star and needs to be playing, but I just haven't seen it yet with the other two. Logan has been hurt, so I'll give him the benefit of the doubt. KK is a turnover machine who puts up bad shots. He also seems too often to dribble or pass into a trap. Granted, he brings lots of energy, but until he learns to harness it, he shouldn't be playing more than 5-7 minutes. Alex's defense was better today and against CSU, and his offense has been stellar lately. What Andrew sometimes lacks on defense, he makes up for with his shooting (and he doesn't ever take bad shots, which sometimes results in him not shooting enough).

You are basing that opinion on a few games, not the entire season or over a 3-4 year period. Alex and Andrew are not good defenders. They just aren’t and if you think they are you should probably just bow out of this debate because statistically we are one of the worst defensive teams in the entire country and they are our worst defenders on this team by far. They have been doing better offensively the last 2 games but their contribution on that end of the court has been inconsistent as hell all year long and like I said in my first sentence all over the place for the last 3-4 years. You should be able to expect consistency from upperclassmen and we get very little from them. I think the main reason for that is something you can see in our underclassmen this year. Nagy rarely used his bench in the past and when he did he mainly plays upperclassmen. Underclassmen know they are going to get limited minutes and when they do see the court, Nagy has a very very short lease for them to make mistakes. KK is playing this year because we don’t have anyone else that can play PG among our upperclassmen. Otherwise he would be redshirting like the rest of the freshmen. He doesn’t get many minutes and he is playing scared because he does know he will get pulled the first time he makes a mistake and may or may not see the court again each game. That is no way to develop a player. It is part of the problem with some of our upperclassmen . They didn’t get the PT they should have earlier in their careers to be further developed as a player in Nagy’s system.

We are currently playing .500 basketball and that is entirely because our defense is atrocious. We have enough games under our belt to know that this is the year we are going to have. Every game is going to be a shootout. Based on the way things have gone so far this year, it’s safe to predict we are going to loose as many as we win. It has been a complete waste of what could’ve been a special season if our staff figured out a way to better utilize the roster they have.

[hokieraider]

Big D, no one is arguing that they are good defenders. The argument is what is our best path to winning. I hate the answer, and Coach Nagy probably hates it more, but the only path to winning is to play the shooters and try to win by a score of something like 93-87. If we had a couple of good defenders, we could maybe hide the liabilities. But we don't, and we also tend to switch on defense, so the weakest defenders are going to get repeatedly exposed. However, putting in the other 2 freshman for significant portions of the game doesn't solve the defense woes, but it does mean we won't be able to just outscore them. The +/- stats back this up. We will continue to have our best chance to win with the current starting lineup, with Drey and Andrew getting the most minutes off the bench. Again, its extremely frustrating to watch, and we're all dreading that at any moment we'll see the repeat of the MKE game a couple years ago. But this style of play is our only path to winning, so all we can do is hope that when the buzzer sounds, we were the team that got to 90 (or 100 in the FW game). Screaming at the TV "Can we just get a stop here??" clearly does not work.

For the future, lets hope the staff rethinks their strategy and recruits some players who can defend (or quick/athletic enough they can learn), and/or looks at transfers. For this year, we are what we are now -- an efficient scoring machine that can't defend, and can only win if our scoring continues throughout entire game. If we go cold for 4-5 minutes, or start turning the ball over, we're usually going to lose. In the HL, that approach will win more games than it loses, but it won't come close to competing for the top of the league.

[vikingdog]

Jan 10, 2024 11:45:57 GMT -5 hokieraider said:

Big D, no one is arguing that they are good defenders. The argument is what is our best path to winning. I hate the answer, and Coach Nagy probably hates it more, but the only path to winning is to play the shooters and try to win by a score of something like 93-87. If we had a couple of good defenders, we could maybe hide the liabilities. But we don't, and we also tend to switch on defense, so the weakest defenders are going to get repeatedly exposed. However, putting in the other 2 freshman for significant portions of the game doesn't solve the defense woes, but it does mean we won't be able to just outscore them. The +/- stats back this up. We will continue to have our best chance to win with the current starting lineup, with Drey and Andrew getting the most minutes off the bench. Again, its extremely frustrating to watch, and we're all dreading that at any moment we'll see the repeat of the MKE game a couple years ago. But this style of play is our only path to winning, so all we can do is hope that when the buzzer sounds, we were the team that got to 90 (or 100 in the FW game). Screaming at the TV "Can we just get a stop here??" clearly does not work.

For the future, lets hope the staff rethinks their strategy and recruits some players who can defend (or quick/athletic enough they can learn), and/or looks at transfers. For this year, we are what we are now -- an efficient scoring machine that can't defend, and can only win if our scoring continues throughout entire game. If we go cold for 4-5 minutes, or start turning the ball over, we're usually going to lose. In the HL, that approach will win more games than it loses, but it won't come close to competing for the top of the league.

Do you really not think we’re going to compete for tops in the league?